Social Psychology: The Psychology of Groups

Social Psychology: The Psychology of Groups

Dr. Steven McNair (he/him)

Steven.McNair@glasgow.ac.uk

Remember to log your attendance on Moodle: Psych 1B > Lectures > Lecture Attendance > Social/Developmental 9am or 1pm

Aims

By the end of this lecture, you should be able to:

  • Describe need to belong theory
  • Describe social identity theory
  • Describe in-groups and out-groups according to social identity theory
  • Evaluate the extent to which belonging to groups is considered beneficial for health

Introduction

Groups

We all belong to a variety of different social groups.

For example:

  • Gender
  • Ethnicity
  • Social class
  • Occupation
  • Hobbies and Interests

Some of the lecturer's groups:

  • British/Scottish
  • Male
  • ‘Working class’ background
  • Tall
  • UoG graduate
  • Musical
  • Golden retriever owner (or owned by golden retrievers)
  • LGBTQ+

Our group membership is not always static and may change across our lifetime.

Activity 1: Which groups do you feel that you belong to? (3 mins)

An activity in today’s lecture: Please go onto Microsoft forms and write down some of the groups that you feel you belong to.

Please use single words or short phrases only.

You can complete it multiple times if you wish.

The results will be posted on Teams and Moodle after the lecture. The link is: https://forms.office.com/e/JSZVhZBT7z

Theoretical Perspectives

Need to Belong

Baumeister & Leary (1995) published the Need to Belong theory.

Proposed:

  • Need to belong is as important to humans as food and shelter.
  • Social isolation produces similar brain responses to hunger (Tomova et al. 2020).
  • Need to belong differs from attachment theory.
    • Focused on significant social relationships (not necessarily caregiver).
    • In addition to the caregiver relationship, other relationships are important early in development.

Need to Belong (cont.)

In order for need to belong to be satisfied, two aspects of relationships must be met:

  • Having positive and pleasant interactions with others.
  • These interactions should be in context of stable, lasting relationships.

In addition, the need to belong theory has two important concepts at its core:

  • Satiation – we seek out new relationships when we have enough existing ones.
  • Substitution – lost relationships can be replaced.

Need to Belong (cont. 2)

The need to belong can be fulfilled by establishing new social relationships and maintaining established ones.

Need to belong is not the same for everyone (Leary et al., 2013).

Individual differences:

  • High Need to Belong
    • Characterised by: Strong desire to be accepted into social interactions; strong reactions to exclusion.
  • Low Need to Belong
    • Characterised by: Desire fewer close relationships (although a minimum number of close ties are still important).

Social Identity Theory

Social Identity Theory (Tajfel & Turner, 1979) argues that the groups that we belong to is important to how we feel about ourselves and also argues that we each have many different identities.

  • Social identities: Characteristics of the social groups that we belong to.
    • The characteristics we share because we belong to a group.
  • Personal identities: Our traits, characteristics & the roles we play in relationships.
    • The characteristics that differentiate us within our groups.

Social Identity Theory (cont.)

Three important components to Social Identity Theory:

  • Categorisation
    • Grouping others based on observable characteristics.
  • Identification
    • Groups that we perceive ourselves to belong to.
  • Comparison
    • Comparing between ‘us’ and ‘them’.

Social Identity Theory: In-groups and out-groups

In-groups are when we are a member of a group that we identify with; it commands our esteem and loyalty.

Out-groups are social groups with which individuals do not identify.

Social Identity Theory states that the in-group will discriminate the out-group to enhance their self-image.

Social Identity Theory: Group prototypes

Group prototypes are a collection of attributes used to define members of a particular group.

This means that we behave in accordance with the prototypes that define our in-groups.

It also means that we treat others according to out-group prototypes.

In-groups and out-groups

Group identification

Identification with groups can be very positive.

Groups can give us feelings of:

  • Belonging
  • Self-esteem
  • Identity
  • Purpose

However, it can also mean that we are biased towards those in our groups.

