[1][2][3] Although it may be used for a variety of purposes, it is best known as a method for investigating the minimal conditions required for discrimination to occur between groups.
The main purpose of the procedures in the minimal group paradigm is to exclude "objective" influences from the situation.
[10] Finally, the absence of intergroup status hierarchies, together with the triviality and minimal social content of the groups, excludes the influence of normative or consensual discrimination.
[8] Henri Tajfel and colleagues originally developed the minimal group paradigm in the early 1970s as part of their attempt to understand the psychological basis of intergroup discrimination.
[6] Although Tajfel and colleagues originally explained minimal group discrimination in terms of a generic norm for social competition that exists across societies,[6] this explanation was later thought to be "uninteresting" and not offering any real explanatory or predictive power.
This bias is partially attributed to migrants’ exclusion from their original groups and the increased cognitive effort needed to categorize them.