Social identity theory Flashcards
What is prejudice?
Prejudice is a negative attitude towards a group and/or its members due to preconceived nature
What are the 3 stages of social identity theory?
Categorisation-Seen through observation. People are identified into different groups for factors such as religion, Nationality and physical abilities. Based on how and where you grew up
Identification- Looking at yourself and how you identify: Gender, religion, Sexual orientation, creates a sense of belonging
Comparison is the last stage, where our “us vs them” mentality becomes more prominent
What are the two types of prejudice
In-group favouritism
Out-group Prejudice
What is Jane Elliot’s blue eyes/ brown eyes experiment?
Blue eyes brown-eyes experiment-Jane Elliot
Aim- To test what will happen when two ingroups are formed, in terms of prejudice and discrimination.
Procedure
Experimenter says people with blue eyes are smarter, better, more innocent. Experimenter gives blue eyed people 5 extra minutes of recess and drinking fountain. Experimenter suggests that people with brown eyes shouldn’t play with people with blue eyes.
States that brown-eyed people take longer to do things
Blue-eyed people start discriminating against people with brown eyes started calling them names.
Blue-eyes people and brown-eyed people started acting violent, blue-eyed people started discriminating against brown-eyed people.
Experimenter changed it so that brown-eyed people were better than blue eyed people, made comparisons between blue eyed and brown eyed people .
Told blue eyed people that they’re naughty
Told brown eyed people that they may take off their collars and put them on a blue eyed person, brown eyed people get extra 5 minutes of recess , blue-eyed people and brown-eyed people are not to play together, switched class/priority between blue eyed and brown eyed people
Brown-eyed group took longer to do task when they were deemed inferior compared to blue-eyed people in comparison to when they are superior
DISCRIMINATION
Psychological harm- Low self-esteem for brown eyes people, created a conflict between brown-eyed and blue-eyed people
Results- Groups acted violently towards one another due to social identity theory, In-group developed a prejudice and hatred towards out-group, brown eyes and blue eyes had conflict
Conclusion- shows how co-existence and co-operation is fragile
Jane Elliot used blue eyes and brown eyes as a symbol of race and displayed how racism may occur
Apply social identity theory to blue eyes/brown eyes experiment
Social identity theory is separated into 3 stages, Social categorisation is based on innate features such as eye colour and it is normally observable.
The 2nd stage is social identification where someone identifies/realises a quality about themselves, this can be applied to eye colour.
In identification you find an ingroup and recognise similarities between yourselves and others, this is the stage in which you find an ingroup
Social comparison is recognising the difference between yourself and your ingroup and others, we depict others as the outgroup, the children with blue eyes were an in group and were separate from the outgroup and there was conflict created based on both groups wanting to be superior so the members of that group can have a higher self-esteem, this can be displayed through the fight which happened between a blue eyed boy and the brown eyed boy, this fight was instigated by the blue eyed boy because he wanted his group’s superiority to be felt.
Prejudice is created through the need to have a higher self-esteem, which is carried in wanting you’re in group to have a higher self-esteem, in order for the self-esteem of the group to be cemented, people will dislike or show hate towards people who are different and are out groups.
Evaluate social identity theory
Social identity theory has credible research evidence in the form of Jane Elliot’s blue eyes brown eyes experiment where she looks at the formation of groups and in-group favouritism in addition to outgroup prejudice. In Jane Elliot’s study, there were physical and verbal conflicts between the people with brown eyes and the people with blue eyes due to prejudice.
Social identity theory has been objected by realistic conflict theory which states that people who are parts of groups have conflict due to limited resources, not due to self-image and self-esteem. Realistic conflict theory states that two separate groups can co-exist while social identity theory states that there will be prejudice due to the groups wanting to be better than one another.
Social identity theory has application in aspects such as racial and gender discrimination as it suggests that people who are prejudiced to an outgroup do it to increase the self-image of their own ingroup and their own self esteem.
Social identity theory has differences due to the fact it suggests that everyone is prejudiced and aspires for a higher self-image of their own in-group, however, there have been cases where people have been prejudiced to their own in-group and social identity theory has seemed to deem this as an impossibility.