Examples of in-groups and out-groups

There are many examples of in-groups and out-groups:

  • If you are a student at University of Glasgow:
    • other UoG students (in-group); Uni of Edinburgh students (out-group)
  • If you are a member of the LGBTQ+ community:
    • other members of the LGBTQ+ community (in-group); people not a part of the LGBTQ+ community (outgroup)
  • If you are a police officer:
    • Other police officers (in-group); people who are not police officers (outgroup)
  • If you are Scottish:
    • Other Scottish people (in-group); people who are not Scottish (out-group)

Overestimation of abilities of the in-group

Cacault & Grieder (2019) conducted a study looking at how being a member of a group affected perceptions of in-group members.

Participants were in one of three conditions:

  • Control (no identification with group)
  • Group only (identification with group)
  • Group + interaction (enhanced identification with group)

Participants were asked to take an IQ test and say how probable it would be that the IQ of three in-group members would compare to three out-group members.

Overestimation of abilities of the in-group (cont.)

Findings demonstrated:

  • Participants were more likely to say that in-group IQ would be higher than out-group.
  • Participants who also had anonymous interaction (so the 'enhanced' group) focused more on positive information about the in-group and ignored negative information.

Implications show that there is positive in-group bias towards members of that group over members of the out-group.

Even if the group is ‘real’ or randomly assigned.

Even if you do not interact with the other members at any point.

Perceiving the out-group

Most bias against an out-group tends to be as absence of positivity compared to in-group.

Brewer (1999, 2000) shows that there is a mild in-group favouritism that is absent in out-groups.

However, not always the case (Hewstone et al., 2002).

Active bias against another group more likely when emotions are involved.

Higher levels of arousal can result in members of the in-group feeling very strong emotions (e.g. fear, contempt) towards people in the out-group.

Milder emotions tend to result in avoidance, whereas stronger emotions may result in action being taken against an out-group (Smith, 1993).

Application of Social Identity Theory

How can we apply this information to our lives?

Knowing about how humans categorise each other and the biases that occur can help by:

  • Reducing prejudice and stereotyping by improving how different groups relate to each other.
  • Understanding how to improve group functioning by supporting feelings of belonging to groups and conflict resolution.

Health and belonging

Sense of belonging

Over the last few decades, there has been an increasing interest in whether belonging is protective of mental health.

Concept has developed from the ‘need to belong’ and social identity theoretical approaches discussed previously.

Idea that belonging is important to humans, and is protective in terms of wellbeing.

Belonging and health

When we belong to groups, and identify with them, a range of psychological resources might stem from these relationships:

  • Connectedness and positive orientation to others
  • Meaning, purpose and worth
  • Social support
  • Control and power

Social relationships and mortality: a meta-analysis

Holt-Lunstad et al. (2010) published a meta-analysis looking at the extent to which social relationships influence risk for mortality.

308,849 participants, followed for an average of 7.5 years. 148 studies were included in the paper.

Results found:

  • Those with ‘adequate’ social relationships had a 50% greater likelihood of survival compared to those with insufficient or poor social relationships.
  • Magnitude is comparable with quitting smoking (and bigger than physical activity, obesity etc.).
  • Important for health, but public awareness not high.

Belonging to multiple groups

Is belonging to multiple groups more protective than belonging to a single group?

Sani et al. (2015) explored this by looking at group belonging and depression.

Asked people to rate their feelings of belongingness to three groups: family (defined as they wished), local community and a group of their choosing, and also measured depression scores.

Those who reported belonging to multiple groups were less likely to have taken depression medication in the previous six months and also had lower self-reported depression scores.

Are groups always beneficial?

Brook et al. (2008) proposed that the nature of group memberships was important for wellbeing:

  • Number of identities you have
  • Importance of these identities
  • Harmony between the identities

Found that importance and harmony was key:

  • Having highly important identities that work well together = positive
  • Having highly important identities that conflict = negative

Are groups always beneficial? (2)

A study in the USA looked at international students’ perceived discrimination from host community (Schmitt et al., 2003).

