Social Identity & Attribution Theory

What is it?

It’s a way to understand how individuals perceive and define themselves within social groups. 

Three components

1. social categorisation

2. social identification

3. social comparison

social categorisation

putting yourself into groups based on common characteristics. e.g., nationality, gender, age, ethnicity, culture, etc.

Social identification

when individuals adopt the identity of the group to feel belonged.

Social comparison

when individual compares their in-group with our-groups (they don’t identify with) to achieve a positive social identity.

Attribution theory

explains how people try to understand the causes of behaviour and events around them. It explains why people success or fail.

dispositional attributions

causes linked to personal traits, abilities, mood or feelings. e.g., thinking someone drove through a red light bc they are a reckless and careless person.

situational attributions

causes come from outside the person, such as luck, other people, or the environment. e.g., thinking someone drove through a red light bc they are rushing to the hospital due to an emergency. 

fundamental attribution error (FAE)

blaming others’ actions mainly on their personality rather than things happening around them which may explain the behaviour. e.g., “they are late bc they are lazy and disroganised” rather than bc there was traffic.

self-serving bias

when individual claims their success is due to their own skills or efforts, but blame failures on external factors, such as bad luck or unfair situations. This boosts their self-esteem. e.g., a student believes they got high score on psych test bc they studied hard, but failed math test bc teacher didn’t teach them the right material.

group-serving bias

similar to self-serving bias but for groups. e.g., the group claims their success is due to internal factors and failures to external factors. Helps group maintain a positive image and strengthen group unity. e.g., a sports team says they won bc of their skills but lost bc of the unfair referee.