An Integrative Theory of Intergroup Conflict

The initial stimulus for the theorizing presented here was provided by certain experimental investigations of intergroup behavior. The laboratory analog of real-world ethnocentrism is in-group bias—that is, the tendency to favor the in-group over the out-group in evaluations and behavior. Not only are incompatible group interests not always sufficient to generate conflicts but there is a good deal of experimental evidence that these conditions are not always necessary for the development of competition and discrimination between groups (for example, Ferguson & Kelley, 1964; Rabbie & Wilkens, 1971; Doise & Sinclair, 1973; Doise & Weinberger, 1973).