Page 346 - The Social Animal

328 The Social Animal

each group highly interdependent. For example, within each group,
individuals cooperated in building a diving board for the swimming
facility, preparing group meals, building a rope bridge, and so on.
After a strong feeling of cohesiveness developed within each
group, the stage was set for conflict. The researchers arranged this by
setting up a series of competitive activities in which the two groups
were pitted against each other in such games as football, baseball, and
tug-of-war. To increase the tension, prizes were awarded to the win-
ning team. This resulted in some hostility and ill will during the
games. In addition, the investigators devised rather diabolical situa-
tions for putting the groups into conflict. In one, the investigators
arranged a camp party so that the Eagles were allowed to arrive a
good deal earlier than the Rattlers. The refreshments consisted of
two vastly different kinds of food: About half of the food was fresh,
appealing, and appetizing; the other half was squashed, ugly, and un-
appetizing. Perhaps because of the general competitiveness that al-
ready existed, the early arrivers confiscated most of the appealing
refreshments, leaving only the less appetizing, squashed, and dam-
aged food for their adversaries. When the Rattlers finally arrived and
saw how they had been taken advantage of, they were understand-
ably annoyed—so annoyed that they began to call the exploitive
group rather uncomplimentary names. Because the Eagles believed
they deserved what they got (first come, first served), they resented
this treatment and responded in kind. Name calling escalated into
food throwing, and within a very short time a full-scale riot was in
progress.
Following this incident, competitive games were eliminated and
a great deal of social contact was initiated. Once hostility had been
aroused, however, simply eliminating the competition did not elim-
inate the hostility. Indeed, hostility continued to escalate, even when
the two groups were engaged in such benign activities as sitting
around watching movies. Eventually, the investigators succeeded in
reducing the hostilities between the Eagles and the Rattlers, and I
will tell you how they did it later in this chapter.

Displaced Aggression: The Scapegoat Theory In the pre-
ceding chapter, I made the point that aggression is caused, in part,
by frustration and such other unpleasant or aversive conditions as
pain or boredom. In that chapter, we saw that there is a strong ten-