S2W2SIT Flashcards
Personal identity
How we distinguish ourselves from others.
Our unique attributes.
Social identity
How we distinguish ourselves from others in terms of group membership.
How we identify in terms of social groups.
Something you have in common with others (kinship).
Affects how you interact.
Types of groups
Friendship, occupational.
Shared enthusiasms.
Demographic.
Real world groups overlap.
Realistic conflict theory
How intergroup hostility can arise as a result of conflicting goals and competition over limited resources.
Explains feelings of prejudice/discrimination toward outgroup that accompany intergroup hostility.
Criticism of RCT
Conflict happens even without scarcity of resources.
Maybe just identifying strongly with a group is enough to create conflict.
Henri Tajfel
Prejudice is cognitive.
Trivial group membership was enoughto create bias.
Minimal group paradigm
Oversestimators (Tajfel)
Group allocation at random
Overestimators vs. underestimators (no real meaning).
Individuals distribute resources to other individuals (in and outgroup).
Ingroup is significantly favoured.
Minimal groups
Groups with no prior conflict.
Kadinsky/Klee experiment (Tajfel)
14-15 year old boys expressed preference for one of two paintings
Randomly allocated to Kandinsky or Klee
Distributed resources (small amounts of money)
Ingroup was favoured
Social Identity Theory (Tajfel and Turner)
Defined by social and personal identities.
People from ingroup seen more favourably.
Group is aspect of our identities.
Two basic aspects:
Distinction between social and personal identities (both important).
Distinction between ingroup and outgroup.
Group identification
The strength of group identification varies between and within people.
High: important part of identity.
Group identification and SIT
Lots of effects of SIT depend how strongly you identify with your group.
High ingroup identification = likely to be affected by self-stereotyping
(if you’re English you think and therefore do act posh).
Positive distinctiveness
Unique as individuals, but part of high-status groups.
Strategies to achieve this as people strive for it.
High status group
People are impressed by your group and you get positive distinctiveness from it.
Social mobility
Move to a higher status group.
Not always possible
• Social creativity
Most common.
Enhance the perceived status of the ingroup.
Turn negatives into positives
Change the basis of comparison (take positive aspect of your group).
Make downward rather than upward comparisons.
Social change
Enhance the actual status of the ingroup via competition and mobilisation.
Japan threatened by America and realised they needed to modernise.
Group taking itself from low social status to high social status.
Uncommon.
Strategy choice
If social mobility is possible it is used (preferred method).
Depends on permeability of group boundaries.
You can change music preference (high permeability)
Can’t change gender (low permeability).
High identifier = unlikely to attempt mobility.
Low identifier = less likely to change status of the group and so will leave.
Collective self esteem
Group has a sense of self-esteem, know whether you are well liked and whether you should like yourselves.
Depersonalisation
Feel less like an individual and more just part of the group
Self categorisation theory (SCT)
Process involving identifying one’s membership of groups.
Focus on membership salience.
Supplement to SIT.
Membership salience
How obvious is membership of a group at the moment.
e.g. wearing football shirts is high salience.
Subordinate and superordinate groups
Self is subordinate to all groups.
Humans are superordinate to all groups.
Some groups contain other groups and whatever you’re thinking about at the time is the most salient one.
Findings of SIT and SCT
Discrimination against outgroups enhances self-esteem (cause or effect).
Higher status groups display more ingroup bias.
Outgroups seen as more homogenous.
Group contact reduces stereotyping and conflict (esp. with common goals).