social identity theory Flashcards
what is prejudice
a biased belief held about an individual or group prior to direct experience of that person/people
what is social identity theory
the view that your behaviour is motivated by your social identity
what does someone’s self-image comprise of?
- personal identity (based on your characteristics and achievments)
- social identity (deternimed by the various groups of people to which you belong)
what does social identity theory suggest?
that humans have a strong desire to belong and that we derive self-esteem through group membership and the acceptance of others.
- much of our social behaviour is driven by the motivation to maintain a positive sense of self as a valued member of the group.
what are the three stages of social identity theory?
- social categorisation
- social identification
- social comparison
what is ingroup and outgroup?
the ingroup is the group to which we feel that we belong and the outgroup is anyone who not part of our group.
what is social categorisation?
social categorisation refers to the separation of individuals into a group - ingroup or outgroup.
Tajfel and Turner argue that categorisation is a basic characteristic of human thought and that we have little control of this.
- they argue that the mere exsitence of the outgroup is enough to bring about prejudice.
what is social identification?
this involves the individual adopting the group’s beliefs, attitudes and values and altering their behaviour to fit with the norms of the group
- this also includes a shift in the person’s thinking and involves a change to his or her self-concept
what is social comparison?
an individual may boost their self-esteem by comparing the in and outgroups.
- self esteem is attached to your self-concept which relies on the ingroup being the best.
the comparisons may not be objective since they impact self-esteem.
what is the quest for positive distinctiveness?
this is the desire to see the ingroup as different and better
- differences are emphasized and similarities are minimised.
this may lead to prejudice between in and outgroups
what is a strength of social identity theory?
a strength of SIT is that there is support from the MINIMAL GROUP STUDIES.
- Tajfel and Turner worked with 15 yr old boys from bristol and created in and outgroups by telling them that the other boys had or hadn’t acted like them in a previous task (picking paintings)
- later the boys were asked to allocate points to the other bosy and were told that they would be exchanged for money.
the boys opted to maximise the difference in points awarded to the ingroup boys
high validity
what is the competing argument to the support from the minimal group studies?
although the study appears to support SIT, the task of privately allocating points lacks mundane realism.
- in real life we may be less discriminatory as there may be unpleasant social consequences for such actions.
this means the study lacks ecological validity
what is a weakness of SIT?
the research evidence suggests that it may only explain intergroup behaviour in western communities (ethnocentric)
- a replication in new zealand using both white and polynesian children found that the polynesian children were mmuch more generous than their white classmates
how can SIT be applied?
SIT provides testable suggestions for how prejudice can be reduced through efforts to increase self-esteem
- Fein and Spencer gave students a sense of high or low self-esteem (using false feedback on an IQ test) and students who had low self-esteem later rated jewish applicants for a job less favourably than italian candidates but this was not true for ones with higher self-esteem.
this suggests that prejudice in a society could be decreased by implementing policies that target low self-esteem.
