09. Social Identity Theory Prejudice

Question 1

Define prejudice.

Answer 1

A pre-judgement often based on stereotypes or group characteristics when individual attributes are ignored. For example, assuming women will slower drivers than men.

Question 2

What did Tajfel and Turner (1979) explain with Social Identity Theory?

Answer 2

We define ourselves in terms of our group membership and seek to have our group valued positively relative to other groups. Social identity theory explains people’s prejudice, as a result of the formation of in-groups to which they belong and out-groups to which others belong.

Question 3

What are the 3 components of prejudice?

Answer 3

1. Affective
2. Behavioural
3. Cognitive

Question 4

Describe the affective component.

Answer 4

How you feel emotionally, eg feelings of hostility and hatred.

Question 5

Describe the behavioural component.

Answer 5

What you do, which is discrimination. In terms of prejudice, discrimination can be displayed as avoidance, assault, joke-making or Actively excluding an individual or groups from things they are entitled to.

Question 6

Describe the cognitive component.

Answer 6

-What you think as prejudice is a biased belief held about an individuals or group prior to direct experience of that person/people. Such attitudes are often based on stereotypes and/or group characteristics. Individual attributes are ignored.
-Social perception of an individuals based on their group membership or physical attributes.
-Overgeneralised belief based on limited information.

Question 7

Describe Social Identity Theory (Tajfel and Turner)

Answer 7

-The view that your behaviour (eg discrimination) is motivated by your social identity.
-A persons self-image has two components: personal identity and social identity.

Question 8

Define personal identity.

Answer 8

Personal identity is based on your characteristics and achievements.

Question 9

Define social identity.

Answer 9

-Social identity is determined by the various groups of people to which you belong- your ‘ingroup’.
-We seek to have our in-group valued positively relative to other groups. This makes us feel more confident.

Question 10

Describe social identity theory in terms of prejudice.

Answer 10

-The simple act of being grouped will inevitably lead to prejudice against other groups.
-Tajfel and Turner classified groups as in-groups and out-groups.

Question 11

What are the three stages to the Social Identity Theory?

Answer 11

1. Social categorisation
2. Social identification
3. Social comparison

Question 12

Define social categorisation.

Answer 12

Categorisation is a basic characteristic of human thought. We have little control over this as it’s an automatic sorting procedure. Existence of in and out groups is enough to bring about prejudice and discrimination.

(Where we sort similar people and objects so that were able to understand and identify them).

Question 13

Define social identity.

Answer 13

Adoption of beliefs, values, attitudes to which they see themselves belonging. Behaviour alters to fit in with norms.

(Where people modify their behaviour, attitudes and beliefs to match the group they belong to).

Question 14

Define social comparison.

Answer 14

Self-esteem boosted by making subjective comparisons with out-group. Eg exaggeration of in-group abilities attributing success to disposition. Out-group is inferior, leading to discrimination against out groups.

(Where we compare our in-group with other groups to affirm our identity).

Question 15

How are self esteem and prejudice linked?

Answer 15

Increasing self-esteem can reduce the desire for negative comparisons and therefore reduce prejudice.

(But it’s difficult to boost people’s self esteem).

Question 16

What was the aim of Tajfel’s (1970) ‘Minimal Group’ experiment?

Answer 16

The aim of Tajfel’s study was to provide evidence that merely belong to one group and being aware that another group existed would lead to discriminatory behaviour in favour of your own group.

Question 17

What was the procedure of Tajfel’s (1970) ‘Minimal Group’ experiment?

Answer 17

-Tajfel worked with 64 boys aged 14 and 15 from a Bristol comprehensive school who came to the laboratory in groups of 8.

-In the 2nd part of his experiment, they were shown several paintings by two artists (Kandinsky and Klee), and asked to say which they preferred.

-Boys were told which boys had chosen the artist they liked and those who didn’t (Tajfel just made this up, as a control, he arbitrarily assigned the boys to an artist so that there would be no meaningful difference between the groups).

-Later the boys were asked to allocate points to all the other boys, which could be exchanged for cash.

Question 18

What were the results of Tajfel’s (1970) ‘Minimal Group’ experiment?

Answer 18

Tajfel found that more points were awarded to boys who had been in the same in group than those in the out-group. Furthermore, they always tried to give their in-group the best deal at the expense of the out-group.

Question 19

How does Tajfel’s minimal group experiment support social identity theory?

