I remember having learnt in my social psychology course (bachelor) about this famous study where random people were randomly put in groups named "group A" and "group B" and that it was enough to make intergroup competition appear. This study is really relevant to introduce my master research, can anybody remind me of the names of the researchers, or the name and year of the study?
Thanks in advance!!! :)
Lisa
It's the minimal group effect. One of the earliest key sources is: Tajfel, H. (1978). Interindividual behaviour and intergroup behaviour. Differentiation between social groups: Studies in the social psychology of intergroup relations, 27-60.
There are a lot of studies about that:
Maybe the study by Jane Elliott, the teacher who separated her class of kids in 2 groups to create competitions between them.
Or the one by Philipp Zimbardo "The Standford prison experiment".
Hi, thank you very much for your answers :)
you are right Sophie there are many studies about intergroup relations but I was thinking about a study where they were the groups were literally named "A" and "B". What I found good about this study is that the researchers made sure that the ppts would not share anything specific nor have anything really different to the other group, that it would only be this temporary labels "A" and "B" that would separate them in two groups and there wasn't even a "role" given to through the name of the group which would argument a feeling of superiority, like the prisoners in Zimbardo's study.
I'll have a look at all of Tajfel's article and also at Jane Elliott's study :)
Thank you very much!!
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