Week 1 – Social identity Theory
Live lecture
Rejection minorities: course topics
- Understand majority groups’ reaction to minorities
- The central theories explaining intergroup relations
• Social identity theory
• Realistic group conflict theory
• Contact theory
• Social dominance orientation
• Right-wing authoritarianism
• Integrated threat theory
• Theories of socialization
Course topics
- Discrimination
- How to measure prejudice
- Voting for the extreme right (and extreme left)
Learning goals of the course
- After following this course, you will be able to…
• Explain the most important theories on intergroup prejudice and intergroup
relations
• Apply various theories about intergroup behavior to societal problems
• Analyze to what extent these theories contradict or complement each other
• Derive concrete, testable hypotheses and develop appropriate research
designs to test them
,Video lecture
Todays topics
- Video 1
• Research philosophy
- Video 2
• Minimal Group Experiments
- Video 3
• Social identity Theory
- Video 4
• Understanding behavior
Research philosophy
- Different disciplines have different research philosophies
- Here: Problem-driven research
1. Problem
2. Theory
3. Research
Problem-based research questions
- Problem = societal issue & a related question
- Related question = research question: judgement and value free, as specific as
possible
• Descriptive question: to what extent do we observe a problem?
• Trend question: how did the problem change over time?
• Comparison question: to what extent are there differences within a problem?
• Explanation question (why-question): why does this problem exist? Why did
the problem change? Why do we observe differences?
Group formation
- Categorization process is a central component of Social Identity Theory
• Evolutionary perspective: necessary to distinguish friend and enemy
• Cognitive perspective: necessary to process large amount of information
Categorization
- People search actively for information
- People simplify processing all that information by ignoring certain differences and
emphasizing (or even exaggerating) certain similarities of that information
Non-social versus social stimuli
- Categorization of non-social stimuli: similarities within groups and differences
between groups are over-emphasized
- Can this be generalized to social stimuli?
SIT: Minimal group experiment
- Goal: manipulate social categorization as an independent variable
• Step 1: generate social categorization on basis of a trival criterion
, • Step 2: Let participants give rewards to members of their own and the other
group
Part 1: dot estimation task
- How many dots do you estimate are in this ure?
Part 2: Rewarding people
- Ostensibly unrelated 2nd experiment
- Give monetary reward to 2 people
- Potential strategies:
• Fairness (both get same amount)
• Maximum joint profit (maximum payoff for both)
• Maximum ingroup profit
• Maximum difference in favor of in-group
- Experimental conditions
• Condition A: both in-group members
• Condition B: both out-group members
• Condition C: one in-group, one out-group member
Conclusion minimal-group experiments
- Group formation leads to discriminatory behavior (in-group favorism)
- Even if groups are formed on basis of a trival category
- Tajfel: “Social categorization per se is a sufficient condition for the development of
intergroup bias” (discrimination in favor of the own group)
SIT: four central concepts
1. Social categorization
2. Social identity
3. Social comparison
4. Psychological group distinctiveness
, Social categorization
- “process of bringing together social objects or events in groups which are equivalent
with regard to an individual’s actions, intentions and system of beliefs” (Tajfel)
- Similar to categorization of non-social stimuli:
• Use of any characteristic available
• Perceive more similarity within and more difference between categories
- Not just the basis of how we perceive the world, but also who we perceive ourselves
Social Identity
- Social identity is based the realization that one belongs to a social category and the
positive or negative evaluation associated with this membership
• Are divisive and exclusive
• Are context dependent
• Have a cultural component: This turns a category into an identity
• Include a judgement of nature of people in a certain category
→ This is more than a minimal group. Social identities may thus have even
more powerful consequences in intergroup interaction!
