In 1979
British psychologists Henri Tajfel and John Turner
introduced the Social Identity Theory, where our ‘social identity’ within a group shapes our norms, attitudes and behaviour.
Henri Tajfel’s
greatest contribution to psychology was social identity theory. Social identity is a person’s sense of who they are based on their group membership(s). Tajfel (1979) proposed that the groups (e.g. social class, family, football team etc.)
Social identity theory is described as a theory that
predicts certain intergroup behaviours on the basis of perceived group status differences
, the perceived legitimacy and stability of those status differences, and the perceived ability to move from one group to another.
The theory argues that
social identity underpins intergroup behavior and sees
this as qualitatively distinct from interpersonal behavior. It delineates the circumstances under which social identities are likely to become important, so that they become the primary determinant of social perceptions and social behaviors.
This process of favoring one’s in-group happens in three stages:
social categorization, social identification, and social comparison
. (1) People first categorize themselves and others into social groups based on external or internal criteria.
Social identity theory is built on three key cognitive components:
social categorization, social identification, and social comparison
. Generally, individuals wish to maintain a positive social identity by maintaining their group’s favorable social standing over that of relevant out-groups.
Social identity theory can be used in the contexts of multicultural counseling, research, and practice to understand the processes by which individuals develop and maintain social identities and groups. The theory includes three core elements:
social categorization, social identification, and social comparison.
An individual’s social identity indicates who they are in terms of the groups to which they belong. … Examples of social identities are
race/ethnicity, gender, social class/socioeconomic status, sexual orientation, (dis)abilities, and religion/religious beliefs
.
A weaknesses of the Social identity theory is that its
application is restricted in the sense that it has very low ecological validity
. Another weakness is that SIT favors situational factors rather than dispositional is not supported by evidence.
Social identity allows people to be part of groups and gain a sense of belonging in their social world. These identities play an important role in shaping self-image. … Social identification is important
because it influences how people see themselves and how they interact with others
.
Social comparison theory was first proposed in 1954 by psychologist Leon Festinger and suggested that people have an innate drive to evaluate themselves, often in comparison to others. … For example,
a music student might compare herself to the star student of the class
.
Social loafing describes
the tendency of individuals to put forth less effort when they are part of a group
. Because all members of the group are pooling their effort to achieve a common goal, each member of the group contributes less than they would if they were individually responsible. 1
Personal identity refers to self-categories which define the individual as a unique person in terms of their individual differences from other (ingroup) persons. … Social identity refers to the social categorical self (e.g., “us” versus “them”, ingroup versus outgroup, us women, men, whites, blacks, etc.).
As a social identity category,
age identity includes the relative sense of feeling “young”
or “old,” which does not necessarily coincide with chronological age.
Social identity refers to
a sense of identity based on the social groups that an individual considers themselves to belong to
. These social groups that many of us identify with can be many things such as race, religion, profession, economic class, etc.
What is an emotional identity?
But perhaps the most important and telling of these identities is Emotional Identity, the
characteristic way in which our desires and fears manifest themselves and our personalities respond to the behaviour, negative and positive
, of others.
