Understanding Social Identity Theory

Social Identity theory Social Identity Theory argues that a person has not just one “personal self”, but rather several social selves that correspond to group membership. According to the theory, we need to understand who we are and know our value in social contexts. SOCIAL IDENTITY: the view of self in terms of our group memberships PERSONAL IDENTITY: the view of self on a more individual, private and interpersonal level TAJFEL THEORY Stage 1: Categorisation You can not be part of a group you do not know exists. We learn these through observation of the communities of people/ the world around us. Groups are labelled through distinct qualities such as their nationalities, religion physical abilities etc How we categorise groups is because of how you are raised and where you grow up. Stage 2: Identification You then view these categories you have made and choose the ones you feel you relate to or share similar ideas with. E.g identifying as an athlete because you compete in sports, or identifying as a school teacher because you teach at a secondary school. We identify ourselves with these categories in order to feel love and belonging. This may influence how we act so that we fit into that group. E.g following fashion trends. We get validation from people in the same category which promotes us to continue. Stage 3: Comparison Us vs them mentality comes into play Us is the group immediately around you/ the groups of people you identify with. We do this as a means of self preservation, we may fear that other groups are overpowering or feel inferior to them. Initial research conducted by Tajfel and Turner revealed that the mere presence of an “out-group” can significantly influence the behaviour of individuals within their “in-group”. Social comparison is basically the process of comparing one’s “in-group” with other “out-groups”. SIT posits that this occurs through a desire to increase one’s self-esteem. As stated above, part of forming our sense of self, or our “identity” comes through the belonging to particular groups. It is only natural that humans want to improve their self-esteem and so this can happen when we compare our “in-group” favourably to the “out-group”. As a result, “in-group” bias naturally occurs. Moreover, it occurs even when groups have been formed in unnatural settings using arbitrary criteria. Tajfel and Turner base the concepts of social comparison and social identity on three assumptions: 1. Individual’s naturally try to increase their self-esteem and want to develop positive self-images; 2. Belonging to particular groups can be viewed as a positive or a negative thing; this means belonging to a group can influence our social identity in either a positive or negative way; 3. we evaluate if it’s positive or negative by comparing in-groups and out-groups; The social identity theory also uses the identity theory to explain which behaviours may be more prominent in different/ natural environments. Identity Theory also centres on the notion of salience. Identity salience refers to the likelihood that a given identity will be active across situations. Identities get ranked in a hierarchy. Identities that are higher on the salience hierarchy are more likely to be enacted. The structure of the hierarchy directly relates to the elements of commitment. Greater identity commitment results in greater identity salience. The question at issue here is whether or not the importance (subjective self-ranking) of an identity is operationally independent of its salience (likelihood of enactment). Study 1: Levine 2005 Background: research in the traditional bystander effect levine saw the presence of others as something that was likely to inhibit helping; a social identity approach understands the potential for both inhibition and facilitation of helping. Aims: to investigate the importance of social group membership and the inclusiveness of social category boundaries and their impact on helping behaviour. Procedure: The experiment was repeated two times in Lancaster university. In the first experiment there were 45 male students aged between 18-21 years old and in the second there were 32 participants. All participants in both Conditions self-identified as Manchester United football club supporters. Procedure 1: The participants were invited to come to the psychology department of the university.They were met by an experimenter who accompanied them to a research cubicle. Participants were informed that the study was about research on football teams and their fans and they were asked to fill in two questionnaires.the first questionnaire asked them to identify the team they supported and to answer questions about why. The second questionnaire was about identification with other group supporters of their team. The tasks were designed to raise the salience if their identity as Manchester United fan After the participants had completed the two questionnaires, they were told that as part of the study they would be asked to watch a short video about football teams, their supporters, and crowd behaviour at football matches. They were also told that the cubicle was too small to show the video to the gang and therefore, the video was shown in an adjacent building in a projection room with a large screen display. The participants were asked to walk to another building where he was to be met with other researchers. As the participants approached the other building, a confederate appeared, jogging across the grass and preparing to run down a grass ball a short distance in front of the participant. The confederate was wearing either a Manchester United team shirt (in-group member), a Liverpool FC team shirt (out-group member), or an ordinary unbranded sports shirt. As the confederate ran down the grass bank, he slipped and fell over, holding onto his ankle and shouting out in pain. The confederate did not make eye contact with the participant or ask for help As the accident unfolded, the participant was observed and rated by 3 independent observers, all hidden at different vantage points around the site. Procedure 2: Identical as in the previous experiment, except that the participants were told that the study was about football fans in general and that the aim was to explore the positive aspects of being a football fan rather than the negative aspects that football-related research usually focuses on (hooliganism or violence). Given that only a small minority of fans are troublemakers, this research aimed to explore the positive aspects of being a football fan. —> created a more inclusive football fan identity(made pts consider all football fans as one group) Results: Procedure 1: The participants were significantly more likely to help the stranger (92%) when he was wearing the Manchester United shirt than either the Liverpool shirt or the ordinary sports shirt. This provides behavioural confirmation of the tendency to help in-group members over others. However, there was no evidence that victims who clearly identified as an out-group member were less likely to receive help than those for whom no social category information was available, Procedure 2: Like in the other study, participants were helpful when the person in need was a Manchester United dan (80% did something to help), but they were also helpful when the person in need was a Liverpool fan (70% did something to help).Only 22% did anything to help when the person in need didn't appear to be a football fan. Conclusion: The results show that a common bond is flexible. With a slight change in perception, someone that seemed like an outsider becomes a member of your own group. This simple switch in our perception can mean the difference between embracing and neglecting another person. By appealing to a more inclusive and superordinate category ("all football fans"), the benefits of group membership (and associated helping behavior) are extended