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Religion, Practice and Science of Non-Violence
Group Aggression
No one set of considerations, whether from psychology or any of the other social sciences, can satisfactorily explain all manifestations of group aggressiveness and intergroup conflict. Many instances of violence between groups have been precipitated by competition for scarce values or properties. Other cases of intergroup aggression originate in emotional tensions. Some people are innocent victims of hostility engendered by the frustrations of living. As scapegoats, they are the victims of prejudiced attitudes for which, they, to some extent at least, are blameless. In the next few paragraphs, we will confine ourselves to the study of prejudice as a factor that leads to intergroup aggression and violence.
Prejudice
In the course of growing up, a man picks up and adopts a certain set of notions about people who do not belong to his way of thinking. If these notions that he adopts involve thinking ill of others without sufficient warrant he can be said to be prejudiced.
There are many reasons for a person to develop prejudices. Essentially it is in fulfilment of one's own needs and in support of an individual's own style of life, at the back of which is his own insecurity, fear and guilt. Prejudice offers him an opportunity of relieving his personal conflicts by offering a target for his hostile impulses.
The most potent maintainer of prejudice is habit strength. Throughout childhood and adulthood, there are literally thousands of everyday learning situations in which prejudice is stamped in. The habit becomes deeply entrenched, fortified by years of imitation and reinforcement. It is all the more difficult to alter these habit patterns when there is strong reinforcement behind them.
Prejudices that engender intergroup aggression and violence are of various types. These include (1) Out-group prejudice, (2) National prejudice, (3) Ideological prejudice, (4) Racial prejudice, (5) Religious prejudice etc. We shall take them up one by one.
Out-group Prejudice: One's family ordinarily constitutes the smallest and firmest of one's in-groups. Common feeling grows
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