Evaluation of Social Identity Theory Making Reference to Empirical Research Studies

The Social Identity theory (SIT) was proposed by Henry Tajfel. It was then later developed by Tajfel and Turner in 1971 to help them understand inter group relations. The Social Identity theory assumes that individuals strive to improve their self-image by trying to enhance their self-esteem, through social (in and out groups) and personal identities. There are 4 main concepts within the social identity theory all of which will be discussed in the essay.

The third phase of the Social identity theory is comparison. This involves comparing the in-groups that you are a part of with out-groups in order to raise self-esteem (Burke, Stets,2000). Social groups naturally strive to be positively differentiated from other groups (Mummenfey, Kessler, Link, Mielke, 1999). In order to achieve this positive differentiation and boost in self- esteem, the in-group and out-group are judged on factors that represent the in-group to be superior to the out-group (Burke, Stets,2000). To enhance the position and status of the in-group, discrimination and prejudice will be shown towards the out-group.

Box 3.2: Why do it this way? is especially relevant, as it considers an important advantage of the experimental method. Chapter 6: No experiments are discussed in this chapter, however, the essay question requires you to discuss the value of experiments. Consider if there are certain aspects of human behaviour and/or performance that cannot be meaningfully investigated using experiments. What are the alternative methods of studying behaviour? Sections 2 and 3 of Chapter 6 are relevant in this respect.

The world has become modern and global. Identification of the self is a complicated, though, an important problem of every individual. Self- identity is based on inner values and reflections on culture, politics and social interactions. The main point is that people label themselves to any particular group in the society (Worchel etc., 1998). According to Ferguson: “Identity commonly refers to which it makes, or is thought to make

Augoustinos and Walker (1995) stated that social identity theory is based on the concept of social identity, the part of a person’s self-concept that derives from membership in-groups that are important to the person. Such groups can include one’s family, college, nation, and so forth. This theory can be applied when the brown-eyed students were established as the in-group instead of their usual out-group. As indicated in their attitude components, self-esteem of the brown-eyed students increased when the blue-eyed students were treated in a bad

Social identity theory proposed by Tajfel & Turner (2004) is a theory of group membership and behaviour which has made significant contributions in explaining in-group favouritism, out-group denigration, competition and other interactions of an individual among social groups (Korte, 2007; Brown, 2000; Tajfel & Turner, 2004). Social identity theory can be defined as an individual’s sense of who they are based on the group that they belong to through a process of self-categorisation and depersonalisation (Tajfel & Turner, 2004). In this essay, I will define social identity theory through its three mental processes involved in group evaluation which are: social identification which is a process whereby we are placed into certain

Why was there a need for such an experiment? Simply to point out a privilege or a lack there of. The white community doesn't

Social identity theory states that the ‘in-group’ will discriminate against the ‘out-group’ and show favouritism towards their group to boost their self-esteem. Tajfel also proposed that there are 3 mental processes involved in putting people in to the ‘us’ and ‘them’ groups: social categorisation (putting objects in order to understand them), social identification (adopting the identity of the group we categorised ourselves as belonging to) and social comparison (showing favouritism towards the ‘in group’ and hostility towards the ‘out group’; comparing them).

In 1971, this experiment was initiated by Prof Philip Zimbardo, who is the psychology professor of the Stanford University. He designed this experiment was for the purpose of the study of human behavior when good people were put into an evil environment. He wanted to study what motivate the human behavior if the environment people stay controls their behaviors or their behavior are leaded by people’s insight capacity which are their moralities and values.

Social identity is a theory which explains how people develop a sense of belong and membership to a group. Individual’s social identity is part of their self-concept which derives from their knowledge of their membership of a social group together with the emotional significance attached to that membership (Forsyth, 13). People are influenced on the group they belong to. Belonging to the in-group makes a person feel good because they belong somewhere in this group and allows them to feel important. The out-group is where people feel to be, they do not belong to a group and have feeling of exclusion and are often times treated more harshly than someone who belongs to the ingroup. This bias of favoring the ingroup relative to the outgroup leads to false impressions being made and stereotypes forming. Stereotypes help us navigate the world around us by providing a quick representation of what we think a person is like. This does not mean our perceptions are always correct and occasionally, this quick mental shortcut can get us into trouble. For example, the film 12 Angry Men stereotyping was rampant among the jury. When a stereotype is used it can cause a disruption of procedures. Instead, of inspecting all the evidence with an objective eye a bias can allow for systematic

The social identity theory is a theory developed by Henry Tajfel, in which Tajfel believes that who we are socially determines how many positive feelings we have towards ourselves. Basically, if we like where we stand socially, then we will like who we are and display happiness. In this theory, Tajfel labels the “in group” and the “out group” and says that we will always compare our “in group” to another’s “out group.” By comparing these groups, we develop a better personal view on ourselves (King, 2009). A big factor of the social identity theory is that the groups will tend to critique the differences of the groups, and overlook the similarities. A modern day example of the social identity theory would be your everyday high school cheerleaders versus band members. The cheerleaders think of themselves as the queen bees of the school,

One could argue that this then inflates our sense of belonging in the world if we feel that there are others who share similar values to us. This then strengthens our resolve by essentially confirming that we are engaging in the right behaviours and holding the right ideals as we associate ourselves with others who feel the same as we do. This then leads them to strengthen our tenacity of in-group favouritism by rewarding our prejudiced behaviours. A positive outcome of this is that it can have a flow on effect to our altruistic nature as human beings and we would be more likely to help those with whom we feel a certain affiliation. It is in this regard that the Social Identity Theory can yield positive results through a framework of philanthropic behaviour and support for in-group members. The converse of this behaviour is that we see an increase in negative behaviours towards those with whom we feel have conflicting goals and essentially belong to an “out group”.

Social Identity Theory has a considerable impact on social psychology. It is tested in a wide range of

Contributions: Social identity theory was developed by Tajfel and Turner (1979) to understand the psychological basis for intergroup discrimination. After that, many studies such as Tajfel and Turner (1986), Deaux (1996), Shih (1999), Hogg (2003), Benjamin et al. (2006) etc. done in the social identity area. This study has two innovations in comparison to social psychology experiments. First, it uses a much wider class of games to measure the effects of identity on various aspects of social preferences. Second, in spite of social psychology experiments, it uses the real monetary payoffs in the other-other allocation. Moreover, in recent years, numerous studies have been done in economics experiments on group identity. However, Akerlof and Kranton (2000) systematically introduced the identity into economic analysis. In General, this study makes two contributions to the economics literature. First, it introduces a framework for the empirical foundation for incorporating identity into economic models. Second, it reveals practical implications for organization design.

Social identity theory, it is a person’s sense that is based around the group they are in, either by their personal identity or with different kinds of social identities. That is, people will try to improve their own image of themselves. The theory was proposed by Henri Tajfel. People can increase their self-esteem by both their own achievement and interaction with a successful group of people. This shows the importance of social belonging. This theory is based around three mental processes, social categorization, social identification and social comparison.