to those who would previously not have been helped. That means that one way of increasing people's willingness to help others is to promote social identities that are inclusive rather than exclusive. By re-categorizing, we create new allies belonging to our in-group. How the study links to the theory: The confederate in team club shirt represents being ‘in-group’ or ‘out-group’. This was meant to represent the idea of a minimal group and is part of the SIT as SIT claims that we can only bring about social comparison once we have identified those who seem to be categorised differently than us In the second procedure the researchers made sure to mention that they were focusing on observing positive football fan behaviour. This was based on the SIT focusing on how we as individuals categorise ourselves based on the situation. They then found that the opposing team and the random team had equal chances of being helped by the participants showing that participants re organised the group in which they identified from “my group” to “all football fans” Study evaluation Please do this for me , linking study evaluation to what it shows about the social identity theory e.g can it predict behviour? Drury 2009 Study evaluation Please do this for me , linking study evaluation to what it shows about the social identity theory e.g can it predict behviour? Evaluation Evaluating Social Identity Theory using TEACUP(also use group doc) Testability: The theory is testable, studies carried out by Tajfel and levine have proved this. However it is also difficult to test this theory in natural environments.Muzafer sherif tested the theory in his Rattlers and Eagles study, but it led to ethical concerns. Evidence: Abrams et al (1990) Abrams did a replication of Asch (1956) to see if, as Social Identity Theory predicts, people are more likely to conform to the behaviour of people in their in-group.(3 lines conformity test) There were 18 trials. In nine of the trials, the confederates gave the correct response. In nine of the trials, the confederates gave a unanimous, incorrect response. Abrams and his team found that the participants conformed to the erroneous confederate judgments more often when they believed the confederates were from their in-group. Tajfel et al (1971) The results showed that maximum joint profit had very little effect on the boys' choices. However, when the boys had a choice between maximising profit for all and maximising the profit for members of their in-group, they clearly favoured their own group. When they had the choice of maximising the difference in reward against profit for all, the boys were willing to give their own team fewer points with the goal of maximising the difference between their in-group and the out-group. Applicability: The theory can be used to both explain behaviours - such as why someone conforms - and to change behaviour. Research by Drury shows that Social Identity can be manipulated to improve helping behaviours. Drury et al (2009) carried out an experiment using a virtual reality simulation of a fire in the London underground. Participants could either push people out of the way to get out as quickly as possible, or they could help others, but this would slow their escape from the fire. In one condition, the participants were given a “shared identity” – for example, all fans of the same football team. In the other condition, they were not given a shared identity – for example, “you are on your way back from buying a pair of shoes.” The team found that those who shared a common identity were more likely to help one another, even at risk to their own safety. In addition, SIT has been applied to decrease football hooliganism. * Duclos & Barasch (2014) found that manipulating the salience of a person's collective identity may increase their likelihood to donate to a cause. Constructs: When studying Social Identity Theory it is difficult to measure just how "salient" one's personal or group identity actually is. It is also difficult to determine how much one's self-esteem can be attributed to group membership. Finally, it is difficult to argue that one's group identity and personal identity are necessarily separate entities. There is also a question today about whether we have online identities or global identities, and to what extent they differ from our personal identities Unbiased: Although some of the early research is gender-biassed, the theory is applicable cross-culturally and is not restricted to a single explanation of a single behaviour. It is also holistic, arguing that our behaviour is the interaction of several factors. Predictions: * There does seem to be some evidence that when our group identity is salient, this predicts our behaviour. This is seen in the study by Duclos & Barasch - as well as in the study by Abrams. It also appears to be the case in stereotype threat. * However, in many cases the theory may be better applied to explain behaviour than to predict behaviour. For example, Bem's theory of the origin of same-sex attraction. The theory is said to be more explanatory than predictive. Drury et al was a study that was carried out to investigate the role of social identity in helping behaviour. They specifically wanted to discover whether people would band together in the case of an emergency evacuation due to being told specific instructions that were inclusive of others around them using an independent sample design, in which participants either felt part of a group or as an individual. The sample was made up of 40 students from the University of Sussex with an age range of 20 to 25 years. Seven participants were male - the remainder was female. The participants used a virtual reality simulator to experience an emergency in the London metro. In this situation, they would have to escape a fire. In order to do this, they could help people or push them out of their way as they tried to make it to safety. In the virtual reality, participants could either push people out of the way to get out as quickly as possible, or they could help others, but this would slow their escape from the fire. In one condition, the participants were given a "shared identity" - all fans of the same football team. In the other condition, they were not given a shared identity - You have spent a long day shopping in central London and are now on the way back to Brighton as you have to go to university in the morning. The rest of the scenario was otherwise the same as that in the first condition.To make sure that social identity was salient, in the group-identification situation, the "people" in the VR simulation wore vests of the same colour, but in the individual-identification, the vests were different colours. To also make sure that it was not simply the size of the crowd that affected the participants, in one condition there was a small crowd (8 other people) and in the other, it was a larger crowd (32 other people).It was found that those participants with a high in-group identification gave more help and pushed others less than did those who did not have in-group identification. Crowd size did not affect the amount of help given. Drury used the concepts of ‘in groups’ and ‘out-groups’ through the group and individual identifications they gave the participants. They found that when participants identified as part of a group they were more likely to help the people around them as they were part of their group and therefore more important to help in comparison to the individual identification group. In the individual identification group, participants were more likely to push and shove others to get to safety as they felt they had no responsibility/reason to save those who were not similarly identified as them. This proves that the way we identify ourselves ultimately does affect our behaviour toward others but also proves the existence of social identity as a means that we use to find a place in society.

