The power of superordinate goals: Examples ripped from the headlines

written by Sue Frantz | May 13, 2026

In Intro Psych, when discussing superordinate goals—which are really just ways of creating new ingroups-I would tell my students that one way we could get world peace would be, ironically, to be attacked by invaders from outer space.

Data centers

While we are not currently under such attack, residents of some smaller communities feel like they are under attack by those who want to build data centers near their towns (gifted article) (Tavernise, 2026). The residents are worried about traffic, the impact on endangered animals, noise pollution, higher electric bills, damage to the environment, and decreased home values. “But it was the sheer scale of the proposals, the suddenness with which they’ve appeared and the secrecy surrounding them that is punching emotion into the issue, turning out thousands of Democrats and Republicans for tense town hall meetings around the state” (Tavernise, 2026).

Residents who have been on opposite sides of the political divide in the U.S. are finding themselves working together on a superordinate goal: to stop the building of a data center in their community. And, in the process, they have discovered that they have much more in common. One Republican said of Democrats, “We’ve been foes for a long time, but when it comes down to our backyards, we realized we are really just the same people” (Tavernise, 2026).

Politics

Meanwhile, in Iowa, Rob Sand is running for governor. Sand identifies as a Democrat, but he is working hard in his campaign to downplay the Democrat/Republican divide to focus voters’ attention on being united on making Iowa better (gifted article) (Bosman, 2026).

At town halls across the state, Mr. Sand makes a point of asking audience members which party they belong to, applauding each political party and then asking the crowd to sing “America the Beautiful” together. Then he talks about the woes of the state and how his experience as state auditor and as an assistant attorney general who worked on white-collar-crime cases can help solve them (Bosman, 2026).

By asking attendees to identify their political parties, Sand is acknowledging that there are different political leanings in the room—and that everyone in attendance can see that, too. By applauding each, he ensures everyone feels welcome. But the brilliant move is asking everyone to sing “America the Beautiful.” The subtext: before we get started, let’s all agree on this one thing.

I don’t know if Sand will win the Iowa governor’s race, but I give him a lot of credit for trying to build bridges instead of more walls. I bet I’m not the only one in the U.S. who is tired of the walls.

The enemy of my enemy is my friend

I recently read Henry Grabar’s book Paved paradise: How parking explains the world. I highly recommend it. For this post, one story stands out. In the 1980s, Sam Schwartz, a former cab driver, became New York City’s Traffic Commissioner (Grabar, 2024). His goal was to find ways to keep traffic moving. In fact, he’s the person who coined the term gridlock to describe what happens when traffic stops moving. An easy way to bring traffic to a halt is when vehicles park in the traffic lanes, commonly called double-parking.

Diplomats have diplomatic immunity. “Diplomatic immunity is a principle of international law by which certain foreign government officials are not subject to the jurisdiction of local courts and other authorities for both their official and, to a large extent, their personal activities”(United States Department of State: Office of Foreign Missions, 2018, p. 2). In the case of a serious offense, the country in question may waive immunity and allow their diplomat to be prosecuted by U.S. law enforcement. The only other alternative is expulsion from the U.S.

A parking ticket, however, does not rise to that level of offense. “Between March and October 1977, representatives of the Soviet Union in New York received more than 6,500 parking tickets” (Grabar, 2024, p. 42). And they were not the only diplomats parking wherever they wanted. With diplomatic immunity, they did not need to pay the parking fines. There was no disincentive to park illegally. If there were no open parking spaces near their consulate, they would just double-park.

Sam Schwartz, the NYC Traffic Commissioner, had had enough. While he couldn’t do anything about the parking fines, he could do something else to disincentivize illegal parking. “[H]e told his tow trucks it was open season on diplomats’ DPL [license] plates” (Grabar, 2024). The end result? “Traffic on the east Midtown streets flowed again; the west-side tow pound, stuffed with Mercedes and Jaguars and BMWs, began to resemble the parking lot of a country club” (Grabar, 2024, p. 43).

As you might imagine, this caused quite an uproar among the diplomatic corps.

Schwartz was summoned to the [United Nations] General Assembly to answer for his aggressive towing policies—prompting a rare moment of international harmony. “The Israelis and the Arabs were getting along; Iran and Iraq, which were then at war, were offering each other coffee. All united in attacking me,” he recalled. “If someone were taking a tour of the UN at that moment, he might think I had the answer for world peace.” Such was the rapt attention in the room (Grabar, 2024, p. 43).

While Schwartz was not an invader from outer space, he was someone who all nations came together to work against.

In the end, the U.S. Senate passed legislation which allowed the city to tow diplomats’ cars and instructed the State Department to deduct the unpaid fines from U.S. government aid. Parking violations plummeted” (Grabar, 2024, p. 43). And without the parking wars to unite them, the nations of the world resumed their previous states of disagreement.

Hacky sack is back.

Suddenly, teenagers all over the U.S. are playing hacky sack (again). Why? It seems to have started with TikTok, but that doesn’t completely explain the appeal. One teenager interviewed for a New York Times story said, “It’s kind of bringing everybody together” (gifted article) (Holtermann, 2026). I think he’s onto something. Hacky sack is a cooperative game. It’s an opportunity for people to come together and share in a moment, to just be part of a group with a common goal, where there are no winners or losers.

 

References

Bosman, J. (2026, May 8). Democratic gubernatorial candidate Rob Sand is worrying Iowa Republicans. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/08/us/rob-sand-iowa-governor-democrat.html

Grabar, H. (2024). Paved paradise: How parking explains the world. Penguin Press.

Holtermann, C. (2026, May 12). Hacky Sack Mounts a Comeback With Gen Z. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/12/style/hacky-sack-gen-z.html

Tavernise, S. (2026, May 1). ‘The most bipartisan issue since beer’: Opposition to data centers. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/01/us/politics/liberals-conservatives-data-centers.html

United States Department of State: Office of Foreign Missions. (2018, August). Diplomatic and consular immunity: Guidance for law enforcement and judicial authorities. https://www.state.gov/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/2018-DipConImm_v5_Web.pdf