Intergroup Relations
A workplace environment consists of employees coming from different backgrounds with varying cultural beliefs and practices that influence the relationship between one individual and the other. The presence of communication gaps or intolerance challenges intergroup relations in the organization. Many theories analyze intergroup relations by discussing factors influencing the behavior of workers in a group. The two most common theories of intergroup relations are the social dominance theory and the social identity theory.
The social dominance and the social identity theory have a common goal of analyzing the behaviors of individuals in a group by determining factors that lead to certain actions and delineating the role of social structures in influencing individual's behavior in a group. Moreover, both theories analyze people based on their influence in the society with the social identity focusing on how the society identifies a person while the social dominance theory looks at the position of an individual in the society.
Contrasting the social identity and social dominance theories
The two theories differ on the nature of elements they represent on the individual’s behavior and structure in the society. The social identity theory aims at identifying minimum conditions that cause members of a specific group to discriminate or form bias of another group. The theory argues that an individual sense of his or her identity depends on the member’s group (Haslam, Knippenberg, Platow, and Ellemers, 2014). On the contrary, the social dominance theory focuses on hierarchies that determine the significance of a person in the society. People in the higher hierarchy are dominant and have more powers that those on lower levels. These hierarchies are based on age, gender, and the arbitrary-set system (Pratto, Sidanius, and Levin, 2006).
Intergroup relation theories explain many challenges that cause conflicts between employees in the workplace. One of the strategies to reduce these conflicts is making employees understand and respect each other culture. The management at the workplace has a duty of ensuring members of different groups get equal representations in the organizations. Members from groups that are ranked lower in the hierarchy and termed inferior in the society should be given leadership positions to make them more dominant and feel a sense of identity in the workplace.
References
Pratto, F., Sidanius, J., and Levin, S. (2006). Social dominance theory and the dynamics of
intergroup relations: Taking stock and looking forward. European Review of Social Psychology, 17, 271-320.
Haslam, A.S., Knippenberg, D., Platow, M., and Ellemers, N. (2014). Social identity at work:
Developing theory for organizational practice. New York, NY: Psychology Press, LTD.