Social Identity theory

Social Identity Theory argues that a person has not just one “personal self”, but rather several social selves that correspond to group membership. According to the theory, we need to understand who we are and know our value in social contexts.

SOCIAL IDENTITY: the view of self in terms of our group memberships

PERSONAL IDENTITY: the view of self on a more individual, private and interpersonal level

TAJFEL THEORY

Stage 1: Categorisation

You can not be part of a group you do not know exists. We learn these through observation of the communities of people/ the world around us.

Groups are labelled through distinct qualities such as their nationalities, religion physical abilities etc

How we categorise groups is because of how you are raised and where you grow up.

Stage 2: Identification

You then view these categories you have made and choose the ones you feel you relate to or share similar ideas with. E.g identifying as an athlete because you compete in sports, or identifying as a school teacher because you teach at a secondary school.

We identify ourselves with these categories in order to feel love and belonging. This may influence how we act so that we fit into that group. E.g following fashion trends.

We get validation from people in the same category which promotes us to continue.

Stage 3: Comparison

Us vs them mentality comes into play

Us is the group immediately around you/  the groups of people you identify with. 
We do this as a means of self preservation, we may fear that other groups are overpowering  or feel inferior to them.

Initial research conducted by Tajfel and Turner revealed that the mere presence of an “out-group” can significantly influence the behaviour of individuals within their “in-group”. Social comparison is basically the process of comparing one’s “in-group” with other “out-groups”.

SIT posits that this occurs through a desire to increase one’s self-esteem. As stated above, part of forming our sense of self, or our “identity” comes through the belonging to particular groups. It is only natural that humans want to improve their self-esteem and so this can happen when we compare our “in-group” favourably to the “out-group”. As a result, “in-group” bias naturally occurs.
Moreover, it occurs even when groups have been formed in unnatural settings using arbitrary criteria.

Tajfel and Turner base the concepts of social comparison and social identity on three assumptions:
1. Individual’s naturally try to increase their self-esteem and want to develop positive self-images;
2. Belonging to particular groups can be viewed as a positive or a negative thing; this means belonging to a group can influence our social identity in either a positive or negative way;
3. we evaluate if it’s positive or negative by comparing in-groups and out-groups;
The social identity theory also uses the identity theory to explain which behaviours may be more prominent in different/ natural environments.

Identity Theory also centres on the notion of salience. Identity salience refers to the likelihood that a given identity will be active across situations. Identities get ranked in a hierarchy. Identities that are higher on the salience hierarchy are more likely to be enacted. The structure of the hierarchy directly relates to the elements of commitment.

