In social psychology, superordinate goals are goals that are worth completing but require two or more social groups to cooperatively achieve. The idea was proposed by social psychologist Muzafer Sherif in his experiments on intergroup relations, run in the 1940s and 1950s, as a way of reducing conflict between competing groups. Sherif's idea was to downplay the two separate group identities and encourage the two groups to think of themselves as one larger, superordinate group. This approach has been applied in many contexts to reduce intergroup conflict, including in classrooms and business organizations. However, it has also been critiqued by other social psychologists who have proposed competing theories of intergroup conflict, such as contact theory and social categorization theory. In the context of goal-setting theory, the concept is seen in terms of three goal levels. These are classified as subordinate, intermediate and superordinate. An organization's superordinate goals are expressed through its Vision and Mission Statement and support strategic alignment of activities (subordinate and intermediate goals) with the overall purpose (superordinate goals). Origin Superordinate goals were first described and proposed as a solution to intergroup conflict by social psychologist Muzafer Sherif. He studied conflict by creating a boys' summer camp for his Robbers’ Cave experiments. Sherif assigned the participating campers to two separate groups, the blue and red groups. The boys had separate games and activities, lived in different cabins, ate at different tables, and only spent time with their own group. Sherif then introduced competition between the groups, setting up athletic contests between them. This created conflict between the two groups of boys that developed into hostile attitudes towards the other group, pranking, name-calling, shows of group pride, negative stereotyping, and even occasionally physical violence. In order to reduce the conflict between the two groups of boys, Sherif had first attempted to have both groups spend time together non-competitively. He had also encouraged them to mix and eat meals and play games with boys from the other group. However, the groups remained hostile toward each other. He had also tried to unite both groups against a common enemy, an outside summer camp, in an early version of the experiment. However, this was deemed an inadequate solution as this simply created a new conflict between the new group and the common enemy. Sherif then introduced superordinate goals as a possible solution to the conflict. These were goals that were important to