Tajfel et Al 1971 Exam With Complete Solutions
Aim - ANSWER To test whether the simple act of grouping was enough to produce
prejudice between groups of very similar people even when there is no history or
competition between the groups.
Sample - ANSWER An opportunity sample of 64 14-15 year old boys from a Bristol
comprehensive school was used, who supposedly already had a cohesive (one) group
identity.
Procedure experiment 1 - ANSWER 1) tested in a laboratory in eight separate groups of
eight boys.
2) taken to a lecture room and told that the study was investigating visual judgements.
3) shown 40 different dot clusters on a screen and asked to estimate the number of dots
in each cluster.
4) then divided into two experimental groups. Condition 1 - over-estimators
Condition 2 more accurateIn
5)They were then told they were required to take part in further investigation on other
kinds of decision-making.
6) assigned to groups according to the judgements they had made about the number of
dots.
7) They were randomly allocated to groups and in condition 1, boys were designated as
'overestimators' or 'underestimators', in condition 2 they were split into 'better' or
'worse' accuracy groups.
8) They were told that the task involved money in rewarding and punishing the other
, boys and they had to choose how much to reward or punish the other boy, whether they
were in their own group or the other group, or whether one was in his group and the
other was not.
9) They were taken to separate cubicles and in each cubicle there was a booklet with a
matrix which had two rows each with 14 numbers, with each number in a box.
10) The numbers represented the amount of money they were either rewarding or taking
from the other boys.
Matrices - ANSWER There were three kinds of matrices; in-group choices is when the
boys in both rows were members of the participants own group, out-group choices is
when the boys in both rows were members of the other group, and intergroup choices is
when one row identified a member of the participants own group and the other row was
from the out-group. One row referred to one boy and one to the other boy, so they had
to choose which pair they wanted that would affect both of them. If they gave as much
as possible to one boy, this was given a score of 14 and a score of 1 if they had given a
boy as little as possible. A fair score would be 7 because that would mean they had
allocated rewards/punishments fairly.
Results for experiment 1 - ANSWER It seemed that when decisions involved boys in the
same group, the choices were fairer than when decisions were made about 2 boys in
different groups.
When decisions involved boys from different groups (in-group/out-group), the results
were closely distributed around the point of fairness, with the average score being 7.5.
For intergroup decisions (in-group/in-group or out-group/out-group) Tajfel found that
the large majority of participants gave more money to members of their in-group, with
the average score being 9/14.
Aim - ANSWER To test whether the simple act of grouping was enough to produce
prejudice between groups of very similar people even when there is no history or
competition between the groups.
Sample - ANSWER An opportunity sample of 64 14-15 year old boys from a Bristol
comprehensive school was used, who supposedly already had a cohesive (one) group
identity.
Procedure experiment 1 - ANSWER 1) tested in a laboratory in eight separate groups of
eight boys.
2) taken to a lecture room and told that the study was investigating visual judgements.
3) shown 40 different dot clusters on a screen and asked to estimate the number of dots
in each cluster.
4) then divided into two experimental groups. Condition 1 - over-estimators
Condition 2 more accurateIn
5)They were then told they were required to take part in further investigation on other
kinds of decision-making.
6) assigned to groups according to the judgements they had made about the number of
dots.
7) They were randomly allocated to groups and in condition 1, boys were designated as
'overestimators' or 'underestimators', in condition 2 they were split into 'better' or
'worse' accuracy groups.
8) They were told that the task involved money in rewarding and punishing the other
, boys and they had to choose how much to reward or punish the other boy, whether they
were in their own group or the other group, or whether one was in his group and the
other was not.
9) They were taken to separate cubicles and in each cubicle there was a booklet with a
matrix which had two rows each with 14 numbers, with each number in a box.
10) The numbers represented the amount of money they were either rewarding or taking
from the other boys.
Matrices - ANSWER There were three kinds of matrices; in-group choices is when the
boys in both rows were members of the participants own group, out-group choices is
when the boys in both rows were members of the other group, and intergroup choices is
when one row identified a member of the participants own group and the other row was
from the out-group. One row referred to one boy and one to the other boy, so they had
to choose which pair they wanted that would affect both of them. If they gave as much
as possible to one boy, this was given a score of 14 and a score of 1 if they had given a
boy as little as possible. A fair score would be 7 because that would mean they had
allocated rewards/punishments fairly.
Results for experiment 1 - ANSWER It seemed that when decisions involved boys in the
same group, the choices were fairer than when decisions were made about 2 boys in
different groups.
When decisions involved boys from different groups (in-group/out-group), the results
were closely distributed around the point of fairness, with the average score being 7.5.
For intergroup decisions (in-group/in-group or out-group/out-group) Tajfel found that
the large majority of participants gave more money to members of their in-group, with
the average score being 9/14.
