Individual and Group Conflicts
To identify the roles that individuals and groups beliefs play in initiating conflicts, the author conducted a review to offer psychological examination on intergroup hostilities. At both group and individual levels, the author states that a deep-rooted form of understanding governs people’s behaviors and emotions. Core beliefs at each level lead to distortions when perceptions become the way of life and thinking. Also, a discrepancy in data when ignored, can assimilate into a popular belief. Group beliefs are forms of interpretations shared among people who have the same way of living and understanding of issues. These beliefs are very dangerous when members replace factual understand with their sense and hence hinder the good intentions of others. From this assessment, the author selected five views that can cause intergroup conflicts; they include helplessness, distrust, vulnerability, injustice, and superiority.
A person feels an injustice has been done when he is mistreated, and in the real sense, could be a misinterpretation of unfortunate events that had taken place. This kind of perception could lead to retaliatory attacks, mainly if an explanation of the sad incident was not provided. At the group level, powerful resistance can be started by people who have the same grievances, mainly because the collective belief of injustices increases an individual’s identification within a group. Leaders are very crucial in advocating for groups’ injustice actions that require a vicious change.
Individual superiority is a belief that one person is more superior and worthy than the other. Such thoughts can lead people to ignore social norms as irrelevant, lack empathy to others, and tendency to oppose those with different opinions and beliefs. In a group scenario, hate builds up when members of a particular group feel that they are more deserving than the other. Additionally, an idea within a group that they are the chosen ones makes them think and feel an entitlement to a few available resources.
An individual believes that he is vulnerable when he estimates his dangers are high, and his ability to protect himself or herself is almost none. Such a mindset leads an individual to make false conclusions about their future reactions when they interact with other people. From a group perspective, such thinking can result in hostility against such threats that they deemed are targeting them in any way.
A person is in a state of helplessness when he believes a well planned and executed action that they plan to take will not succeed; such belief lowers motivation of a person in performing any work. On the other hand, a group collectively feels a form of powerlessness when they deem they lack a competitive advantage against another group due to the unavailability of enough resources or few opportunities to progress.
Distrust at the individual level involves a tendency to judge someone’s behavior suspiciously, and this can interfere with a person’s ability to differentiate between genuine and hostile deeds. Groups distrust happens when the in-group interpretation of an out-group is deemed aggressive, even clear explanations of an action taken is available.
Individual beliefs explicitly emanate from personal stories in a family setup and interpersonal relations, while group beliefs encompass shared narratives of cultural interpretation within in-group and out-group associations. Both individual and group believe create biasedness’ in judgment and distort understanding of the intended meaning. Such beliefs hinder how human beings and society as a whole view of the world.
In conclusion, it is worth noting that the author’s findings relate to the discussion done in the lecture on the psychology of individuals and groups beliefs that have caused conflicts around the globe. The author verdicts on distortion in an understanding of issues among individuals, which creates the intended meaning to be completely different. This distortion in interpretation leads to individuals to create conflicts among themselves. The same scenario happens in group interactions where the description of matters is affected by the cultural setup, this eventually change the way of life among in-groups and out-groups in the society and finally can initiate conflicts in the long-run
Reference
Eidelson, R. J., & Eidelson, J. I. (2003). Dangerous ideas: Five beliefs that propel groups toward conflict. American Psychologist, 58(3), 182.