Social Identity and the Self
, Social identity and self-categorisation theories
History
Psychology has had difficulties in accounting for social behaviour. The power of context has been
undervalued. But what gives social situations power?
Sherif was one of the first experimental social psychologists – robbers cave experiment. He created
the realistic conflict theory.
Sociologists also looked at this and created the relative deprivation theory. But both of these
theories were relatively vague overall.
Social comparison theory – fesinger
When people are uncertain of their abilities and opinion they evaluate themselves through
comparisons with similar others. They then describe themselves in terms of their unique quantities
in relation to others, both in similarities and differences. Our selves are relative social constructs that
can vary depending on context.
Lewin (1951) – behaviour is a function of the person and their environment – more vague, is an
interaction between the two.
Still not enough, where does the self fit in. Under what contexts does self = behaviour vs group? And
how and when?
Milgram – 30 different version of the shock experiment. Included a ppt holding the other person’s
hand down, one where there were more investigators watching, one occurred in a butchers shop vs
a lab. The context gave very different results. A contradictory investigator dropped obedience to 0%
If a peer was also doing the same behaviour, obedience increased to 90%. People identify with
different people during the course of the study, either the experimenter, the confederate or a peer.
Identification with the experimenter was most prominent. But this study has been blown out of
proportion, as with Zimbardo. Milgram never said that blind obedience was equal to evil. He said is
study was equally about obedience and disobedience. In the classic experiment, most people
disobey, most people refuse to continue to the end. It turns out that most people do things because
they want to. The Nazi’s didn’t just blindly follow orders, they wanted to do it – Lozowick (2002) –
found diaries, stating that nazi’s would take the Jews on a train and shoot them in a ditch, so their
supervisors told them “If you find it distasteful” then you don’t have to do it, 80% of them did do it.
First crisis in social psych (60-70’s)
Elms (1975) believed that social psych was a failure because it was too reductionist and had poor
theories with little predictive value. They were blind to culture and had poor experimental methods.
Did not report all of their controls i.e. how big or little was the room, what did the room look like,
how many people were in the room.
, Social identity and self-categorisation theories
History
Psychology has had difficulties in accounting for social behaviour. The power of context has been
undervalued. But what gives social situations power?
Sherif was one of the first experimental social psychologists – robbers cave experiment. He created
the realistic conflict theory.
Sociologists also looked at this and created the relative deprivation theory. But both of these
theories were relatively vague overall.
Social comparison theory – fesinger
When people are uncertain of their abilities and opinion they evaluate themselves through
comparisons with similar others. They then describe themselves in terms of their unique quantities
in relation to others, both in similarities and differences. Our selves are relative social constructs that
can vary depending on context.
Lewin (1951) – behaviour is a function of the person and their environment – more vague, is an
interaction between the two.
Still not enough, where does the self fit in. Under what contexts does self = behaviour vs group? And
how and when?
Milgram – 30 different version of the shock experiment. Included a ppt holding the other person’s
hand down, one where there were more investigators watching, one occurred in a butchers shop vs
a lab. The context gave very different results. A contradictory investigator dropped obedience to 0%
If a peer was also doing the same behaviour, obedience increased to 90%. People identify with
different people during the course of the study, either the experimenter, the confederate or a peer.
Identification with the experimenter was most prominent. But this study has been blown out of
proportion, as with Zimbardo. Milgram never said that blind obedience was equal to evil. He said is
study was equally about obedience and disobedience. In the classic experiment, most people
disobey, most people refuse to continue to the end. It turns out that most people do things because
they want to. The Nazi’s didn’t just blindly follow orders, they wanted to do it – Lozowick (2002) –
found diaries, stating that nazi’s would take the Jews on a train and shoot them in a ditch, so their
supervisors told them “If you find it distasteful” then you don’t have to do it, 80% of them did do it.
First crisis in social psych (60-70’s)
Elms (1975) believed that social psych was a failure because it was too reductionist and had poor
theories with little predictive value. They were blind to culture and had poor experimental methods.
Did not report all of their controls i.e. how big or little was the room, what did the room look like,
how many people were in the room.
