Social identity Theory (SIT) suggests that if people categorize themselves as belonging to a group, they will readily discriminate in favour of their group (the ingroup) and against others (the outgroups). In order to better understand SIT, Henri Tajfel and a number of his colleagues began a series of studies on 14 and 15 year-old schoolboys. Their aim was to discover whether simply being a member of a particular group would create discriminatory behaviour between groups. The boys were randomly assigned groups on the basis of something superficial, as was the case in one experiment where they were each allocated a group based on their preference for a particular style of art. They were then asked to perform a task requiring them to award points to pairs of unknown boys as follows:
Pairs of boys identified as being in their ‘own’ artist’s group (the ingroup)
Pairs of boys identified as being in the ‘other’ artist’s group (the outgroup)
One member of each of both the ingroup and the outgroup.
Tajfel et al. discovered that the boys were fair when allocating points to two members of either the ingroup or to two members of the outgroup. When allocating points to one member of each group, however, they took the opportunity to favour members of their ‘own’ group and discriminate against members of the ‘other’ group, thus favouring the ingroup over the outgroup (as cited in Phoenix, 2007 p. 63). A striking feature of this finding is that they did this despite the fact that as individuals they had nothing to gain (since they could not award points to themselves). Tajfel and his colleagues discovered that even if differences between groups were small, intergroup discrimination still occurred. Tajfel argued that these findings demonstrated that simply categorizing individuals into groups was sufficient to generate prejudice between the groups. He claimed that people try to maintain positive social identities in comparison with members of other groups and that we strive to have a sense of belonging to groups that we consider to have a more positive image and higher status (as cited in Phoenix, 2007 p. 64). As such, we allow outgroups to be theorized as inferior. SIT maintains that prejudice and discrimination stems from an inevitable drive towards attaining an esteemed social identity.
Psychologists who carry out subjective research collect insider accounts and symbolic data with the goal of exploring and understanding people’s experiences. The focus on meaning and subjective experience in qualitative research makes it part of the hermeneutic tradition. Discourse analysis is one such example of a qualitative method used in psychology, and involves analysing spoken and written language. Discourse analysts study naturally occurring speech and text from conversations, newspaper and magazine articles, documents and speeches. They view language as functional in that it is used to achieve certain things, and their research aims to establish how people construct and present accounts in language.
Discourse analysis prompts us to contemplate how ideas, concepts and perceptions are constructed through the use of language. For example, we might investigate how people with disabilities are portrayed in the media. If it were thought that certain language tended to focus on the concept of the ‘sufferer with disabilities’, then this might lead us to question how discourses linked with disability create a concept of disability as something correlate to suffering. However, we might discover that ‘disabled people’ do not themselves feel that they ‘suffer’ as a consequence of their impairments (as inferred by the media), but instead live in a society where their needs are not adequately provided for. So, in our investigations, rather than looking for examples of disability shown as a problem of the person with the impairment, we might instead interpret it as a social problem where society fails to provide for the needs of people with disabilities. Potter and Wetherell noted that ‘analysis views language as more than just a medium for communication: language is seen as a key constructive facet of social life’ (Methods Book. p.26-28).
Different theories require different methods to test them, and consequently each theory has a tendency to be associated with specific methods. In an area such as identity it is often assumed that in order to understand people’s identities we need to use insider accounts: that is, people’s accounts of their own experience of their identities. However, the outsider viewpoint is also used, as is the case of the experimental methods that test theories of SIT. Psychological theories such as SIT and social constructionism which aim to access identities in their social and historical contexts have progressed forward through methods such as social categorisation experiments and analyses of oral and written discourse. As a result, theories of identity have developed and advanced through the use of both quantitative research methods of the scientific tradition, and qualitative research methods used in the hermeneutic approach. We are provided with a wealth of insight to experiences and beliefs regarding our understanding of identity, and what it is that makes us, as human beings, different from each other and other animals.
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Good summary of key findings based on SIT ingroup/outgroup experimental studies. You could also mention Jane Elliott’s natural experiment with brown eyes/blue eyes here, which also supports SIT.
