Explanations of interindividual – intergroup discontinuity: A review of the evidence

Abstract

The authors review and evaluate various explanations for the tendency of intergroup relations to be more competitive, or less cooperative, than interindividual relations (the discontinuity effect). They distinguish between two general perspectives, each comprising a set of explanations for the discontinuity effect. The fear and greed perspective assumes that intergroup relations are characterised by greater fear and greed than are interindividual relations. The group decision-making perspective assumes a crucial role for group discussion in facilitating rational comprehension of mixed-motive situations. In general, explanations from the fear and greed perspective were found to be more consistent with the empirical record than explanations from the group decision-making perspective. The authors propose that a complete understanding of the discontinuity effect is yet to be achieved.

Keywords :

• Discontinuity effect
• Intergroup conflict
• Intergroup relations
• Interindividual-intergroup discontinuity
• Prisoner's dilemma game

Acknowledgments

Work on this article was supported by National Institute of Health Grant NH 53258 to Chester A. Insko.

Notes

¹Insko et al. (1998b) also discussed the more controversial possibility that differential distrust of groups and individuals is a product of natural selection at the group level (Wilson & Sober, 1994). Insko et al. pointed out that “Two extremes of between-group orientation are militaristic hostility on the one hand and pacifistic hostility on the other” (p. 116). For reasons that are left to the interested reader, Insko et al. proposed that neither of these orientations would survive in the long run. Groups that are more likely to survive, they speculated, adopt the middle ground between militarism and pacifism “that involves wariness toward and distrust of other groups” (p. 117).

²The TOSCA requires participants to consider 15 situations they might encounter in day-to-day life and to imagine themselves in those situations (e.g., “You make a mistake at work and find out that a co-worker is blamed for the error”). For each situation, participants rate the likelihood of having a variety of reactions (1 = not likely, 5 = very likely), including reactions that are considered to be indicative of guilt proneness (e.g., “You would feel unhappy and eager to correct the situation”).

³The DCQ presents participants with 30 different scenarios. For each scenario, participants rate how bad they would feel if they were to enact it (1 = feel kinda good, 5 = feel very bad). Representative guilt scenarios depict harm to others (e.g., “Allowing someone else to be blamed for something that you have done”) and trust violations (e.g., “Inadvertently revealing something about a person that he/she told you confidentially”). Higher scores (i.e., more anticipated negative affect) in response to the guilt scenarios are considered to be indicative of greater guilt proneness. Despite the different measurement approaches adopted by the DCQ and TOSCA, unpublished data from 236 participants revealed that guilt scores derived from these scales were highly correlated, r = .63.

⁴The distinction between, on the one hand, norms of fairness and equality and, on the other hand, the ingroup-favouring norm, maps directly onto the distinction between individual and group morality as drawn by Niebuhr (1941). “The group” wrote Niebuhr, “is more arrogant, hypocritical, self-centered, and more ruthless in the pursuit of its ends than the individual. An inevitable moral tension between individual and group morality is therefore created” (p. 222).

⁵There are two reasons why the fear and greed perspective makes this prediction. First, because there is greater distrust in intergroup than in interindividual interactions, the communication of cooperative intent will be less credible for groups than for individuals. Second, even when communication of cooperative intent is perceived as credible, groups are more likely than individuals to exploit a cooperative opponent, and this too should contribute to the greater competitiveness, or lesser cooperativeness, in intergroup than interindividual interactions. This is not meant to say that groups do not benefit from “talking about things”, just that they benefit less than individuals.

⁶Krueger (2007) recently proposed an explanation for the discontinuity effect in terms of differential projection (i.e., a pattern of strong social projection to members of the own group and relatively weak projection to members of other groups). This explanation also emphasises rational comprehension but does not assume a role for group discussion and is explicitly nonmotivational. Regrettably, Krueger confounded the question of whether intergroup relations are more competitive than interindividual relations (i.e., the discontinuity effect) with the question whether intergroup conflict promotes intragroup cooperation (Baron, 2001; Bornstein & Ben-Yossef, 1994). One approach to investigating the latter question has been to contrast the Intergroup Prisoner's Dilemma (IPD) team game (Rapoport & Bornstein, 1987) with a structurally identical n-person PDG. Bornstein and Ben-Yossef recognised that by contrasting the IPD, which incorporates intergroup conflict, with a structurally equivalent n-person PDG, which does not incorporate intergroup conflict, one could examine whether the presence versus absence of an intergroup conflict influences intragroup cooperation. They found that intragroup cooperation was markedly higher in the IPD than in the n-person PDG. This basic finding and Krueger's postulated explanation in terms of differential projection are interesting and important. Neither directly concerns us here, however, and we therefore leave the details to the interested reader.