Socio-Cult: Social Identity Theory SIT

Question 1

WHATS SOCIAL IDENTITY THEORY

Answer 1

Social Identity Theory argues that a person has not just one “personal self”, but rather several social selves that correspond to group membership.

It identified three psychological mechanisms involved in the creation of social identity: The first mechanism is SOCIAL CATEGORIZATION: the process by which you group people based on similar characteristics - like their gender, age, nationality, etc..

This categorization gives rise to in-groups (us) and out-groups (them). Second, is SOCIAL IDENTIFICATION, which is how we adopt the identity of our “in groups” We have categorized ourselves as belonging to follow their social norms and feel a stronger sense of belonging to then boost self-esteem.

SOCIAL COMPARISON is when we tend to compare ‘our’ group with other groups. If our self-esteem is to be maintained our group needs to compare favorably with other groups.

Question 2

RESEARCHER & AIM

Answer 2

Tajfel et al : Investigate whether in-group favoritism would influence out-group discrimination

Question 3

PROCEDURE AND PPTS

Answer 3

60 boys who knew each other

-> shown paintings of Klee and Kandinsky
-> randomly allocated based on their painting preferences

G1: same preference
G2: Diff preference

-> asked to distribute money to in-group or out-group

3 OPTIONS

1) Max joint profit (lose, win 15:30 pts)
2) Max in-group profit (in-grp favoritism)
3) Max difff in profit (out-group discrimination, 7:1)

Question 4

RESULTS

Answer 4

Generally, participants favored their own in-group. It was also found that the boys were willing to give their in-group smaller amount of virtual money with the goal of maximizing the difference between themselves and the out-group

Question 5

CONCLUSION

Answer 5

Social identity Theory helps explain why we behave the way that we do as members of groups. Tajfel wanted to find the minimal level necessary for group identification and out-group discrimination to take place. He found that the mere fact of being put in a group(even on the basis of something insignificant as painter preferences) was enough to generate form of out-group discrimination (prejudice). This is why the study is known as the minimal group paradigm.