Social comparison
- Through social comparison with other groups, people try to evaluate their group’s
relative status
- People strive for a positive social identity
• People are motivated to belong to a positively evaluated group
- They value their own group more than other groups (social identification versus
contra-identification)
Psychological group distinctiveness
- Need for belonging to a positively evaluated group but also need to be distinct from
others
- People thus try to achieve a position of their group that is distinct and positive
Live lecture
Rejection minorities: course topics
- Understand majority groups’ reaction to minorities
- The central theories explaining intergroup relations
• Social identity theory
• Realistic group conflict theory
• Contact theory
• Social dominance orientation
• Right-wing authoritarianism
• Integrated threat theory
• Theories of socialization
Course topics
- Discrimination
- How to measure prejudice
- Voting for the extreme right (and extreme left)
Learning goals of the course
- After following this course, you will be able to…
• Explain the most important theories on intergroup prejudice and intergroup
relations
• Apply various theories about intergroup behavior to societal problems
• Analyze to what extent these theories contradict or complement each other
• Derive concrete, testable hypotheses and develop appropriate research
designs to test them
,Video lecture
Todays topics
- Video 1
• Research philosophy
- Video 2
• Minimal Group Experiments
- Video 3
• Social identity Theory
- Video 4
• Understanding behavior
Research philosophy
- Different disciplines have different research philosophies
- Here: Problem-driven research
1. Problem
2. Theory
3. Research
Problem-based research questions
- Problem = societal issue & a related question
- Related question = research question: judgement and value free, as specific as
possible
• Descriptive question: to what extent do we observe a problem?
• Trend question: how did the problem change over time?
• Comparison question: to what extent are there differences within a problem?
• Explanation question (why-question): why does this problem exist? Why did
the problem change? Why do we observe differences?
Group formation
- Categorization process is a central component of Social Identity Theory
• Evolutionary perspective: necessary to distinguish friend and enemy
• Cognitive perspective: necessary to process large amount of information
Categorization
- People search actively for information
- People simplify processing all that information by ignoring certain differences and
emphasizing (or even exaggerating) certain similarities of that information
Non-social versus social stimuli
- Categorization of non-social stimuli: similarities within groups and differences
between groups are over-emphasized
- Can this be generalized to social stimuli?
SIT: Minimal group experiment
- Goal: manipulate social categorization as an independent variable
• Step 1: generate social categorization on basis of a trival criterion
, • Step 2: Let participants give rewards to members of their own and the other
group
Part 1: dot estimation task
- How many dots do you estimate are in this ure?
Part 2: Rewarding people
- Ostensibly unrelated 2nd experiment
- Give monetary reward to 2 people
- Potential strategies:
• Fairness (both get same amount)
• Maximum joint profit (maximum payoff for both)
• Maximum ingroup profit
• Maximum difference in favor of in-group
- Experimental conditions
• Condition A: both in-group members
• Condition B: both out-group members
• Condition C: one in-group, one out-group member
Conclusion minimal-group experiments
- Group formation leads to discriminatory behavior (in-group favorism)
- Even if groups are formed on basis of a trival category
- Tajfel: “Social categorization per se is a sufficient condition for the development of
intergroup bias” (discrimination in favor of the own group)
SIT: four central concepts
1. Social categorization
2. Social identity
3. Social comparison
4. Psychological group distinctiveness
, Social categorization
- “process of bringing together social objects or events in groups which are equivalent
with regard to an individual’s actions, intentions and system of beliefs” (Tajfel)
- Similar to categorization of non-social stimuli:
• Use of any characteristic available
• Perceive more similarity within and more difference between categories
- Not just the basis of how we perceive the world, but also who we perceive ourselves
Social Identity
- Social identity is based the realization that one belongs to a social category and the
positive or negative evaluation associated with this membership
• Are divisive and exclusive
• Are context dependent
• Have a cultural component: This turns a category into an identity
• Include a judgement of nature of people in a certain category
→ This is more than a minimal group. Social identities may thus have even
more powerful consequences in intergroup interaction!
Social comparison
- Through social comparison with other groups, people try to evaluate their group’s
relative status
- People strive for a positive social identity
• People are motivated to belong to a positively evaluated group
- They value their own group more than other groups (social identification versus
contra-identification)
Psychological group distinctiveness
- Need for belonging to a positively evaluated group but also need to be distinct from
others
- People thus try to achieve a position of their group that is distinct and positive
