The Intergroup Relations Model and its Relevance for Asian-European Interaction

Lunch lecture by Thomas E. Malloy, Professor of Psychology at Rhode Island College

Humans organize themselves into groups in order to adapt and enhance survival. Group formation permits organized effort to accomplish necessary tasks, safety, utilization of the expertise of others, mating opportunities, and a social identity. Group formation provides an adaptive advantage for those who are members of the group. These advantages for in-group members can also lead to conflict with members of other groups (i.e., out-groups) especially when groups are in competition for scarce resources, when members of the out-group look or behave quite differently than members of the in-group, and when there is not an equal opportunity to attain material (e.g., jobs) and social (e.g. respect in the community) resources.

The intergroup relations model (IRM, Malloy, 2008) is a general theoretical model that can be used to understand the interactions of members of different social groups. During the lunch lecture Professor Malloy will present the ‘Intergroup Relations Model’ and some related experimental and correlational data. He will also speak about the applied implications of the work for Asian-European interaction and communication, drawing on the turbulent examples from America with blacks and white populations.

Time: Thursday 15^th January 2015, 12.15 – 13.15
Place: NIAS, room 18.1.08, CSS, University of Copenhagen, Øster Farimagsgade 5, 1353 CPH

Feel free to bring your own lunch. There will be tea, coffee and sweet stuff.

Thomas E. Malloy currently holds tenure as a Professor of Psychology at Rhode Island College. He has conducted research on interpersonal perception, peer perceptions in classrooms, intergroup relations and reconciliation, individual differences and behavior, cross-cultural psychology, research methodology, and health psychology.