Current Issues in Social Psychology: Social Conflict Within and Between Groups

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Wherever one looks, the world appears to struggle with a multitude of turbulent changes and social problems. Political and religious conflicts emerge and ethnic tension erupts into sporadic or prolonged violence. The legal and illegal movement of people, goods and ideas across the globe shake up social orders and provoke insecurity and injustice. We witness discriminatory prejudice against some immigrant populations, while changes in the workplace require employees to negotiate their conflicts of interest with their supervisors and colleagues on an almost day-to-day basis. Citizens, policy makers, social workers, schoolteachers, and politicians wrestle with these problems. Some gravitate towards prevention and suppression, increasing control and attempts at containment; others choose to mediate conflict, bringing rival groups together, building and exploiting common ground. But what strategies work, and when? How do social systems benefit from conflict, learn from debate and use it to strengthen social bonds? Do different types of conflict require different strategies, and do groups with different cultural background require different approaches? What do we know about conflict, about possible ways to manage it, about what happens if we try to suppress it? Do different actors interpret conflict issues differently, and what symbols and rituals are used to give meaning to conflict? And what causes conflict to escalate, what dynamic and longitudinal characteristics can we identify and use when we need to intervene and call a halt to violence and aggression? These and related questions have been the focus of attention in many different scientific disciplines, yet rarely have they been connected to each other. In "Intergroup Competition and Conflict," Carsten de Dreu brings together twelve overviews of research into social conflict to connect and integrate existing insights and analyses of conflict and conflict-related phenomena with evidence-based interventions in conflict situations. The chapters are written by renowned conflict scholars from a variety of disciplines within the social and behavioral sciences, including social and organizational psychology, management and economics, sociology, law, and international relations/political science. Together they provide a uniquely interdisciplinary and invaluable survey of the field of social conflict.