WEEK 10 - Group Identities

Henri tajfel → originator of social identity theory

Minimal Group Paradugm - research

• concluded people are naturally judgemental

• gave low rewards to different group even when those would affect their own rewards.

MGP Discrimination

• when people are i groups we exaggerate the differences between people in different groups

• underestimate differences between people in the same group

  WHY?

• something to do with identity → people’s self identity

• comparing own group with others we perceive as doing less well → positive group distinctiveness

  • viewing your in group as better than other out groups.

  • boost self esteem - because we identify with group

• however, it is not inevitable.

• people with higher explicit or implicit self esteem and are more involved in self enhancement strategies are more likely to show group bias → projecting their own meaning onto them.

Key insights

• social context, not individual differences

• positive group distinctive

• fluidity of social identities

Social Identity Theory → Tajfel & Turner (1979)

• idea that we are motivated to seek positive group distinctiveness

• putting people in categories helps us make sense of our world as well as our sense of who we are

• people strive to achieve and maintain a positive identity

• largely based on favourable intergroup comparisons

• when the group is threatened we tend to leave the group or try to distinct it even more

How do groups respond to threat?

• maintenance strategies:

  • individual mobility - leave

  • social competition - improve group’s status

  • social creativity - look at things differently

• depending on perceptions of group context

  • permeability → trying to move to another group after analysing possibilities

  • stability →possibility to change the status relation between your group?

  • legitimacy → less likely to try to change the group if believed to be legitimate

STUDY - Ellemmers, van Knippenberg, & Wilke (1990)

• members of ‘permeable’ groups on average identified less with their groups and more with a higher status group

• members of groups with ‘unstable’ status on average willing to work harder to improve the group’s position

Key Concepts

• importance of poeple’s perception of social context in shaping their intergroup relations

• importance of identity process

Limitations

• doesn’t look at ‘how?’

• presupposes that identity categories already ‘exist’ in the social world

• focus on positive distinctiveness → what about other motives?

Self Categorisation Theory

Turner, Hogg, Oakes, Reicher & Wetherell (1987)

• fluidity of social identities

• how do we come to see ourselves as group members

• we categorise people as we do objects

  • comparative fit →maximise differences between categories and minimise those within categories

  • normative fit→ apply existing knowledge of what categories ‘exist’ and what they are supposed to be like

  • perceived readiness → pre-existing motives, goals, etc.

• Consequences:

  • identity salience

Forming identities

• leavers vs remainers - brexit

• protest movements: BLM, XR, anti-vax

• ethnic groups

• trans and non-binary gender identities

Common in groups identity

• focusing on belonging to a bigger main group to avoid prejudice and discriminations

• STUDY →

Limitations:

• not real world identities

• shifts prejudice to different levels

• fails to generalise to rest of group

• is dual categorisation a possible solution?

Benefits of social identification

• solidarity and social support in emergency situations → Drury et al, 2019

• coping with stress → Hallam et al., 2011

• identity-based leadership → Reicher et al., 2005