Sunday, May 24, 2020

Social Identity Theory Prepared By Josh Cramer Montes

SOCIAL IDENTITY THEORY Prepared by Josh Cramer-Montes Social identity theory was developed by British social psychologists Henri Tajfel and John Turner in the 1970s and 1980s. This theory analyzes the process through which individuals identify and value their membership within a group, and how groups interact with one another in social contexts. Tajfel was specifically interested in analyzing identity and group favoritism on the one hand, followed by stereotyping and discrimination, which could evolve into violence and conflict, on the other (BBC, 2011 - ?). His interest in this analysis was fueled by his experiences as a Polish Jew who was one of the few people he knew in his community to survive the Holocaust during World War II (BBC,†¦show more content†¦Tajfel’s experiment signaled a significant departure from the largely North American psychological school of thought at the time, which believed that prejudice was caused by individual personalities and bias was a result of competition between groups. It highlighted t he fact that individuals had a natural, cognitive bias, which meant that competition was not necessary and that personalities were not relevant (BBC, 2012). Tajfel outlined these ideas in his article, Cognitive Aspects of Prejudice, first published in 1969. According to Simply Psychology, Tajfel and Turner proposed the following three mental processes take place in evaluating others as â€Å"us† or â€Å"them† i.e. â€Å"in-group† or â€Å"out-group† through a series of social categorization, social identification and social comparison. Social categorization is the process through which people are naturally inclined to categorize themselves into one or more groups such as social classes, ethnic groups and sports, all of which serve as a source of identity and self-esteem. Furthermore, they provide individuals with a sense of belonging in a social world. Members of in in-group may find an increase emotional strength and coping skills associated with their group membership. Individuals within these groups self-categorize and implement, subconsciously or consciously, strategies

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