Social identity theory is a theory which was invented by Tajfel and Turner in 1979. According to The University of Twente, a person has not one, “personal self”, but rather several selves that correspond to widening circles of group membership” By the words “several selves” the psychologists are trying to say that the individual has formed a group with other individual who are similar to themselves, which make the group members part of them, making them who they are. This was developed in order to understand the basis of intergroup discrimination relating to psychology. According to this theory, an individual classifies them in certain group in the society. The groups the individual are part of in known as the in group and the group they are not part of are known as the out group. The individual is more comfortable and open within the in group, but closed themselves up from the out group, as they may feel uncomfortable approaching to other groups. This is because they individuals feel they have more common personality with their in group rather than the out group. The individual actually categorizes themselves into certain groups. Once they find the comfort zone within the group for themselves, their self-esteem has increased and now is a part of their self-concept. Therefore this gives us an understanding for certain behavior in health and care settings. For e.g. some residents may only interact with other specific residents and may feel uncomfortable to talk to residents they don’t know. This often happens in nearly all types of health and social care setting for e.g. in a care home there may be a group of residents who separate themselves from the rest, because they see their group as their in group. Another example would be in a nursery, children may have their own friendship groups which they prefer rather than joining with individual who are stranger to them. This behavior is kind of discrimination, because the individuals in the in group are discriminating the other group but not joining with them. This kind of behavior needs to be understood by the carers working with these service users and find ways to link everyone in together, so they do not classify themselves within a group. In order to this the care home and nurseries may create an activity so that everyone can join in and get destroy the strangeness.
Reference: BTEC National Health and Social Care Book 2
Leon Festinger is another psychologist who develops the theory of cognitive dissonance. The theory concludes that individuals experience distress and discomfort when their beliefs do not match their behaviors. As a result to this, the individual will seek stability in their beliefs and opinions. If our beliefs conflicts with another previous beliefs, something must be changed in order for the individual remove the dissonance. For e.g. the individual may believe that ignoring residents’ needs is unacceptable, but if the resident is seeking attention and asking for their needs to be met every time, the worker may have to ignore the resident for sometime. This creates a guilty feeling for the carer which is psychologically known as the cognitive dissonance. In order for them to eliminate the dissonance, they will have to either change their belief or action. If their changes their belief, this will raise the issue, as they are ignoring the needs of the resident, but if they change their action by understanding the seriousness of the need to be that needs meeting, then the individual is having their needs met accordingly to the seriousness, rather than just seeking attention. Another example linking it with the public may be that individual may not use a condom due to embarrassment towards the partner. They may know this is inappropriate, but by doing it the inappropriate way creates a dissonance in the individual. In order for this they have to either change their belief or action. However by changing their belief they have high changes of STIs, so they are better or changing their action by discussing the importance of using condoms with their partner. Therefore the perceptions need changing to match action or their perceptions need changing to match their actions. Wither way they have to sort the distortion by reprocessing the information. Linking this with health and social care, there are certain situations that need sacrificing in order to eliminate the cognitive dissonance for e.g. if a resident has just been taken for toileting and they still keep asking, the worker cannot afford to waste their time on this particular resident by giving them attention, so the worker has to overlook the resident and carry on with their work.
http://psychology.about.com/od/profilesal/p/leon-festinger.htm
http://changingminds.org/explanations/theories/cognitive_dissonance.htm
Solomon Asch was another psychologist who experimented on to investigate further with majority influence. He investigated this theory by seating few individuals in a room where they are visible to standard line. They are shown three different sized lines in box A and in the box B there is another line which matches the length of one line in the box A. the individuals in the room where then asked to shout out loud which on the three lines in box A match with the line in box B. As the view from each of the individual could be different, they started from one end going towards the other. He found that some individual reply with genuine answers which were wrong. Some individual started worrying of shouting what they genuinely thought or what other individuals were shouting out. This raised a anxiety feeling among the individual that was left to answer. The question really was if the individuals answered genuinely or according to what others answered. The individuals in these groups were not familiar with other individuals, which may create an assumption that the will answer genuinely. However, this shows that groups have a major impact on individuals, even if the individuals are familiar with each other.
Confirming to majority influences are normally done because the individual may believe that they can get higher information and knowledge, than the individual does. For e.g. in a care home everyone is meant to wear gloves and aprons when handling food. There may be a carer who disagrees with this, but has to wear it because everyone else is, and if they don’t wear it the others may treat them differently. The individual has keeps on changing their behavior in order to stand in line with other members. This sort of influence is known as minority influence. Relating this to health and social care settings, an example would be that a new carer who has bee placed at a care home from an education course. This individual is learning appropriate ways of giving standard care and is ready to apply this knowledge in the care home, but other workers working at the care home are not following the procedures well. This will create a conflict for the individual within themselves, as to they don’t know whether to follow guidelines or other carers. This individual may retain this behavior and perform it, so that they will not be picked out by other workers
A psychologist who named Philip Zimbardo (1973) studied the ways, roles influenced behavior within prisons. (Cardwell, Clark & Meldrum, 2003) An interview was carried out among a group of young males, and the ones fitted well psychologically and physically were picked to be studied further. Students from the university where he worked were placed randomly as prisoners or guards. The setting was created as a real prison, so guards and prisoners were given their uniform to encourage their identification. Within observing for a short time, Zimbardo noticed that the guards turned quite brutal towards the prisoners, if they did not obey their orders. It was clear that the prisoners were suffering from psychological harm, so this study had to be discontinued. Accepting and behaving according to social roles is a part of every individual. For e.g. a daughter may have to be home before the dark. She may want to stay out with her friend for longer, but the fact her parents asked her to be home by a specific time, the individual will be aware of the consequences and go home in time. An example such as, an individual may be very talkative at home, but quite among their friends. This may be because the individual feels they have to behave this way to fit in with their role.
As there are many roles, the individual changes their behavior according to the specific situation for e.g. if an individual has a strict family and they are very outgoing when outside their house, they may have to change their behavior which is appropriate for the situation the individual enters when going home. Linking this to the health and social care settings, two workers, nurse and senior nurse may be good friends outside work, but when they put their uniform and enter their work environment the nurse takes the role of being under the senior nurse, even though they are friends outside.
The roles we play are influenced by the shared beliefs and attitudes, values and behavior the group shares between them, which make the individual be more powerfully similar making them behavior more like the group. Different attitudes and behaviors depend to types of social influence. This kind of influence from our social groups is known as “social influence” resulting with an influential impact on the individual and their behavior. Taking of this theory generally, changing behaviors according to their social groups is due to their social identity. The individual may have to take on their behavior to be accepted by their social group.
Reference: BTEC National Health and Social Care Book 2
