The Minimal Group Paradigm

Tajfel and Turner (1986) sought to examine the minimal conditions in which favoritism for the ingroup (and in conjunction with this discrimination towards the outgroup) would occur. They used a now common methodology to social psychology, which begins with random assignment to one of two groups. The participants then assign awards via anonymous booklets to other anonymous subject pairs (e.g., on member from each group). The booklets are designed for minimal coaching or interaction and the response formats does not force specific actions or choices based on group membership (Tajfel & Turner, 1986).

In this experiment, participants have had no interaction between their group and the other group. The groups have no other links (whether social, economic, or otherwise) and thus the only link between the participant’s group and the other group is purely a cognitive designation within the participant’s own mind (Tajfel & Turner, 1986). The findings of this study, and many others like it, have found that the trivial classification of being in one group or another is enough to alter a participant’s responses to benefit the ingroup versus the outgroup (Tajfel & Turner, 1986). Further results showed that “maximum difference” (i.e., making sure that the ingroup and the outgroup experiences the greatest difference between rewards) is more important than simply ensuring economic gain for ingroup members (Tajfel & Turner, 1986).

The minimal group paradigm gives valuable insight into discriminatory actions taken by one group against another. The paradigm shows that simply being classified as part of a group forces us to act differently towards the ingroup versus the outgroup. This has certain implications regarding other sources of intergroup conflict in the present, past and future. For example, according to Fiske, Gilbert, and Lindzey (2010), social status as a source of intergroup conflict differs in the perceived legitimacy of the status differences as well as the distance between the groups. If simply being identified as part of a group is enough to cause discrimination, then perhaps a status-based categorization is a real-world example of this in action, as often members of higher status classes do not interact with lower status individuals. When it comes to other sources of intergroup conflict, such as resource scarcity, history, etc., the minimal group paradigm may complement the understanding of these sources of conflict. For example, according to the resource scarcity idea, groups wage war and engage in conflict when resources become scarce to determine who will have primary access for these resources (Fiske, 2014). Under this idea, simply having control over the resources enough to survive would mean the conflict ends. However, when competing for scarce resources, groups often engage in conflict beyond what is necessary. The minimal group paradigm, and its evidence that groups engage in maximum difference allocation, shows complementary evidence to the resource conflict, as groups engaging in this type of conflict want there to be maximum distance between the ingroup resource allocation and the outgroup resource allocation (Fiske, 2014; Tajfel & Turner, 1986).

Another example of the minimal group paradigm can eb found in history. The Nazi party discriminated against anyone who wasn’t a “true German”. Often times, German citizens had no basis for this classification and the difference between “Germans” and “Non-Germans” was simply a cognitive classification. The minimal group paradigm can help explain why there was any sort of discrimination in the first place. The creation of the “True German” and “Non-German” classification was enough to create the conflict between the groups and progress an onslaught of discriminatory practices. This is a prime example of how the minimal group paradigm can affect intergroup relations in times of war, scarce resources, and involving history between groups.

Now that he minimal group paradigm is detailed above, what does this mean for the inevitability of intergroup conflict? Well, according to Fiske, Gilbert, & Lindzey (2010), human beings are social animals, and the social classification of and interaction between human populations is an inevitable evolutionary result. Applying the minimal group paradigm to theories on group conflict, one could easily make the logical conclusion that since simply classifying members as being in different groups is enough to cause conflict, then intergroup conflict is an inevitable destination. According to Tafel and Turner (1986), even when group differences were purely imaginary (that is cognitive in origin, with no actual evidence of difference) the conflict still occurred. For Fiske (2014), the only way to overcome group-oriented conflict is to create a new group categorization common to all that supersedes any other group identification.

Another consequence of the above inevitability is that no matter how many issues we may solve, whether it be world famine, disease, land, etc. (pick your favorite world issue really), that there will always be some sort of intergroup conflict. As the difference that is important is the group classification, not the actual issue (Tajfel & Turner, 29186).

References

Fiske, S. T. (2014). Social beings: core motives in social psychology (3rd ed.). Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley and Sons, Inc.

Fiske, S. T., Gilbert, D. T., & Lindzey, G. (Eds.). (2010). Handbook of social psychology (5th ed., Vol. 2). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.

Tajfel, H., & Turner, J. C. (1986). The social identity theory of intergroup behavior. In S. Worchel & W. G. Austin (Eds.), Psychology of intergroup relations (The Nelson-Hall series in psychology) (pp. 7–24). Chicago, IL: Burnham.