Social identity theory
As proposed by Tajfel
In Brief
A person has not one “personal self” but
rather several selves that corresponds to
widening circles of group membership.
Social identities
Trigger individuals to think, feel and act on bases of
group membership.
“Social identity is the individual’s self-concept derived
from perceived membership of social groups (Hogg and
Vaughan, 2002)
 You act as representation of a group rather than
yourself.
Jane Elliot
Research: Blue
Eyes – Brown
Eyes
Five Steps to Tyranny - Step one
"us and them"
Research: Minimal group
studies
Turner and Tajfel showed that there mere act of individuals
categorizing themselves as group members was sufficient to lead them
to display ingroup favourism (1986)
Eg. Studies on the minimal group paradigm (Kadinsky versus Klee
experiment) when members of random groups were to divide points to
in-groups vs. out-groups (Tajfel, 1971).
These studies are reproduced and supported by many, but also critized.
Perhaps the effects are due to demand characteristics (Hogg and
Vaughan, 2008) – but on the other hand the minimal group effect can
be obtained also when they did not know they were observed.
Naturalistic observations has also shown the same (eg. Brown with
wage negotiation in a British aircraft engineering factory).
3 fundamental psychological
mechanisms underlying SIT
SOCIAL
CATEGORIZATION
SOCIAL
COMPARISON
POSITIVE
DISTINCTIVENESS
SOCIAL
CATEGORIZATION
The cognitive process
where objects, events and
people are classified into
categories.
By doing this we tend to
exaggerate the similarities
in our group and
exaggerate the differences
to other groups.
Social comparison
We tend to compare
our own social group to
other groups.
We distance ourselves
from groups that does
not share the same
beliefs and ideas – and
take more account of
beliefs in our own.
POSITIVE DISTINCTION
The motivation to show that our
ingroup is preferable to an
outgroup.
This is done by:
•
Ethnocentrism (“the
ingroup-serving bias” – the
group equivalent to SSB)
•
Ingroup favouritism
•
Stereotypical thinking
•
Conformity to ingroup
norms.
On top of this
We seem to have a tendency to
use group membership as a
source of positive self esteem.
Interestingly: the harder it is to
leave a group, the more we
compare our group with other
lower status groups to boost our
self esteem. So if we cannot leave
a group we tend to believe the
group is better than and others
worse – than if we could (see
dissonance theory)
Liverpool vs United
On the topic of soccer and
SIT
Breakwell (1978) studied teenage soccer fans, some of
whom went to most games, whilst others did not go to
games. Those who did not go to games were the most
vehement about their loyalty and showed most in-group
bias, presumably as they had a greater need to prove
themselves as fans.
Discuss: own examples of this.
An evaluation of SIT
STRENGTHS:
-
Starting with Tajfel’s pioneering minimal group
studies, SIT has been supported by hundreds of
relevant empirical studies.
-
SIT drew the distinction between personal identity and
social identity and explored our basic need to belong.
A new area at the time.
-
The orignial SIT theory has been expanding over the
years and continues to generate a lot of research
An evaluation of SIT
WEAKNESSES
•
It describes but does not accurately predict human behaviour. Why is it that
in some cases personal identiy is stronger than the group identity?
•
Can be accused of being reductionist if used isolated from other factors (e.g.
cultural expectations, rewards as motivators)
As with a lot of social research (see Zimbardo and Milgram for example) SIT
was to favour situational explanations over dispositional ones when explaining
groupmembers’ behaviour. Yet, some evidence shows that individual
differences do make a change – competitive participants showed greater
ingroup favouritism than cooperative participants for example (Platow, 1990)
The self-esteem hypothesis, which figured extensively in the original statement
is not seen as, as important any longer as it is shown to lead to short-lived
effects on how in-group members see themselves (Rubin and Hewstone, 1998)
You’ll hear more about SIT
when we:
In this level of analysis
Discuss stereotypes
Discuss conformity
But also when we discuss:
•
Normality ideas and self-fulfilling prophesies/labelling
in the Abnormal Option.
•
Health promotion (trying to predict who will change
their behaviour) in the Health Option