SIT social identity theory

sit

a theory within social psychology that focuses on the role of social identities in intergroup behavior.

Abrams et al

Aim Abrams

conducted a study to determine if in-group identity would affect one's willingness to conform. It also looks at the role of SIT on the level of conformity.

Research design Abrams

They used an independent measures design which included four groups and manipulated two different independent variables.

IVs Abrams

One independent variable was whether the confederates were from an in-group (psychology students) or an out-group (ancient history students). The second independent variable was whether the participant's responses were public or private.

Participants Abrams

Fifty undergraduate students (23 males and 27 females) enrolled in an introductory psychology course participated.

Method Abrams

At the start of the experiment, the three confederates were introduced as either first-year students from the psychology department of a prestigious university (in-group) or as students of ancient history (out-group) from that same university. The participants were instructed not to talk to each other. As in the Asch paradigm, the participants were shown a stimulus line, and then three other lines - one of which was the same length as the stimulus line. The task was to identify which of the three lines matched the stimulus line. There were 18 trials. In nine of the trials, the confederates gave the correct response. In nine of the trials the confederates gave a unanimous, incorrect response. In each session the confederates and one naive participant sat in a row. The participant was always placed at one end of the row and always answered last. In the public condition all members of the group gave their judgments aloud, and the experimenter recorded the real participant's responses. In the private condition, however, the experimenter asked if one of the participants would note down the responses. The real participant, who 'happened to be nearest', was asked if he or she would like to record responses. The real participant recorded the cofederates' responses on a score sheet along with his or her own, privately.

Results Abrams

Seventy-seven per cent of all participants conformed to the erroneous confederate judgments on at least one trial. There were no gender differences observed. Conformity was maximized in the in-group public condition, however, the in-group private and out-group private conditions did not differ significantly

what do the results indicate Abrams

The results seem to indicate that social categorization can play a key role in one's decision to conform publicly.

In terms of SIT Abrams

This study supports the SIT as it shows that when our group identity is salient, that this predicts our behaviour.

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