Social identity tehory and gro
To this very day, the world has been subjected to all sorts of atrocities due to stereotype and prejudice. Several theories, including the social identity theory have been put forward as an attempt to explain these conflicts. The objective of this paper is to illustrate the role that social identity theory and its components play in explaining how group comparisons can often lead to inter-group competition and discrimination. Social identity is a model for the psychology of social structure which lays emphasis on inter-group competition. Social categorisation and the self-esteem motive are constituents of social identity theory which are precursors to inter-group conflicts as they nurture stereotyping and prejudicial behaviour. An unstable status quo leads to direct inter-group conflict.Social identity theory is essentially a person's sense of membership in a certain social group, to which he/she attaches some emotional or value significance (Abrams & Hogg, 1990). Tajfel (1974) indicated that social identity is a possible representation of the psychology of social structure where it stresses that real social groups and categories are in constant competition with one another for wealth, rights and power and that they stan
Tajfel carried out an experiment in 1969 to demonstrate the effects of categorisation; he made participants estimate the length of eight consecutive lines whose lengths varied by a constant ratio. In the experimental group, the shortest four lines were labelled group A and the longest four lines, group B; for the controls, he labelled the lines A and B at random and another group of the same eight lines were presented without labels. The typical Palestinian views the Israelis as dictators who deny them rights to freedom and to their homeland; seeing that they cannot obtain an improved social identity peacefully, they resort to conflict. An unstable status quo can lead to point blank social competition which results in inter-group conflict as in the case of Nigeria. To simplify, if the lines were personal traits or a social criterion such as race, religion, etc, the results obtained would have demonstrated a full-blown stereotype. d in a status relation to one another (Abrams & Hogg, 1990). Overall, it can be concluded that the social identity theory and its components can be used to account for group comparisons that eventually lead to inter-group competition and discrimination. Where there is inter-group competition, there is probably one "superior" group with more resources, privileges, power and prestige than the others. Social categorisation is described by Hogg (1995) as a situation where differences within a group (in-group) are minimised and the differences between diverse groups (inter-group) are accentuated, especially on stereotypical aspects such as attitude, behaviour and emotion. This higher ranking group will seek to maintain the prevailing status quo so they can propagate their point of views and legal concepts into the general population (Hogg & Abrams, 1990). In several cases, social identity itself can be the cause of conflict, with an example being the current situation in Israel. Group comparisons can be the result of social categorisation which is associated with stereotyping. Social identity is a multi-faceted theory; it can be used to account for most of the reasons behind inter-group conflicts; however only four aspects were discussed.
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