Social Identity Theory Flashcards
What is the Social Identity Theory?
Tajfel and Turner state our identities are linked to the social groups which we belong.
We have a strong desire to belong and we derive self-esteem through group membership and acceptance of others.
The existence of different groups in society leads to prejudice and discrimination.
What are the stages of the cognitive process?
- Social Categorisation
- Social Identification
- Social Comparison
Social Categorisation
When people classify themselves or other people as members of particular groups, e.g. based on gender, age, etc.
Social Identification
Adopting characteristics/norms/values of the group we have membership to.
Social Comparison
Putting down out-group to maintain self-esteem and demonstrating in-group favourtisim and negative out-group bias
What was the procedure of Tajfel and Turner’s minimal groups study (Experiment 2)?
- 3 groups of 16 boys were used
- They were shown slides of paintings by ‘Klee’ and ‘Kandinsky’. They were not told which paintings were by which artist.
- They were asked to indicate their preference for each painting.
- The boys were then told they would be assigned to groups based on their preference for either Klee or Kandinsky. They were actually randomly assigned.
- Different matrices were used to investigate factors leading to decisions about rewards and penalties.
- The matrices were designed to show whether the boys would reward their own or the other group, penalise their own or the other group or show fairness to both groups
What were the findings?
The boys consistently rewarded their own group, ignoring the fairer alternative, therefore demonstrating in-group favouritism even though they did not know who was in each group. In fact, the boys failed to maximise their own profit in order to ensure that the other group was penalised.
What was the conclusion?
We have norms of behaviour for out-groups which include discriminating against them.
Simply not being in the same group could lead you to treat someone differently.
Strength of Social Identity Theory
There is research evidence which supports the Social Identity Theory.
For example, the Tajfel minimal group studies showed that boys would display preference to their in-group when allocating points based on the painting they liked, even when the boys did not know who was in their in-group and there was no competition between the two groups.
This demonstrates the principles of social identity theory; individuals will be prejudice due to the mere existence of there being an in-group and out-group, in the absence of competition.
Weakness of Social Identity Theory
The theory on attitudes towards outgroups however may be ethnocentric to Western cultures. Wetherell (1982) found that in her replication of Tajfel’s experiment with 8 year old schoolchildren in New Zealand, indigenous Polynesian students were more generous with their points allocations to the outgroup as compared to their caucasian peers. This suggests that SIT may be ethnocentric, as it fails to predict the non-prejudiced behaviours of collectivist cultures when being split into different groups.
