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    Social Identity Theory

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    Johnny S. Corrales
    Social Identity Theory, as proposed by Tajfel, suggests that a person's self-concept is made up of their personal identity as well as their various social identities based on their group memberships. It posits three main psychological mechanisms: social categorization, social comparison, and positive distinctiveness. Through these mechanisms, individuals are motivated to positively distinguish their in-group from out-groups in order to boost their self-esteem. While supported by extensive research, some criticisms of Social Identity Theory include that it does not always accurately predict behavior and may be reductionist by not accounting for other factors like culture and rewards.

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    Social Identity Theory

    Uploaded by

    Johnny S. Corrales
    190 views14 pages
    Social Identity Theory, as proposed by Tajfel, suggests that a person's self-concept is made up of their personal identity as well as their various social identities based on their group memberships. It posits three main psychological mechanisms: social categorization, social comparison, and positive distinctiveness. Through these mechanisms, individuals are motivated to positively distinguish their in-group from out-groups in order to boost their self-esteem. While supported by extensive research, some criticisms of Social Identity Theory include that it does not always accurately predict behavior and may be reductionist by not accounting for other factors like culture and rewards.

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    A glimpse on social identity

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    Social Identity Theory, as proposed by Tajfel, suggests that a person's self-concept is made up of their personal identity as well as their various social identities based on their group memberships. It posits three main psychological mechanisms: social categorization, social comparison, and positive distinctiveness. Through these mechanisms, individuals are motivated to positively distinguish their in-group from out-groups in order to boost their self-esteem. While supported by extensive research, some criticisms of Social Identity Theory include that it does not always accurately predict behavior and may be reductionist by not accounting for other factors like culture and rewards.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PPTX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pptx, pdf, or txt
    190 views14 pages

    Social Identity Theory

    Uploaded by

    Johnny S. Corrales
    Social Identity Theory, as proposed by Tajfel, suggests that a person's self-concept is made up of their personal identity as well as their various social identities based on their group memberships. It posits three main psychological mechanisms: social categorization, social comparison, and positive distinctiveness. Through these mechanisms, individuals are motivated to positively distinguish their in-group from out-groups in order to boost their self-esteem. While supported by extensive research, some criticisms of Social Identity Theory include that it does not always accurately predict behavior and may be reductionist by not accounting for other factors like culture and rewards.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PPTX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pptx, pdf, or txt
    of 14

    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 1
    "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 in-
    group 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).
    Research: Minimal group
    studies
    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 SOCIAL POSITIVE


    CATEGORIZATION COMPARISON 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)
    • In-group 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)
    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 original 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
    identity 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)
    An Evaluation of SIT
    WEAKNESSES
    As with a lot of social research, SIT was to favour situational
    explanations over dispositional ones when explaining group
    members’ behaviour. Yet, some evidence shows that individual
    differences do make a change – competitive participants showed
    greater in-group 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)

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