Social identity theory
Social identity theory was developed by tajfal and Turner two British
psychologists .This theory is an attempt to explain why prejudice and discrimination
occurs between people and groups. Self esteem of a person is based on the group they
belong to, the ingroup ( the group that a person supports and belong to) and the
outgroup( all the group except the group a person supports ). SIT proposes that there
are three stages for group formation: Social categorisation ,social identification and
Social comparison. Social categorisation is when you see yourself as part of a group,
rather than a personal identity (gender, culture etc) this creates a social
identity(identity based on the group). eg:if you support a football team and think you
belong in the group. Once you belong to a group you see everyone as either an ingroup
or an outgroup and pay more attention to the ingroup members, you try to adopt their
values, behaviour,appearances etc this is social identification eg: you start seeing
people who support your football group as ingroup and the ones that support other
groups as outgroups. Social comparison is when you see the product of your group to
be better than the product of the outgroup so that your self esteem becomes better and
inferior this is when prejudice occur when an ingroup member influences an outgroup
this is when discrimination occurs eg:seeing your football group as better that all the
other groups.
One of the main supporting evidence of SIT is the minimal group experiment done by
tajfal on American schoolboys aged 14-15. They were shown two paintings of two
different painters they've never heard or seen of before. Based on their preference of
the painting the boys were divided into two group, they had to give points to the other
boys and this could be exchanged for real money. It was seen that the boys gave more
points to their ingroup members even though the groups were based on meaningless
criteria. This experiment shows how people can discriminate between groups and show
favouritism for their group even if the grouping is based on meaningless criteria as
explained by SIT.
Social identity theory was developed by tajfal and Turner two British
psychologists .This theory is an attempt to explain why prejudice and discrimination
occurs between people and groups. Self esteem of a person is based on the group they
belong to, the ingroup ( the group that a person supports and belong to) and the
outgroup( all the group except the group a person supports ). SIT proposes that there
are three stages for group formation: Social categorisation ,social identification and
Social comparison. Social categorisation is when you see yourself as part of a group,
rather than a personal identity (gender, culture etc) this creates a social
identity(identity based on the group). eg:if you support a football team and think you
belong in the group. Once you belong to a group you see everyone as either an ingroup
or an outgroup and pay more attention to the ingroup members, you try to adopt their
values, behaviour,appearances etc this is social identification eg: you start seeing
people who support your football group as ingroup and the ones that support other
groups as outgroups. Social comparison is when you see the product of your group to
be better than the product of the outgroup so that your self esteem becomes better and
inferior this is when prejudice occur when an ingroup member influences an outgroup
this is when discrimination occurs eg:seeing your football group as better that all the
other groups.
One of the main supporting evidence of SIT is the minimal group experiment done by
tajfal on American schoolboys aged 14-15. They were shown two paintings of two
different painters they've never heard or seen of before. Based on their preference of
the painting the boys were divided into two group, they had to give points to the other
boys and this could be exchanged for real money. It was seen that the boys gave more
points to their ingroup members even though the groups were based on meaningless
criteria. This experiment shows how people can discriminate between groups and show
favouritism for their group even if the grouping is based on meaningless criteria as
explained by SIT.
