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. This is why we
categorize ourselves in terms of group membership. So when an individual talks of
himself as a male, Australian, a student, member of a swimming team and a surfer, he
refers to his social identities. If the same person also said he played on the rugby team
that won the last game, we will know that he can boost his self-esteem through both his
personal achievement but also through affiliation with this successful team.

Social Identity Theory was proposed by Tajfel (1979). He identified three psychological
mechanisms involved in the creation of a social identity: Social categorization, social
comparison and the tendency for people to use group membership as a source of self-
esteem.
Social identity theory is based on the cognitive process of social categorization. Social
categorization is the process of classifying people into groups based on similar
characteristics, whether it be nationality, age, occupation, or some other trait. This
categorization gives rise to in-groups (us) and out-groups (them). Tajfel argues that
even when people are randomly assigned to a group, they automatically think of that
group as their in-group (us) and all others as an out-group (them).
Tajfel found that when people are randomly assigned to a group - by the flip of a coin,
the drawing of a number from a hat, or by preference for a previously unknown artist -
they see themselves as being similar in attitude and behaviour, and this is apparently
enough for a bond to be formed among group members. In the famous Kandinsky
versus Klee experiment, Tajfel et al. (1971) observed that boys who were assigned
randomly to a group, based on their supposed preference for the art of either Kandinsky
or Klee, were more likely to identify with the boys in their group, and were willing to
give higher awards to members of their own group. This is what Tajfel referred to as in-
group favouritism.

Research in psychology: Tajfel et al (1971)

A sample of 48 boys, aged 14 – 15 years old, was asked to rate 12 paintings by the
abstract painters Paul Klee and Wassily Kandinsky. They were not told during the test
which artist had painted which painting. The boys were then randomly allocated to
groups and then told that they had preferred either Klee or Kandinsky.

Each boy was then given the task to award points to two other boys, one from his same
group and one from the other group. The only information that each boy was given was
code numbers and the name of the group of the two boys they were supposed to award.
There were two systems of awarding points that were employed by the researchers.

Tajfel created a point allocation system to test how specific variables could influence the
boys’ choices of reward: (1) maximum joint profit (giving the largest reward to
members of both groups), (2) maximum in-group profit (giving the largest reward to a

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member of the in-group), or (3) maximum differences (giving the largest possible
difference in reward between a member of the in-group and a member of the out-group.

The way that this actually worked is as follows:

o If a Klee member chose a high value for another Klee member, it would give a
higher profit to the out-group.
o If a Klee member chose mid-range value for another Klee member, it would give
the same points for the other group.
o If a Klee member chose a low value for another Klee member, it would award
only 1 point to the other team.

The results showed that maximum joint profit had very little effect on the boys' choices.
However, when the boys had a choice between maximizing profit for all and maximizing
the profit for members of their in-group, they clearly favoured their own group. When
they had the choice of maximizing the difference in reward against profit for all, the
boys were willing to give their own team fewer points with the goal of maximizing the
difference between their in-group and the out-group. This was a bit surprising since it
meant that the boys left the study with less money than if they had all given each other
the most amount of money possible.

Tajfel concluded that out-group discrimination is very easy to trigger and that once it
has been triggered, we have norms of behaviour which include discriminating against
the out-group. One of the most obvious conclusions that we can draw from this
experiment is the natural tendency of members of a group to favour their in-group.
Tajfel demonstrated that a "minimal group" is all that is necessary for individuals to
exhibit discrimination against an out-group.

The Tajfel study is a highly controlled experiment. It is also highly standardized, so it is

replicable in order to establish reliability. However, the task was highly artificial and
may not reflect how the boys would have interacted in a more natural setting. In
addition, the boys have interpreted the task as supposed to be competitive and tried to
win - thus showing demand characteristics. Finally, the study was done using British
school boys - so it may be difficult to generalize the findings of this study to other ages
and cultures.

Once we categorize people into “us” and “them”, self-esteem is maintained by social
comparison—that is, the benefits of belonging to the in-group versus the out-group.
Cialdini et al. (1976) demonstrated this phenomenon among college football supporters.
After a successful football match, the supporters were more likely to be seen wearing
college insignia and clothing than after defeats. It is assumed that our need for a positive
self-concept will result in a bias in these intergroup comparisons, so that you are more
positive towards anything that your own group represents. Tajfel calls this “the
establishment of positive distinctiveness”.

There have been many applications of social identity theory – both to explain behaviour
and to change behaviour. An example of how SIT can be used to explain behaviour is a
study carried out by 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. Fifty introductory psychology students (23 males and 27
females) thought that they were taking a test of visual accuracy. At the start of the

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experiment, three confederates were introduced either as first-year students from the
psychology department (in-group) or as students of ancient history (out-group).

The participants were shown a stimulus line, and then three other lines - one of which
was the same length as the stimulus line. The task was to identify which of the three
lines matched the stimulus line. 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. The average number of conforming responses
was 5.23 in the in-group condition and only 0.75 in the out-group condition. The
participants also revealed in the post-experimental questionnaire that they had been
less confident about their own judgment in the in-group condition. The results seem to
indicate that social categorization can play a key role in one’s decision to conform.

An example of how SIT has been applied is in crowd control during emergency
evacuations. 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. Drury has argued that
making a collective identity salient by making announcements to “All customers” or
“Real Madrid Fans” or “Americans”, will cause people to act as a group and not panic in
an emergency situation. This is better than using sirens or other emergency signals.

Social identity theory appears to be a useful way of understanding human behaviour in

a number of areas. However, there are some limitations to the theory. First, it describes
but does not accurately predict human behaviour. Although the theory argues that
whichever identity is most salient is most likely to determine our behaviour, why is it
that in some cases our personal identity is stronger than the group identity? Second,
using the theory in isolation is reductionist—it fails to address the environment that
interacts with the “self.” Cultural expectations, rewards as motivators, and societal
constraints such as poverty may play more of a role in behaviour than one’s own sense
of in-group identity.

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