Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Contributors
- Introduction
- PART I COPING WITH EXCLUSION: BEING EXCLUDED FOR WHO YOU ARE
- PART 2 COPING WITH EXCLUSION: BEING EXCLUDED FOR WHAT YOU THINK AND DO
- 6 Delinquents as a minority group: Accidental tourists in forbidden territory or voluntary emigrées?
- 7 Minority-group identification: Responses to discrimination when group membership is controllable
- 8 Coping with stigmatization: Smokers' reactions to antismoking campaigns
- 9 Terrorism as a tactic of minority influence
- 10 The stigma of racist activism
- 11 Why groups fall apart: A social psychological model of the schismatic process
- PART 3 COPING WITH INCLUSION
- Index
- References
11 - Why groups fall apart: A social psychological model of the schismatic process
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Contributors
- Introduction
- PART I COPING WITH EXCLUSION: BEING EXCLUDED FOR WHO YOU ARE
- PART 2 COPING WITH EXCLUSION: BEING EXCLUDED FOR WHAT YOU THINK AND DO
- 6 Delinquents as a minority group: Accidental tourists in forbidden territory or voluntary emigrées?
- 7 Minority-group identification: Responses to discrimination when group membership is controllable
- 8 Coping with stigmatization: Smokers' reactions to antismoking campaigns
- 9 Terrorism as a tactic of minority influence
- 10 The stigma of racist activism
- 11 Why groups fall apart: A social psychological model of the schismatic process
- PART 3 COPING WITH INCLUSION
- Index
- References
Summary
For decades, social psychologists have explored the processes that lead social groups to achieve oneness and uniformity. For instance, some researchers have investigated the way in which social groups transmit and maintain shared norms and standards (Crandall, 1988; Sherif, 1936). Others have studied the pressures to conform to majority views (Abrams et al., 1990; Asch, 1956) or to obey leaders and authorities (Milgram, 1974). With regard to the field of group decision-making, a substantial body of work has addressed the processes leading group members either to polarize their opinions (Brauer & Judd, 1996; Moscovici & Zavalloni, 1969) or to overlook alternative courses of action because of striving for unanimity (Janis, 1972). Finally, social psychologists have also explored the way in which groups achieve cohesiveness (Hogg, 1992; Lott & Lott, 1965) and people's tendency to loose their sense of individual identity when acting in group situations (Diener, 1979; Zimbardo, 1970).
Undoubtedly, these processes are of central importance for group life and deserve to be studied in depth. However, despite a clear tendency to cohere and to seek consensus, most social groups are internally divided into subgroups (Hornsey & Hogg, 2000). What is more, in some situations the members of a subgroup may decide to undergo a schism; that is, they may leave the parent group either to form a breakaway group or to join a different group.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Coping with Minority StatusResponses to Exclusion and Inclusion, pp. 243 - 266Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2009
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