SIT - SAQ Flashcards
Social identity theory
Proposed by Tajfel is a theory that explains why conflict and discrimination occur
What are the 4 psychological mechanisms?
Social Categorisation
Social identification
Social comparison
Positive distinctiveness
Social categorisation
The process by which we identity which groups we belong to and which groups we do not.
The groups we belong to and identify with are referred to as our ‘in groups’. When referring to our in-group we often use the words ‘we’ and ‘us’.
The groups that we don’t belong to, are referred to as ‘out groups’. When referring to our out groups, we often use the words ‘they’ and ‘them’.
Social identification
Takes place after deciding to belong to the group. This is the process of adopting the norms of the groups and taking on the characteristics of the groups.
Social comparison
We seek to achieve positive self esteem by positively comparing our in group to an out group on some valued dimension to achieve positive distinctiveness.
We favour the traits of our in group, even if we did not necessarily choose to be a part of the group ourselves.
Claims of SIT
Competition over resources is not always necessary for the development of conflict between groups.
The mere perception of belonging to two groups (social categorisation) is sufficient to trigger out-group discrimination and in-group favouritism.
Social categorisation provides individuals with a means of building their social identity. People define themselves in social terms, in terms of being similar to or different from, ‘better’ or ‘worse’ than members of other groups.
Individuals strive to achieve a positive social identity because it increases their self-esteem.
Positive social identity is used on distinctiveness: the in-group must be perceived as positively different from (‘better than’) certain out-groups. This involves the process of social comparison.
When social identity is not positive, individuals will try to either leave the group or make the existing group more positively distinct.
Some of these claims have been supported by what?
Minimal group paradigm
What study is used for SIT?
Tajfel
When was the Tajfel study?
1971
Aim of Tajfel (1971)
To investigate if intergroup discrimination would take place based on being put into different groups.
Tajfel hypothesised that categorisation and discrimination operate automatically, even when there is not necessarily any prior prejudice.
Sample
48 boys, ages 14 - 15
What were the boys meant to do?
They were asked to rate 12 paintings by the abstract expressionist painters Klee and Kandinsky.
They were not aware of which artist had painted which painting during the test.
What happened after the boys rated the paintings?
Randomly allocated to one of two groups and told that they had preferred either Klee or Kandinsky.
Each boy was then given the task to award points to two other boys, one from his same group and one from the other group.
The only information that each boy was given was the code numbers and the name of the group of the two boys they were supposed to award.
What were the two point systems?
1: The point scores for each boy were linked so that the sum of the two scores was 15.This means that as the score for the participant increases, the score of the other boy decreases.
2: If a Klee member chose a high value for another Klee member, it would give a higher profit to the out-group.
If a Klee member chose a mid-range value for another Klee member, it would give the same points for the other group.
If a Klee member chose a low value for another Klee member, it would award only 1 point to the other team.
Results
Point system 1: the boys generally awarded more points to the members of their in-group showing in-group favouritism.
Point system 2: the boys were willing to give their own team fewer points with the goal of maximising the difference between their in-group and the out-group. This was a bit surprising since it meant that the boys left the study with fewer points than if they had all given each other the largest number of points possible.