  • Self-esteem (Rosenberg Self-Esteem Inventory)
  • Perceived discrimination
  • Group identification

Results showed:

  • higher perceived discrimination was associated with lower self-esteem
  • stronger group identification with ‘international students’ group was associated with higher self-esteem

Two-fold: Being a part of a group that is stigmatised or rejected in society can be associated with lower wellbeing but when belonging is stronger, receive benefits from membership.

The social ‘cure’

Move towards using social integration as a way of improving health – aka the ‘social cure’.

Through GPs, prescribing groups as a method for improving health.

Wakefield et al. (2022) show that social prescribing is related to increased wellbeing.

There was an increase in group memberships after social prescribing.

This corresponded with increased self-reported wellbeing.

The social ‘cure’ (cont.)

Reinhardt et al. (2021) published a systematic review of social prescribing programmes on loneliness.

Nine studies were included in the review.

All nine studies reported positive impacts for participants (e.g. feeling happier).

Three studies reported reduction in use of services (e.g. GP appointments).

Age might impact on how useful it is – seemed to help more for people <60 years old.

Take-home points

  • Need to belong proposes that belonging is a fundamental need
  • Social identity theory proposes that group membership is important to us, and that it influences how we feel about ourselves
  • There is a strong positive bias towards other members of the groups we belong to
  • There is strong evidence that belonging to groups is important for our health

Key terms (flashcards)

  • Need to belong theory
  • Satiation
  • Substitution
  • Social identity theory
  • Social identities
  • Personal identities
  • Categorisation
  • Identification
  • Comparison
  • In-groups
  • Out-groups
  • Group prototypes
  • Sense of belonging
  • The social cure
  • Social prescribing

References

  • Brewer MB. 1999. The psychology of prejudice: ingroup love or outgroup hate? J. Soc. Issues 55, 429–44
  • Brewer MB. 2000. Reducing prejudice through cross-categorization: effects of multiple social identities.
  • Brook, A. T., Garcia, J., & Fleming, M. A. (2008). The effects of multiple identities on psychological well-being. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 34(12), 1588-1600.
  • Cacault, M. P., & Grieder, M. (2019). How group identification distorts beliefs. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 164, 63-76.
  • Hewstone, M., Rubin, M., & Willis, H. (2002). Intergroup bias. Annual review of psychology, 53(1), 575-604.
  • Holt-Lunstad, J., Smith, T. B., & Layton, J. B. (2010). Social relationships and mortality risk: a meta-analytic review. PLoS medicine, 7(7), e1000316.
  • Leary, M. R., & Baumeister, R. F. (1995). The need to belong. Psychological Bulletin, 117(3), 497-529.
  • Reinhardt G, Vidovic D, Hammerton C. Understanding loneliness: a systematic review of the impact of social prescribing initiatives on loneliness. Perspectives in Public Health. 2021;141(4):204-213.
  • Sani, F., Madhok, V., Norbury, M., Dugard, P., & Wakefield, J. R. H. (2015). Higher identification with social groups is associated with healthier behavior: Evidence from a Scottish community sample. British Journal of Health Psychology, 20, 466-481.
  • Schmitt, M. T., Spears, R., & Branscombe, N. R. (2003). Constructing a minority group identity out of shared rejection: The case of international students. European Journal of Social Psychology, 33(1), 1-12.
  • Tajfel H, Turner JC. 1979. An integrative theory of intergroup conflict. In The Social Psychology of Intergroup Relations, ed. WG Austin, S Worchel, pp. 33–47.
  • Tomova, L., Wang, K. L., Thompson, T., Matthews, G. A., Takahashi, A., Tye, K. M., & Saxe, R. (2020). Acute social isolation evokes midbrain craving responses similar to hunger. Nature neuroscience, 23(12), 1597-1605.
  • Wakefield JRH, Kellezi B, Stevenson C, et al. Social Prescribing as ‘Social Cure’: A longitudinal study of the health benefits of social connectedness within a Social Prescribing pathway. Journal of Health Psychology. 2022;27(2):386-396.