Q&A: Is it always ‘us vs them’? Researcher explains why flexibility is key

UNIVERSITY PARK , Pa. — Urban versus rural. Penn State versus Michigan. Star Wars versus Star Trek. As social beings, humans gravitate toward groups. But sometimes group living can spur an “us versus them” mentality that causes conflict, especially when two groups are competing for the same limited resources, like money or a championship trophy.

In the following Q&A, Anne Pisor, assistant professor of anthropology at Penn State and Social Science Research Institute co-funded faculty member, discussed her recently published paper on the “us versus them” mindset as well as the causes and how to overcome it.

Q: What does your research say about the “us versus them” mindset? Is it real or a myth?

Pisor: It's not a myth, but it's not universal either. What really matters is whether we think there's something worth competing over. Humans are a hypersocial species, meaning we spend lots of time with other people. We're also a group living species, which means that we spend lots of time with the same “other” people, like our families, neighbors, teams at work, and members of religious and ethnic groups. Groups are important to us, and our brains are quick to recognize groups.

Sometimes groups can trigger an “us versus them” mindset. At work, you’re part of a team, cooperating to get projects and tasks done right. Sometimes it's challenging to get all the cooperation to work, but when it does, it feels really good. Now imagine there's another team that's working on a project like yours, and there's something that both teams want, but only one team can have, like a promotion or a particular customer. Suddenly, you're paying attention to who's on which team. That's when the “us versus them” mindset really gets activated.

Q: What role does perception play in activating the “us versus them” mindset?

Pisor: Initially, we have to recognize that there's a group in the first place. If you see someone walking down the street today, you may see them as just another person, but it's only if they're wearing maize and blue do you realize they might be a Michigan fan.

Next, there's the question of what you know about that other group. It may be that you've heard something about the Wolverines, or maybe you've interacted with Michigan fans in the past. Or maybe the person walking down the street is with three other fans wearing the same jerseys, and you're alone in your Penn State jersey — and then, regardless of what you've heard, you're outnumbered and feeling a bit wary.

Deciding whether another group is a threat depends on factors like group size, past experiences with that group, what other people have told you about the group and whether there's something both groups want but only one can have. All those factors integrate in our brains and can trigger “us versus them” thinking. Suddenly, we're paying a lot of attention to that other group.

But this “us versus them” mindset doesn't always happen. If someone walks by wearing a baseball jersey for a team from the West Coast you don't know much about, you recognize they're in a different group, but there's nothing both of you want right now. It's only one person, you don’t know much about who that group is or what they stand for, so there's not a lot of “us versus them” dynamics.

Q: Your recent work examines dynamics between two ethnic groups in Colombia. How much does culture contribute to the “us versus them” mindset?

Pisor: Whether we're talking about Colombia or the United States, many of the same factors are at play. Both countries are home to ethnic groups, whose members recognize a shared history and shared cultural practices. In our study in Colombia, two ethnic groups participated — one was Afro-Colombian and the other was Emberá, an Indigenous group. We asked individuals to partake in an economic game where they saw pictures of people from their community, from their own ethnic group and from the other ethnic group. They could choose to give money, leave money or pay to take money away from those individuals. When deciding whether to give money or take money from the other group, people talked a lot about past experiences with people from that group — had members of that group been cooperative? Had they been selfish? Just as in the United States, people were sometimes generalizing the behavior of one or a few people to a whole ethnic group.

Perceptions about the other groups’ resources mattered, too. The idea that resources matter carries across everywhere — the United States, Colombia, other countries around the world. If one group has little money and the other group is doing pretty well for themselves, then the group doing pretty well for themselves may not feel like the group with little money is a threat. On the other hand, if both groups have about the same amount of money, if there's any extra money available, then it feels like it's either us or them. Suddenly, we feel like we’re competing for those resources.

Q: How do we temper the “us versus them” mindset and encourage cooperation?

Pisor: There are three key ingredients that trigger the “us versus them” mindset — past experience, what we’ve learned from others about that group and, importantly, perceptions of resource availability and distribution. Research tells us that addressing any one of those ingredients can lessen “us versus them.” For example, when people in different groups have an opportunity to cooperate, to work together on a common goal, that can shift negative perceptions and reduce the “us versus them” mindset.

Changing institutions matters too. If we learn from important institutions like schools or places of worship that we should be more generous towards members of other groups and are given reasons as to why, that can reduce the “us versus them” mindset.

When you think about how to make a change, pick just one ingredient and focus on that ingredient, like bringing groups together or messaging. Challenges feel less insurmountable when we take those smaller, simpler actions. For example, you can look for or create opportunities in your community where different folks come together and share different vantage points. If you're not sure where to begin, start by talking about family, about bad days, about how we often need other people to lift us up — all good places to bring people together from across groups to have conversations.

“Us versus them” behavior can be amped up or turned down depending on context. It's very ancestral. We've been doing it for a long time. But humans are off the charts in terms of how social we are compared to most of the animal kingdom. There's power for us in cooperation. We're not machines with just one setting. When it comes to how we feel about other groups, we're very flexible, and that's something we shouldn't lose sight of.