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