| SIT is based on 4 interrelated concepts: social categorization social identity social comparison positive distinctiveness
Main studies: Cialdini et al. (1976) Tajfel et al. (1971)
|
SIT Concepts: social categorization | divides the social environment into in-groups and out-groups In-groups show: ethnocentrism stereotypical thinking self-serving biases
|
| similar to SSB but the self-serving effect applies to everyone we perceive as in-group members |
SIT Concepts: social identity | how we think of ourselves according to our membership of social groups Turner (1982): it’s different from personal identity as personal identity is how we label our personality when establishing relationships with members of different groups, the social identity can influence our behavior
|
SIT Concepts: social comparison | our social identity influences how we feel about ourselves to maintain and build up self-esteem, we seek positive social identities we continuously compare our in-groups with relevant out-groups and usually conclude that our in-group is superior
|
SIT Concepts: positive distinctiveness | |
Cialdini et al. (1976) - Overview | observed college football supporters after their college team won, supporters were more likely to be seen wearing college clothing vice versa for after a loss supports the notion of positive distinctiveness as the supporters wanted to be associated with a positive social group (a winning team)
|
Tajfel et al. (1971) - Process | British schoolboys were randomly grouped participants were informed that their groups were according to a preference for Klee or Kandinsky paintings with knowledge of which groups they belonged to, the boys worked individually to give points to both in-group and out-group members they were not allowed to award points to themselves
|
Tajfel et al. (1971) - Findings and Conclusion | participants showed ingroup favoritism: strong tendency to award more points to in-group members category accentuation effect/positive distinctiveness: some would give up point gains for their in-group just to make sure there was a difference in points between in-group and out-group this supports the notion of social identity social identity was still established despite the arbitrary method used to form groups the boys still regarded themselves as belonging to a group even when they were working individually
|
Tajfel et al. (1971) - evaluation | Strengths: supports SIT showed formation and features of SIT lab study: clear determinism despite the arbitrary method to determine groups, participants still showed characteristics described by SIT controlled environment minimized chances of confounding variables
Weaknesses: sample bias: all participants were male schoolboys from the same country boys may have misinterpreted the study as some sort of competitive game lab study: low ecological validity reductionist: simplistic reduction of a complex psychological phenomenon, focusing just on minimal groups and performance of a simple experimental task
|
| can explain behaviors such as: ethnocentrism ingroup favoritism positive distinctiveness stereotyping conformity
|
| Rubin and Hewstone (1998) against self-esteem explanation: increase in self-esteem associated with out-group discrimination is too short-lived to have long-lasting effects on how in-group members view themselves SIT describes but does not predict human behaviour SIT does not explain why in some cases our personal identity is stronger than the group identity SIT fails to take the environment into consideration generally, experimental methods used to study SIT have low ecological validity
|
