[1][3][4] Groups may be in competition for a real or perceived scarcity of resources such as money, political power, military protection, or social status.
[5][6] In the 1960s, this theory developed from Campbell's recognition of social psychologists' tendency to reduce all human behavior to hedonistic goals.
He criticized psychologists like John Thibaut, Harold Kelley, and George Homans, who emphasized theories that place food, sex, and pain avoidance as central to all human processes.
[5] Similar to the ideas of Campbell, other researchers also began recognizing a problem in the psychological understanding of intergroup behavior.
[7] To the contrary of prior theories, RCT takes into account the sources of conflict between groups, which include, incompatible goals and competition over limited resources.
[4] The Sherifs' study was conducted over three weeks in a 200-acre summer camp in Robbers Cave State Park, Oklahoma, focusing on intergroup behavior.
[3][8] From the study, they determined that because the groups were created to be approximately equal, individual differences are not necessary or responsible for intergroup conflict to occur.
[8] Finally, they concluded that friction between groups can be reduced and positive intergroup relations can be maintained, only in the presence of superordinate goals that promote united, cooperative action.
[9] In addition, Michael Billig argues that the experimenters themselves constitute a third group, and one that is arguably the most powerful of the three, and that they in fact become the outgroup in the aforementioned experiment.
[12] It can be concluded that, contempt towards racial integration was due to a perception of blacks as a danger to valued lifestyles, goals, and resources, rather than symbolic racism or prejudice attitudes formulated during childhood.
[1][12] RCT can also provide an explanation for why competition over limited resources in communities can present potentially harmful consequences in establishing successful organizational diversity.
[6] In the workplace, this is depicted by the concept that increased racial heterogeneity among employees is associated with job dissatisfaction among majority members.
To demonstrate this, Duckitt created a scheme of types of realistic conflict with groups of unequal status and their resulting correlation with prejudice.
[7][17] When group conflict extends to nations or tribes, Regality Theory argues that the collective danger leads citizens to start having strong feelings of national or tribal identity, preferring strong, hierarchical political system, adopting strict discipline and punishment of deviants, and expressing xenophobia and strict religious and sexual morality.