ds. In-groups exercise a high degree of control over us and it fosters ethnocentrism. Out-groups are groups toward which they feel antagonism. Two examples of out-groups are the Ku Klux Klan (KKK), and the Black Panther Party. The KKK is an organization founded on rebellion against American principles of justice and equality. The KKK developed out of Southern white citizens in Pulaski, Tennessee in 1865, who were angered over the Civil War defeat and the Reconstruction period after the war. To this group, the freedom of slaves represented a defeat of their Confederate armies and their racist way of life. Their only way of victory, or satisfaction during that period was through terrorism. “Fear and hatred, however, which nourish feelings against out-groups, often give birth to highly destructive acts.” Most groups feed off of a sense of belonging, and all the members of the KKK shared the same views on how the south should be operated. The Black Panther Party for Self-Defense was founded in Oakland, California in 1966. The basis for the organization was centered on a document called the Ten Point Plan, in which the Panthers believed that “ the only way to deal with such a system is to destroy it and replace it with an acceptable, just society.” This group was able to directly influence public opinion and motivate individuals and communities through various activities and promoting communism.Out-groups are almost by definition, considered dissimilar to the in-group, because people may generalize their beliefs about a single individual to his or entire group. In theory, it is hypothesized that behavioral orientations elicited by specific patterns of intergroup relationships, such as goal compatibility, relative power, and relative status, give rise to unique schematic representations of an out-group. In this article, the authors proposed and tested a functional theory of out-group stereotypes. “Th...
