Tajfel

Question 1

What of his experiences in the war interested him?

Answer 1

• plight of refugees and minority groups, issues of prejudice
• interested in way people act and are treated is determined by group membership over individuality, recognized that the self isn’t just personal, it’s also social

Question 2

What is the minimal group paradigm?

Answer 2

• looks at breaking it down to the basics and then adding variables to see the point the conflict would arise
• design of a study that can be varied and built on

Question 3

What is the rationale of the study?

Answer 3

• minimum conditions

- negative interdependence

Question 4

What is the Tajfel (Flament) Matrix?

Answer 4

• choose the column that shows the value of coins you wish to give to an ingroup member and outgroup member
• number of different strategies could be used: giving equal amounts, going for most difference, column that gave most points regardless of to whom

Question 5

What are the minimal conditions for intergroup discrimination?

Answer 5

• categorisation into 2 distinct groups
• real decisions about the distribution of rewards/penalties (no realistic group conflict)
• no advantage for the individual making a distribution choice
• no knowledge of identity of ingroup/outgroup members
• no face-to-face interaction
• no advantage of belonging to particular group
• no logical reason for holding a negative attitude against the outgroup

Question 6

Who were the participants?

Answer 6

• 64 boys (aged 14/15)

- from comprehensive school in suburb of Bristol

Question 7

What was the procedure and the 2 phases?

Answer 7

• phase 1: categorisation based on arbitrary criterion, participants taken to separate cubicles and told their group (random assignment to groups)
• phase 2: tajfel matrices, given booklet of matrices and told their task was to assign rewards to anonymous members of each group, value of each point was 0.1 of a penny

Question 8

What were the results?

Answer 8

• boys adopt strategy that’s a compromise between the fairness and maximum differentiation in favour of the ingroup
• relative group gain is more important than absolute group gain and maximum overall gain (doing better than them is more important than doing well in general

Question 9

What were the conclusions?

Answer 9

• social categorisation is a sufficient condition to create intergroup discrimination/ingroup favouritism
• competition over scarce resources isn’t necessary (but sufficient)

Question 10

What is the initial explanation for competitive generic norm?

Answer 10

• evidence points to a fairness norm rather than competitive generic norm, children are taught to share
• follow-up studies showed role-playing leads to fairness but less ingroup favouritism among groups with less competitive values
• when participants categorised themselves as members of a group this gave their behaviour a distinct meaning
• positive distinctiveness: differentiating ingroup from relevant comparison group on valued dimensions
• social identity theory (social categorisation, social identification, social comparison)

Question 11

What is the self-esteem hypothesis?

Answer 11

• feel good about self due to positive identification, characteristics and connotations you associate with due to being part of that group
• positive distinctiveness creates positive social identity which reflects positively on the individual, thus creating collective self-esteem
• follow-up studies found that not all tests of the self-esteem hypothesis found evidence that maximum differentiation leads to higher self-esteem but not when it’s measured on the group level

Question 12

What are the methodological issues?

Answer 12

• demand characteristics: effects still persist in follow-ups even when they don’t want to please the experimenter, if told what to expect the effect is amplified
• role of similarity: participants work on assumption that they’re more similar to ingroup members and that similarity leads to attraction. follow-up studies found that social categorisation produces stronger ingroup favouritism than similarity and stronger ingroup favouritism when the outgroup is more similar
• role of interdependence/reciprocity: no direct self-interest, participants may expect other ingroup members to act in terms of ingroup favouritism to benefit everyone. follow-up studies found effect is stronger when participants assume interdependence however bounded rationality only works with ingroup
• maximum rather than minimum conditions: trivial categorisation is only information to create meaningful task, only 1 outgroup, distribution of money is only meaningful way to achieve differentiation

Question 13

What is the theoretical debate?

Answer 13

• economic models of human rationality: not about individual self-interest, personal economic gain, or maximum overall gain (would rather give less to ingroup then give more to outgroup)
• Tajfel believed prejudice and other intergroup phenomena were grounded in social relations and realities, don’t believe it’s an automatic product of cognitive bias

Question 14

What is the empirical impact?

Answer 14

-effects have been reproduced in field settings

Question 15

What is the social context?

Answer 15

-Tajfel was fundamentally opposed to reductionism, individualism and a-contextualism however much of his empirical work has been used to promote these approaches to social psychology

Question 16

What impact does social identity theory have?

Answer 16

• intergroup relations
• social change
• social stigma
• leadership
• organisational behaviour
• crowd behaviour
• online and CCTV effects on behaviour
• social emotions
• social influence

Question 17

What is the social cure?

Answer 17

• identifying with several social groups

- protects physical and mental health, makes people more resilient, promotes recovery