Tajfel & Turner SIT

• SIT suggests that group formation goes through three stages :

  • social identification
  • social categorisation
  • social comparison
• Tajfel and turner argue that self-esteem is at the core of social identity. We may make others feel inferior and behave hostile towards them to improve the self-esteem of our personal and group identity
• 1. personal identity --> our views, beliefs and characteristics
• 2. Social identity --> We identify similarities in other people
• 3. Social categorisation --> We start to identify differences in others, this is when we start to form our in and out groups
• social identity theory

  
• Is SIT feasible ? (are the assumptions accurate)

  yes as the boys would maximise their profit for the in-group and minimise profit for the out-group which matches up with the assumption that we become hostile to those who we class as our out group to make them feel inferior to increase our feeling of identity and self esteem
• Is SIT useful ?

  Yes, it can be useful in real life to recognise similarities between in and out groups to reduce prejudice, such as in football, both teams share the love of sport

  It also can explain events such as war, the alliances are the in-group and the out-group is the country their fighting against
• Is there a different feasible alternative/explanation to SIT ?

  yes, RCT would suggest that hostility and conflict between groups is due to competition of a limited resources (Real or perceived) therefore prejudice would occur as only one individual or group can get the resource
• How well does SIT explain the behaviour ?

  • It was only researched with males, therefore prejudice in females may not be due to in and out groups
  • research demonstrating SIT was based on assigning points to a group, which is an artificial task and prejudice and group identity may be unnatural
  • it suggests that people with high self-esteem do not need to be prejudice
• Tajfel's minimal group study was in 1970
• The minimal group study measured prejudice by assigning points to 2 groups, which was determined by estimating dots on screen, the 'over estimater's ' and ' under estimater's'
• The boys assigned points to themselves and their oppositions, maximising profits for their in-groups and minimising profits for their out-groups (oppositions)