social identity theory

• Tajfel and Turner (1979) suggest that prejudice comes from the formation of two groups wihtout any other factors being present
• social identity

  an individuals self concept and comes from mhow they see themselves in relation to membership of their social groups
• belonging to a group creates in-group self categorisation, leads to in-group favouritism and hostility towards the out-group
• to enhance self esteem people perceive their in groups as better
• social categorisation


  seeing oneself as part of a group
• social identification


  the process of moving from categorising oneself as part of the in-group to identifying with the group more overly
• what happens during self identification

  an individual is likely to take on the norms and attitudes of group members
• social comparison


  occurs when one compares themself with the out-group because the individuals self concept becomes wrapped up in the in-group, people see their in-group as better than the out-group
• what 3 variables contribute to in-group favouritism?

  the extent to which the individuals identify with the group, the extent to which there are grounds for making comparisons with the out-group, the relevance of the comparisons group to the in-group
• research to support social identity theory

  Tajfel found that minimal groups of boys awarded their own group points instead of sharing, supports in-group favouritism
• issue with Tajfel

  lacks validity as the sample was only made out of 14/15 year old boys from Bristol, low population validity, limits its use to support the theory,
• research to criticise

  Wetherall found that Polynesian children were more generous to out-groups in comparison to white children,