Greater identity commitment results in greater identity salience. The question at issue here is whether or not the importance (subjective self-ranking) of an identity is operationally independent of its salience (likelihood of enactment).

Study 1: Levine 2005
	Background:

research in the traditional bystander effect levine saw the presence of others as something that was likely to inhibit helping; a social identity approach understands the potential for both inhibition and facilitation of helping.

Aims:

to investigate the importance of social group membership and the inclusiveness of social category boundaries and their impact on helping behaviour.

Procedure:

The experiment was repeated two times in Lancaster university. In the first experiment there were 45 male students aged between 18-21 years old and in the second there were 32 participants. All participants in both 
Conditions self-identified as Manchester United football club supporters.

Procedure 1:

The participants were invited to come to the psychology department of the university.They were met by an experimenter who accompanied them to a research cubicle. Participants were informed that the study was about research on football teams and their fans and they were asked to fill in two questionnaires.the first questionnaire asked them to identify the team they supported and to answer questions about why.

The second questionnaire was about identification with other group supporters of their team. The tasks were designed to raise the salience if their identity as Manchester United fan

After the participants had completed the two questionnaires, they were told that as part of the study they would be asked to watch a short video about football teams, their supporters, and crowd behaviour at football matches. They were also told that the cubicle was too small to show the video to the gang and therefore,  the video was shown in an adjacent building in a projection room with a large screen display. The participants were asked to walk to another building where he was to be met with other researchers.

As the participants approached the other building, a confederate appeared, jogging across the grass and preparing to run down a grass ball a short distance in front of the participant. The confederate was wearing either a Manchester United team shirt (in-group member), a Liverpool FC team shirt (out-group member), or an ordinary unbranded sports shirt.

As the confederate ran down the grass bank, he slipped and fell over, holding onto his ankle and shouting out in pain. The confederate did not make eye contact with the participant or ask for help

As the accident unfolded, the participant was observed and rated by 3 independent observers, all hidden at different vantage points around the site.

Procedure 2:

Identical as in the previous experiment, except that the participants were told that the study was about football fans in general and that the aim was to explore the positive aspects of being a football fan rather than the negative aspects that football-related research usually focuses on (hooliganism or violence).
Given that only a small minority of fans are troublemakers, this research aimed to explore the positive aspects of being a football fan.
—> created a more inclusive football fan identity(made pts consider all football fans as one group)

Results:

Procedure 1:
The participants were significantly more likely to help the stranger (92%) when he was wearing the Manchester United shirt than either the Liverpool shirt or the ordinary sports shirt. This provides behavioural confirmation of the tendency to help in-group members over others. However, there was no evidence that victims who clearly identified as an out-group member were less likely to receive help than those for whom no social category information was available,

Procedure 2:
Like in the other study, participants were helpful when the person in need was a Manchester United dan (80% did something to help), but they were also helpful when the person in need was a Liverpool fan (70% did something to help).Only 22% did anything to help when the person in need didn't appear to be a football fan.

Conclusion:

The results show that a common bond is flexible. With a slight change in perception, someone that seemed like an outsider becomes a member of your own group.
This simple switch in our perception can mean the difference between embracing and neglecting another person.
By appealing to a more inclusive and superordinate category ("all football fans"), the benefits of group membership (and associated helping behavior) are extended to those who would previously not have been helped.
That means that one way of increasing people's willingness to help others is to promote social identities that are inclusive rather than exclusive. By re-categorizing, we create new allies belonging to our in-group.

How the study links to the theory:

The confederate in team club shirt represents being ‘in-group’ or ‘out-group’.
This was meant to represent the idea of a minimal group and is part of the SIT as SIT claims that we can only bring about social comparison once we have identified those who  seem to be categorised differently than us

In the second procedure  the researchers made sure to mention that they were focusing  on observing positive football  fan behaviour. This was based on the SIT focusing on how we as individuals categorise ourselves based on the situation. They then found that the opposing team and the random team had equal chances of being helped by the participants showing that participants re organised the group in which they identified from “my group” to  “all football fans”

Study evaluation
	Please do this for me , linking study evaluation to what it shows about the social identity theory e.g can it predict behviour?
	Drury 2009

Study evaluation 
	Please do this for me , linking study evaluation to what it shows about the social identity theory e.g can it predict behviour?
	Evaluation
	Evaluating Social Identity Theory using TEACUP(also use group doc)

Testability: 
The theory is testable, studies carried out by Tajfel and levine have proved this. However it is also difficult to test this theory in natural environments.Muzafer sherif tested the theory in his Rattlers and Eagles study, but it led to ethical concerns.

