Tajfel and Turner's social identity theory (pack 2 prejudice) Flashcards
What does social identity theory look into?
group membership
What does Tajfel suggest about prejudice that conflicts with Sherif?
being in a group is enough to cause conflict, don’t have to be in direct competition, we discriminate people just because they are in a different group to us
what are in-groups and out-groups
a group we have membership to and a group we do not…we favour our own group
what is our personal identity
our personality, unique qualities and self-esteem
what is social identity
formed through membership to our social groups
what does social identity affect
personal identity as they are identify
what does group membership affect?
self-esteem
how do people enhance their self-esteem?
perceive their in-groups as better and hostility towards out-groups
what three processes does SIT suggest is involved in becoming prejudice and what do they mean?
- Social categorisation- we categorise ourselves and others as part of particular social groups
- Social identification- people take on the norms and values of the group that they have categorised themselves in
- Social comparison- self-esteem comes bound up with group membership, if our self-esteem is to be maintained, our group needs to compare well against others
What is in-group favouritism and negative out-group bias?
- tendency to favour and see the individuals as unique
- view members as all the same and unfavourable
so why is there hostility between groups
competing identities
what piece of research supported SIT and what did they find?
Lalonde (1992)
studied a hockey team not doing well, members knew other team were doing better so they claimed they were playing dirtier, thus they claimed moral superiority. Re- looked at match and found they were not playing dirty so he found in-group bias
what are three variables that contribute to in-group favouritism?
i) extent to which the individuals identify with the in-group
ii) the extent to which there are grounds for making comparison with the out-group
iii) relevance of the comparison group in relation to the in-group
What two features of prejudice did Tajfel note?
- Attitudes of discrimination towards an out-group
- Discriminatory behaviour towards an out-group
What experiments did Tajfel do to test his theory?
minimal-group experiment
to test whether just being part of a group was enough to cause prejudice against another group, without competition
in a minimal group, group members are:
- Randomly and arbitrarily created
- there is no contact between group members
- membership of group is anonymised
- the tokens used as a form of currency to allocate rewards
- punishments have no intrinsic value
why did Tajfel do minimal groups
ensure there was no competition
What piece of research conducted an investigation into equal status contact that supported SIT?
Deutsch and Collins
studied desegregated housing project n NYC- predicted a reduction in negative out-group bias
found hat housewives regularly mixed when doing laundry, held each other in higher regard than segregated housing that found each other as inferior
What was some of the procedure for Tajfels minimal group experiment
64 Bristol school boys, whom they assigned to meaningless groups
asked to allocate points to boys in their own group or another group and used a matrix to do this
what was some of the results from tajfels minimal group experiment?
found that boys tended to allocate more points to people in their own group, even though they didn’t know who was in-group and who was out-group
evidence for in-group favouritism
they would try to maximise the difference even if it meant the in-group overall got less points- shows discrimination for out-group
two weaknesses of Tajfel’s study?
low ecological validity- lacks mundane realism
May be see to only reflect the norms in some societies
lacks generalisability
two strengths of Tajfel’s study?
received cross-cultural confirmation
well controlled lab experiment, so high in internal validity
reliability is high- standardised procedures
What are three researchers that support social identity theory?
- Lemyre and Smith- replicated Tajfel, found that discriminating group ppt had higher self esteem after the study
- Cialdini- found that an individuals personal identity is affected by their association to with a football team
- Jane Elliot- showed that social categorisation, where students were divided into blue eyes and brown eyes could lead to prejudice and discrimination
what are two strengths of SIT?
The study was well controlled with an IV and a DV which means that cause and effect can be inferred
useful as it can explain issues such as conflict between football teams and religious groups
What are 3 weaknesses of SIT?
- theory might not apply cross-culturally as WEATHERALL found that new Zealand Polynesians were more likely to favour the out-group, emphasise collectivist cultures…un generalisable
- This was a lab experiment so this may mean demand characteristics
- SIT criticised for lack of completeness and only focuses on groups and no other factors
How would SIT suggest prejudice can be reduced?
encouraging people to see themselves as a larger social identity can combat out-group discrimination