Answer 19

-Research supports that prejudice comes from in group favouritism. The study shows how social comparison is sufficient to trigger in group favouritism and discrimination against the outgroup.

-But Tajfel’s research lacks mundane realism as discrimination is rarely this convert (obvious) in real life. So lacks ecological validity.

Question 20

What was the conclusion of Tajfel’s (1970) ‘Minimal Group’ experiment?

Answer 20

The boys showed prejudice behaviour of awarding fewer numbers of points to boys who were not in their in-group. This demonstrated that merely forming arbitrary in- and out groups, which did not even reflect the actual preferences of the boys, was sufficient to produce prejudice in favour of an in-group and against an out-group.

Question 21

What did Tajfel conclude about prejudice?

Answer 21

-Merely forming arbitrary in and out-groups, was sufficient to produce prejudice of an in-group and against an out-group (the boys showed prejudice behaviour of awarding fewer number of points to boys who were not in their in-group).
-Prejudice and discrimination is very easy to trigger.
-People like to behave in ways considered ‘appropriate’, eg we conform to social norms.
-Two social norms are ‘groupness’ and ‘fairness’.
-Tajfel felt that ‘groupness’ is stronger than fairness.

Question 22

Describe Margaret Wetherell’s (1982) refuting findings.

Answer 22

-Wetherell conducted a replication of Tajfel’s 1970 experiment using 8 year olds in New Zealand.
-She found that indigenous Polynesian children were significantly more generous in their allocation of points to out-group members who belong to minority groups.
-Her research may only support intergoup behaviour in Western Societies.

-This suggests social identity theory may be ethnocentric because it fails to predict the behaviour of people from more collectivist cultures. It may also not apply to people who belong to minority groups.
-The use of 8 year olds can be questioned as their cognitive ability is far weaker in comparison to an adults, which would mean the comparability of this study results with others will lack validity.

Question 23

Describe the supporting research from Steve Carlton-Ford et al (2008).

Answer 23

-Researched the link between social identity and self-esteem.
-They investigated the impact of the 2003 war in Iraq on 1000 randomly selected Iraqi teenagers.
-They tested the idea that threats to social identity can be associated with increased self-esteem. The teenagers who received the highest level of national threat had the highest self-esteem.

-This supports social identity theory explanation that we make favourable comparisons of our in-group against our out-group, and this is especially true in times of actual threat, eg war, which increases our feelings of self-esteem.

Question 24

Describe the alternative theory of prejudice from Sherif et al (1954/1961).

Answer 24

Realistic conflict theory claimed that prejudice comes from inter-group conflict due to limited resources, not social comparison.

Question 25

Describe the real life comparison from Steven Fein and Steven Spencer (1997).

Answer 25

-Found that altering self-esteem could affect prejudice behaviour.
-They gave students a sense of high or low self-esteem based on a false result from an IQ test.
-Students who were given lower false results later rated Jewish applicants for a job less favourably than an Italian candidate, compared with those who were given a false high result on the IQ test.

Question 26

Describe Platow’s (1990) refuting findings on the influence of personality on prejudice.

Answer 26

-Individuals with competitive orientations displayed a greater preference for the reult of relative in-group gain compared to that of fairness. Whereas those with prosocial orientations preferred the rule of fairness to that of relative in-group gain.
-This suggests that personality influences how prejudiced a person will be.

Question 27

Describe Adorno’s (1950) findings on the influence of personality on prejudice.

Answer 27

Used the F-scale questionnaire to assess Authoritarian personality and found that people with Authoritarian Personalities are more likely to be prejudiced, regardless of the group they belong to.

Question 28

What we can conclude about Social Identity Theory as an explanation of prejudice?

(Support)

Answer 28

-The idea that prejudice stems from social identity and levels of self-esteem is useful in explaining group processes such as in-group and out-group behaviour. –Social identity theory also offers useful implications for reducing prejudice, for example by increasing self esteem.
-Tajfel’s minimal groups research clearly demonstrates that outgroup status alone is enough to provoke different treatment in the absence of any realistic conflict for limited resources, which provides strong support for social identity theory as an explanation of prejudice.

Question 29

What we can conclude about Social Identity Theory as an explanation of prejudice?

(Refute)

Answer 29

-However, support for social identity theory is undermined by the fact that the minimal group experiments have low mundane realism therefore the findings may not be replicated in a real-life setting which lowers the overall validity of the Social Identity. Theory of Prejudice.