Evaluation of Social Identity Theory Making Reference to Empirical Research Studies
Evaluation of Social Identity Theory making reference to empirical research studies
What is the Social Identity Theory?
Social identity theory is the idea that we, as humans, have the need to categorize ourselves into in-groups ‘us’ and out-groups ‘them’ in order to give ourselves a positive social identity to protect and enhance our self-esteem.
Empirical research done to support this theory
Tajfel H. (1970)
One of the most well known studies done to support social identity theory was the minimal group paradigm done by Tajfel and his colleges. The aim of this experiment was to see if putting people into groups were enough to create in-group favoritism and out-group discrimination with the participants.
For this study there were two separate experiments that Tajfel and his colleges carried out. In the first one, they split up a group of British schoolboys into two groups, assigning them into the groups at random pick. However, the schoolboys thought that they were split into the two groups on the basis of their visual judgments, which was assessed in a visual judgment test they had just done beforehand. They were then given a task, which involved rewarding points and giving penalties to the other boys based on a visual test. They did not know the identity of the person they were either assigning points to or giving penalties to, all they knew was if they were in their group (their in-group) or the other group (their out-group). They were not allowed to give themselves points. The boys were given three different types of options where they had to give or penalize points. The first type of option was to reward points and penalize points between two other participants from the same group (their in-group). The second type of option was to reward points and penalize points from two other participants from the other group (out-group). The third type of option was to reward points and penalize points between one participant from their group and one
What is the Social Identity Theory?
Social identity theory is the idea that we, as humans, have the need to categorize ourselves into in-groups ‘us’ and out-groups ‘them’ in order to give ourselves a positive social identity to protect and enhance our self-esteem.
Empirical research done to support this theory
Tajfel H. (1970)
One of the most well known studies done to support social identity theory was the minimal group paradigm done by Tajfel and his colleges. The aim of this experiment was to see if putting people into groups were enough to create in-group favoritism and out-group discrimination with the participants.
For this study there were two separate experiments that Tajfel and his colleges carried out. In the first one, they split up a group of British schoolboys into two groups, assigning them into the groups at random pick. However, the schoolboys thought that they were split into the two groups on the basis of their visual judgments, which was assessed in a visual judgment test they had just done beforehand. They were then given a task, which involved rewarding points and giving penalties to the other boys based on a visual test. They did not know the identity of the person they were either assigning points to or giving penalties to, all they knew was if they were in their group (their in-group) or the other group (their out-group). They were not allowed to give themselves points. The boys were given three different types of options where they had to give or penalize points. The first type of option was to reward points and penalize points between two other participants from the same group (their in-group). The second type of option was to reward points and penalize points from two other participants from the other group (out-group). The third type of option was to reward points and penalize points between one participant from their group and one