Question

C. What serious biases or misassumptions do groups that are involved in inter-team conflict sometimes experience? How do these biases and prejudices affect the ability of teams to accomplish their goals? Support your discussion with at least two (2) external sources.

Answer 1

Solution:-
Fisher offers a social-psychological approach to understanding intergroup conflicts, that is, conflicts between people that occur in terms of their group identities. He considers the implications of this approach both for conflict resolution and for the training in conflict resolution. Fisher argues that intergroup conflicts arise from objective differences of interest, coupled with antagonistic or controlling attitudes or behaviors. Incompatibilities, which can prompt conflict, include economic, power or value differences, or differences in needs-satisfaction. Often intergroup conflicts have a mixture of these elements.

These incompatibilities can then be exacerbated into destructive intergroup conflict by common perceptual and cognitive processes. The very act of group categorization tends to create some in-group favoritism. Conflict between groups encourages negative stereotyping of the opposing group. Cognitive biases lead individuals to attribute positive personal characteristics to fellow in-group members and excuse their negative behaviors. At the same time, such biases lead people to attribute negative characteristics to out-group members and explain away any positive behaviors.