Lecture 13 Flashcards
What is the idea behind social identity theory?
Theory stating that people derive identity from groups which they belong and strive for those identities to be positive-compare your group to others and judging your group as superior as a means of identity protection.
What is the central tenet behind social identity theory?
Group behaviour arises from a shared sense of social category membership
Where did the idea of social identity theory come from?
Wanting to explain preferences for certain ingroups and also prejudice. Came about in the early 70s.
What is realistic group conflict theory?
The theory that came before SIT. Idea that conflict between groups causes prejudice (ex: fighting over resources, the robbers cave experiment)
What were the ideas behind group preferences prior to SIT and RGCT?
Prejudice and discrimination were thought to be practices among a rare subset of malfunctioning individuals.
What is the difference between personal and social identity?
Personal: Governs behaviour in interpersonal situations
Social: Behaviour in intergroup situations
How does prejudice come about with relation to self-esteem?
People derive identity from the groups to which they belong and use shifting social identities to enhance esteem-prejudice as a means of favouring one’s ingroup and promoting self esteem.
What is the basic idea behind SIT?
The mere membership in a social group can generate intergroup differentiation and prejudice/discrimination. Can happen with arbitrary groups as well.
How did Tajfel, Billig, Bundy, and Flament come up with the idea of SIT?
Study done with British boys doing a dot estimation task. Informed that some people are consistent overestimators and some are consistent underestimators. Neutral condition: Half told they were over, half under. Value condition: Half told they had better accuracy, half told they had worse. They then completed an “unrelated” task wherein rewards were allocated to two people (either In+In, Out+out, or In+out). Identity of receivers was unknown, all they knew was group membership.
What were the results of the study done by Tafjel, Billig, Bundy, and Flament?
When allocation involved the ingroup AND the outgroup, participants consistently favoured the ingroup member. This occurred in BOTH the neutral and the value condition.
What was the second study that Tafjel et al did?
Another group of boys categorized based on painting preferences (half preferred Klee, half preferred Kandinsky). Results again showed preferential ingroup treatment, intergroup competition, prejudice and discrimination.
What is the minimal group paradigm?
Groups they weren’t categorized into before, so that there are no conflicts of interest, previous hostility, or social interaction during the study. All potential causes of discrimination except group membership excluded.
What are the implications behind SIT?
If trivial groups lead to intergroup bias, it is likely that strong bias occurs when people are categorized on the basis of valued groups (race, religion, gender).
What are the 3 variables influencing intergroup differentiation?
1) Individuals must subjectively identify with the group (internalize group membership as an aspect of the self)
2) The situation must allow for evaluative group comparisons (ex: if you don’t recognize the outgroup as distinctive)
3) Outgroup must be considered a sufficiently comparable outgroup (proximity, similarity etc). Pressures for distinctiveness should increase depending on comparability.
What are the 5 variables that influence social identity?
Self categorization Optimal distinctiveness Treat to group Chronic social identities Individual Differences
