Social Identity Theory - Park & Rothbart

Social Identity theory

• the way someone thinks about themselves and evaluates themselves in relation to group memberships

• SIT aims to explain how individuals define themselves and which group they belong to

3 Categories of SIT

• social categorisation

• social identification

• social comparison

Social Categorisation

• identification of groups we belong to (in-groups us and we / out-groups they and them)

• tend to exaggerate similarities and differences

social identification

• adopt identity of group in which we categorize ourselves

• self-esteem is bound with group membership

social comparison

• making direct comparisons between in-groups and out-groups

• how we make comparisons could explain beh like conflict, prejudice, and descrimination

• we tend to make biased comparisons

in-group bias

• people tend to favour their in-group over the out-group

• can lead to discrimination against the out-group in favour of in-group members

• can lead to prejudice because we might make judgements about people based on their membership to different social groups

Park & Rothbart aim

to investigate sororities and in-group bias

Park & Rothbart method

• 3 sororities at uni of Oregon who were similar to each other

• 90 pp, 30 from each sorority

• data gathered using questionnaires

• pp asked to rank own sorority and other two in terms of how much each group exhibited ten characteristics (8 favourable and 2 unfavourable)

Park & Rothbart results

• for 8 favourable characteristics, all groups said they were more typical of their own sorority than the other sororities

• for 2 unfavourable characteristics, in-group bias was shown in 2 sororities as they ranked the unfavourable characteristics as being more like other sororities than their own

Park & Rothbart conclusion

• in conclusion, the sororities displayed in-group bias because they all rated themselves highest in exhibiting favourable characteristics and 2 of them rated themselves lowest in exhibiting the unfavourable characteristics

Park & Rothbart link to SIT

• all sororities were similar and yet they still ranked themselves higher than the others which shows in-group bias

• pp compared their own sororities to the other 2 while having to fill out the questionnaire

• members identified strongly with their own sorority and rated it more positive

• rating the in-group higher in the positive traits helped maintain positive self-esteem