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By Root 818 0

had been selected as first chair flutist in the all-county band, for example. Whitney liked the flute, which she had played for nearly a decade, partly because she believed she could express herself more truthfully through music than she could at school. The preps had discouraged her from playing because rehearsals often conflicted with social plans, but Whitney was committed. She attended every rehearsal for the following month’s concert, even skipping a cheerleading competition for one of the band practices. She also had been accepted to her first-choice college. But her social issues overshadowed these triumphs.

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WHY GROUPS DON’T GET ALONG

Throughout the year, Eli wondered repeatedly, “Why can’t we all get along?” He couldn’t figure out why, by senior year, cliques couldn’t just set aside their quibbles and coexist peacefully. One answer to Eli’s question lies in the psychology of group identity.

In the early 1970s, social psychologist Henri Tajfel showed an audience of fourteen- and fifteen-year-old boys slides of abstract paintings. Tajfel told the boys that they would be divided into two groups, depending on which paintings they preferred. He lied. In reality, Tajfel and his team randomly assigned the groups. The psychologists then ushered the boys one by one into cubicles, gave them a list of each group’s members identified only by code numbers, and told them to distribute virtual money to everyone. Even though the boys did not know what membership meant, they were so eager to adopt an us-versus-them mentality that they showed favoritism, a hallmark of group identity, toward their own random, meaningless group.

Researchers have replicated these results, using more minimal fake group assignments. Students showed group favoritism even when they were told that the groups were assigned by the flip of a coin. To rule out the idea that group members played favorites because they believed they had something in common with their groupmates, researchers split people into groups by lottery and told them so. The results didn’t change.

The need to belong is one of the most powerful human motivations. We are naturally drawn toward forming and sustaining groups. There are evolutionary reasons for this drive; groups offer survival and reproductive advantages. Group membership improves odds of finding a mate, hunting successfully, and defending against predators. Groups can more easily compete for and store food and other resources than can lone individuals. Children have a better chance of survival when they are part of a group that cares about their welfare, feeding them, protecting them, and babysitting them.

Groups can also be beneficial from a cognitive standpoint. Tajfel’s social identity theory said that people are quick to form and affiliate with groups because groups help us to define our social identities. We see ourselves as members of social categories that enable us to visualize our supposed place in a social structure. Groups satisfy our brain’s natural inclination to make sense of the hordes of people we encounter and observe. This quality is so inherent that children intuitively understand the need to form groups without adults having to teach them.

When children first begin to sort out their social world, their groupings are broad and oversimplified. Toddlers as young as one year old might, for example, call all children babies—even if they’re twelve. By first grade, children typically have split into distinct social circles, but are probably still blissfully unaware of perceived popularity. At about the age of seven, children have developed the cognitive ability to apply several categories to someone (tall, friendly, good at sports). As children age, they get better at analyzing which categories are relevant to various contexts. For example, they learn that when needing someone tall to reach a cookie jar, it would be a mistake to ask people only from their own gender, race, or grade because the tallest person may be in a different group. By fourth grade, students recognize status differences and can