Cause Of Inter-Group Conflict

990 Words4 Pages
The problem of inter-group conflict had already been known to have existed for so many years, be it conflicts between different gender, religion, races and ethnicity or a group of people in general. Inter-group conflicts usually occurs between two or more groups of people that are not seeing eye to eye with each other due to a certain disagreement or an event. It is a behaviour among individuals that is regulated by their awareness of identifying different social groups (Pearson, 2010) According to Realistic Group Conflict Theory, conflicts can arise as a result of conflicting goals and also competition over limited resources. Although some argued that inter-group conflict occurs naturally, other causes that might also spark the conflicts between groups can be derived through economic aspects, institutional or social aspects and cultural aspects. All these causes may also lead to prejudice and often would cause discrimination. The realistic group conflict theory further explains that the goals between different groups and its individuals causes conflicts because every group feels that they have the urge to compete with the other group to obtain the goal. Muzafer Sherif conducted an experiment on this which is remarkably known as the Robbers Cave Experiment. (Sherif, 1988) This experiment involves two different groups of young boys which at first were separated and then brought together soon after. Both groups met in an organised intergroup contest to compete in different