Social Identity & Grouo Belonging Flashcards
Personal esteem vs group esteem
Related but not identical
The groups we belong to (& relationships) are essential to feeling good about ourselves
Can feel good about yourself but not about your groups
Can feel good about your group but not yourself
The need to belong
People join groups simply because they have a basic core, need to belong
Being excluded has strong negative effects on our psychological well-being & vice versa
We seek out others & form groups
Ostracism; anger, sadness, meaningless, loss of control
Lonely people especially likely to want to join groups
Defining ourselves & self-esteem
Social identity theory; people determine who they are in part by the groups they belong to
Social identities play important role in defining ourselves; when groups attacked, self is attacked
Provide us with pride & self-esteem at collective & personal level
Without groups we wouldn’t be able to know who we really are
Support
After critisising another group of writing positively about own group, self-esteem rises
People align more with groups doing well
People were more shirts in support of their fave teams if they have won than when they have lost
Sociometer theory
Forming groups essential to survival
Humans safer in groups
Sociometer acts as gauge to determine if we are effectively immersed enough with others
The gauge is self-esteem; if low gauge, triggers us to find social relationships & groups
But only need to many, at certain point, gauge is full & don’t need to continue
Terror management theory
People motivated to achieve sense of immortality
Groups provide sense of symbolic immorality (contribute something that outlines the self) & self-esteem
Mortality salience found to increase; the humanness people attribute own group, desire for close relationships, motivation to join groups, support for people who uphold values of group, desire to punish those who don’t
When norms/values associated with ones culture/group threatened, death thought assecibility increases
Meaning maintenance model
Posits that all threats, mortality thoughts & self esteem being diminished, uncertainty etc boil down to disruption to expectations & sense-making
Meaning motivates people e.g. reliable & predictable schemas & expectations
Viewing absurd art or reading story with no ending elicits effects mentioned
In groups & out groups
People tend to show strong preference for own groups
Includes allocation of resources, voting decisions, overall positive/negative views, who parents want children to marry & humanness people attribute to a person
Infra-humanisation
Secondary emotions; perceived as unique to humans e.g. love, guilt
People rate members of own groups as higher on these emotions & humanness
Extends to large list of traits & not just emotions
Blatant dehumanisation
More direct comparisons between out-groups & animals occur
Increase in times of conflict
In-group heterogeneity effect
In-group perceived as being varied
Out-group perceived as being same
Out-group member represents entire group more than in-group represents group
Ingroup homogeneity effect is the same
Examining group bias
Can just love in group & have no negative views of outgroup or v negative views of outgroup
In group favouritism doesn’t always mean outgroup hate but increase chance of hate
In normal conditions, in group love not that related to outgroup hate but perceived threat, belief in moral superiority & distrust increase it
How quick are we to form groups
If all psychological needs satisfied by group memberships, makes sense that we would be motivated to form groups
In absence of existing group memberships, people quick to form groups & favour them
Minimal group paradigm
Split pp up based on physical characteristics, shared interest, trait or something very vague
People will favour others who they haven’t even met if groups formed on these traits
Often these groups actually created randomly
Ecological validity; groups not formed this way irl
Behaving in a group
Groups cant create deindividuation
When self-awareness lost, people can be more prone to antisocial behaviour
Swept up in moment
Less likely to get caught or held responsible
High levels of mimicry of others in a situation
Thinking in a group
Risky shift; groups tend to make riskier decisions that individuals
Group polarisation effect; if discussing outgroup with ingroup, tends to create even stronger negative views of outgroup
Average leaning of individuals is maximised & intensifies when discussing things in group
Ingroup & moral reasoning
Moral foundations theory; morality can be split into harm, fairness, purity, ingroup betrayal & authority
Left/right wing & morality
Right wing people tend to rely more on ingroup betrayal than left wing people
Left wing people tend to rely more on fairness & harm than right wing people
Emergent norm theory
Non-normative behaviour develops in crowds due to new norms that form, most salient oriole in crowd shape new norms
Allport
Argued that groups simply intensive individuals behaviour
Behaviour that ensues in crowd is just an amplification of tendencies of the people in the crowd
The more like minded the crowd, the more dangerous actions this can create
Contagion theory
Crowds change the individual
A person may act in a group/crowd in ways they wouldn’t act alone
The ‘hive mind’ develops in crowds & groups
Thinking as a group instead of an individual is dangerous
Behaviour/choices often decided by noisiest, most outspoken, disruptive member of crowd/group
Anonymity can reduce effects of anxiety of consequences
Consensus/norms
Altering number of people others think holds a viewpoint alters someone’s own viewpoint
In new situation, may rely on existing norms you know & look around to see how others act
How others act gives you permission & guidelines on how to act/think
People tend to die okay how influenced they are by groups, people tend to die okay how much they are influenced by social forces
System justification theory
People have very strong motivation to rationalise & justify existing social system
For low status groups, there is conflict between supporting existing social system & supporting own group
When people read stories of who was hired for job, tend to falsely remember ‘just’ reasons
Sometimes actually display outgroup favouritism
The self within the group
Optimal distinctiveness; people tend to try & balance their uniqueness within a group with need to belong to the group
People rate ingroup as more similar to self
Weak ties
Frequent social interaction good for mental health
Even if casual encounters & don’t know other person very well
Mundane, everyday interactions are good
