social identity theory Flashcards
tajfel what questions can it be useful for
- evaluate social identity theory
tajfel aim
To investigate if intergroup discrimination would take place based on being put into different groups
tajfel participants
48 boys
14-15
british schoolboys
tajfel procedure
-Rate 12 paintings by the painters paul klee and wassily kandinsky
-They were unaware of wich artist painted wich
-Then they were randomly allocated to two groups and told they preferred klee or kadinsky
-They were then asked to award points to one boy in his own group and one in the other group in two ways
-System 1: the sum of the scores equals 15, so if one chooses 8, the other person gets 7.
-System 2: if they chose a high number for themselves, the out group gets a high profit. If they choose a mid range, they get the same on the other group. If they chose a low value, the other group only gets 1 point.
tajfel results
-In system one they tended to award points higher to themselves showing in group favouritism
-In the second one, they were willing to have lower points themselves to maximise the difference between the two groups. Wich is strange as they could have given themselves all the same
-A follow up study by Tajfel and billig 1973 it showed even when they were aware of random allocation, they still show in group favoritism
tajfel conclusion
There is a natural tendency to favour your in group. The groups were meaningless and yet the participants gave themselves a positive identity by awarding themselves more points. All that is needed is a “minimal group”
tajfel strengths
- Highly controlled, minimising confounding variables
- Can be replicated to establish reliability
tgajfel weaknsesses
- Highly artificial, lacks ecological validity
- Demand characteristics from the boys. - They may have seen it as a task they have to win, trying to impress the researcher
- Sampling bias, its just british
aim of hillard and liben
How can social category and salience play a role on the development of steryotes and in group behavior for primary school children
participants hillard and liben
57 us children
3y1m - 5y6m
experimntal style hillard and liben
- pre post test
- experimental
- feild experiment
procedure of hillard and liben
- Each child took a test POAT-AM to measure gender flexibility
- Shown activities and occupations and asked which gender ‘should’ perform it
22 boy activities
20 girl activities
24 neutral activities - The number of ‘boths’ was calculated and the lower it was indicated more gender stereotypes
- Play was observed to see if they played with boys or girls
Schools were allocated to
- High salience; children were made aware of their gender by actions such as separating sexes i need a strong boy ect
- Low salience; no instruction to change behaviours, control group
- the study lasted 2 weeks
results hillard and liben
- In the pre test levels of boths were similar
- After 2 weeks the high salience school has a lower number of boths
- In the low salience group the time playing with the out group, other sex, was not altered
- In the high salience group the time playing with the out group, other sex, decreased massivley
conclusion of hillard and liben
The use of enforcing gender differences, mentioning gender and separating gender played a role on the children’s stereotyping levels and even the treatment to other students
strengths of hillard and liben
- High ecological validity because it was done in a natural environment, meaning it can be applied to real situations
- A cause and effect relationship is indicated
weaknesses of hillard and liben
- Low internal validity, all variables cannot be strictly controlled, they are less certain
- Sampling bias the preschool was not free meaning they are middle upper
- The school had a gender neutrality policy, implying certain standards within the parents making generalizability hard
- Struggle to assess a child’s salience of the matter
- Though debriefing occurred, it is dangerous to manipulate such behaviours in children
aim of hamilton and gifford
Investigate formation of illusory correlations, specifically stereotypical ones
participants hamilton and gifford
40 american undergrads, 20 men 20 woman
procedure hamilton ad gifford
-They were shown statements about people in either group A or B.
- 26ppl = A 13 ppl = B
-Participants were told B was smaller
- Each statement was positive or negative and it was the same in each group
- Participants were then asked to rate members on a series of 20 traits
Given a statement and asked if the person who did it was A or B - Asked to rate how many statements were undesirable
- Half experienced booklet first, others it was rankings
results hamiton and gifford
-Group a was ranked higher for positive traits
-Participants recalled 74% positive traits for A and 54 for B
-Over estimation of negative in minority
Follow up study
- 70 american female undergraduates
Same as the study above but;
- Not told there were fewer in group b
- 4;9 pos;neg from the original 9;4
- This time group b was seen as more positive, wich they concluded by announcing b was smaller in study 1 they appeared to be the minority making them negative
conclusion hamilton and gifford
They argued this was because minority group was smaller in number, so their negativeness was more distinct and represented the group.
strengths hamilton and gifford
-Internal validity; as the groups were simply a and b so no pre-existing stereotypes were present
-Repeated measures and concurrent design of the IV, pos or neg statements means that conditions were run at once. This means that participant variance was eliminated
-Practical application; studies show doctors over remember poor habits in obese patients