Evidence:

Abrams et al (1990)  Abrams did a replication of Asch (1956) to see if, as Social Identity Theory predicts, people are more likely to conform to the behaviour of people in their in-group.(3 lines conformity test) There were 18 trials. In nine of the trials, the confederates gave the correct response. In nine of the trials, the confederates gave a unanimous, incorrect response. Abrams and his team found that the participants conformed to the erroneous confederate judgments more often when they believed the confederates were from their in-group.

Tajfel et al  (1971)
The results showed that maximum joint profit had very little effect on the boys' choices. However, when the boys had a choice between maximising profit for all and maximising the profit for members of their in-group, they clearly favoured their own group. When they had the choice of maximising the difference in reward against profit for all, the boys were willing to give their own team fewer points with the goal of maximising the difference between their in-group and the out-group.

Applicability:
The theory can be used to both explain behaviours -  such as why someone conforms - and to change behaviour.
Research by Drury shows that Social Identity can be manipulated to improve helping behaviours. Drury et al (2009) carried out an experiment using a virtual reality simulation of a fire in the London underground. Participants could either push people out of the way to get out as quickly as possible, or they could help others, but this would slow their escape from the fire. In one condition, the participants were given a “shared identity” – for example, all fans of the same football team.  In the other condition, they were not given a shared identity – for example, “you are on your way back from buying a pair of shoes.”  The team found that those who shared a common identity were more likely to help one another, even at risk to their own safety.
In addition, SIT has been applied to decrease football hooliganism.
* Duclos & Barasch (2014) found that manipulating the salience of a person's collective identity may increase their likelihood to donate to a cause.

Constructs:

When studying Social Identity Theory it is difficult to measure just how "salient" one's personal or group identity actually is.
It is also difficult to determine how much one's self-esteem can be attributed to group membership.
Finally, it is difficult to argue that one's group identity and personal identity are necessarily separate entities. There is also a question today about whether we have online identities or global identities, and to what extent they differ from our personal identities
Unbiased:
Although some of the early research is gender-biassed, the theory is applicable cross-culturally and is not restricted to a single explanation of a single behaviour.  It is also holistic, arguing that our behaviour is the interaction of several factors.
Predictions:
*  There does seem to be some evidence that when our group identity is salient, this predicts our behaviour.  This is seen in the study by Duclos & Barasch - as well as in the study by Abrams.  It also appears to be the case in stereotype threat.
*  However, in many cases the theory may be better applied to explain behaviour than to predict behaviour.  For example, Bem's theory of the origin of same-sex attraction. The theory is said to be more explanatory than predictive.

Drury et al was a study that was carried out to investigate the role of social identity in helping behaviour. They specifically wanted to discover whether people would band together in the case of an emergency evacuation due to being told specific instructions that were inclusive of others around them using an independent sample design, in which participants either felt part of a group or as an individual. The sample was made up of 40 students from the University of Sussex with an age range of 20 to 25 years. Seven participants were male - the remainder was female. The participants used a virtual reality simulator to experience an emergency in the London metro. In this situation, they would have to escape a fire.  In order to do this, they could help people or push them out of their way as they tried to make it to safety. In the virtual reality, participants could either push people out of the way to get out as quickly as possible, or they could help others, but this would slow their escape from the fire. In one condition, the participants were given a "shared identity" - all fans of the same football team. In the other condition, they were not given a shared identity - You have spent a long day shopping in central London and are now on the way back to Brighton as you have to go to university in the morning. The rest of the scenario was otherwise the same as that in the first condition.To make sure that social identity was salient, in the group-identification situation, the "people" in the VR simulation wore vests of the same colour, but in the individual-identification, the vests were different colours. To also make sure that it was not simply the size of the crowd that affected the participants, in one condition there was a small crowd (8 other people) and in the other, it was a larger crowd (32 other people).It was found that those participants with a high in-group identification gave more help and pushed others less than did those who did not have in-group identification. Crowd size did not affect the amount of help given.

Drury used the concepts of ‘in groups’ and ‘out-groups’ through the group and individual identifications they gave the participants. They found that when participants identified as part of a group they were more likely to help the people around them as they were part of their group and therefore more important to help in comparison to the individual identification group. In the individual identification group, participants were more likely to push and shove others to get to safety as they felt they had no responsibility/reason to save those who were not similarly identified as them. This proves that the way we identify ourselves ultimately does affect our behaviour toward others but also proves the existence of social identity as a means that we use to find a place in society.

Transcript for:Understanding Social Identity Theory

Transcript for:
Understanding Social Identity Theory