Social Idenity Theory Flashcards
Who created the theory and when?
By Tajfel in 1970
What does the theory state can cause prejudice?
Two or more groups
What are the three stages of the theory?
-Social catorgorisation
-Social belief/identification
-Social comparison
What happens in catorgarisation?
-Automatic process
-Being in a group( your in group) where all the members are similar to yourself
What happens in social belief/identification?
-Absorbing the culture of your in-group .
-Their culture forms your identity by taking on their characteristics.
-Assume same for out-group as they are all the same.
What happens in social comparison?
-You try to make yourself and your in-group look better to increase self-esteem.
-Have in-group favouritism and out-group denigration.
What is positive distinctiveness?
Boosting the esteem of the in-group and leads to prejudice.
What is Tajfel’s study to support social identity theory and how?
-Put boys into two groups and said they could punish or reward each other by taking money from the. No boys won or lost anything but they chose to punish the other group.
-Shows you only need two groups to create the prejudice, no competition. Also demonstrates social categorisation.
What was Dobbs and Crano’s (2001) study and how does it conflict social impact theory?
-Under some circumstances there is much less in-group favouritism than suggested by Tajfel.
-Shows in-group favouritism may not be the cause of prejudice, lowering the theories credibility.
How does Sherif support SIT?
The teams favoured each other before conflict was introduced showing only 2 groups are needed to create prejudice.
How does Sherif conflict SIT?
Introduced competition between the boys which heightened and maintained prejudice.
How is the theory usefull?
-Can explain escalation of group behaviour to violence.
-Indicates we need to break down social categorisation and identification to prevent violence.
-Example: football teams.
What other theories can support prejudice other than SIT.
Realistic conflict theory- takes conflict (another factor) into account, not just in-group favouritism.
-RCT also provides a solution for prejudice.
What are the problems with SIT (testability)?
-Ignores individual differences (authorities personality types are more likely to discriminate) and only looks at situational factors so is not a complete explanation of prejudice.
