Social Psychology Theory

Social Psychology Theory

Social Identity Theory was developed by Tajfel and Turner in 1979. The theory was originally developed to understand the psychological basis of intergroup discrimination. Tajfel et al (1971) attempted to identify the minimal conditions that would lead members of one group to discriminate in favor of the ingroup to which they belonged and against another outgroup. In the Social Identity Theory, a person has not one, “personal self”, but rather several selves that correspond to widening circles of group membership. Different social contexts may trigger an individual to think, feel and act on basis of his personal, family or national “level of self” (Turner et al, 1987). Apart from the “level of self”, an individual has multiple “social identities”. Social identity is the individual's self-concept derived from perceived membership of social groups (Hogg & Vaughan, 2002). In other words, it is an individual-based perception of what defines the “us” associated with any internalized group membership. This can be distinguished from the notion of personal identity which refers to self-knowledge that derives from the individual's unique attributes.

Social Identity Theory asserts that group membership creates ingroup/ self-categorization and enhancement in ways that favor the in-group at the expense of the out-group. The examples (minimal group studies) of Turner and Tajfel (1986) showed that the mere act of individuals categorizing themselves as group members was sufficient to lead them to display ingroup favoritism. After being categorized of a group membership, individuals seek to achieve positive self-esteem by positively differentiating their ingroup from a comparison outgroup on some valued dimension. This quest for positive distinctiveness means that people's sense of who they are is defined in terms of 'we' rather than 'I'.

Social identity theory is a theory which is designed to explain how it is that people develop a sense of membership and belonging in particular groups, and how the mechanics of intergroupdiscrimination work. This theory in psychology plays an important role in the study of social psychology. Everyone from sports fans to students of elite colleges is influenced to some degree by social identity theory, and this theory explains how intergroup competition and discrimination can get so vicious that people will be driven to acts as extreme as murder or the promotion of legislation which is designed to marginalize members of other groups, such as Jim Crow laws in the American South.

Several interconnected mechanisms are at work with social identity theory. The core idea is that people tend to seek out group membership as an affirmation of self esteem, but that membership in a group alone is not enough to build an affirm self esteem. To feel more self esteem, people have to believe that they are in the right group, which creates the need for a positive distinction from other groups.

One of the concepts behind social identity theory is categorization, the idea that humans all categorize each other, sometimes subconsciously, creating a set of natural groups. Describing someone as a woman, a business person, a wheel chair user, and so forth is creating a series of categorizations. These categorizations play into personal identity and the perception of the ...