Social Identity Theory (SIT)

Serap AKFIRAT
 Collective Self: “Who Are We?”

• Collective self can be defined as cognitive

redefinition of self as “we” instead of “I”.
• With the collective self,
• the emphasis is not anymore on how I am distinct and/or a
unique person with particular idiosyncratic attributes, but on
how I am similar to or the same with others.
• When the definition of self-shifts from individual to
collective, people don’t see themselves as discrete
individuals. Instead, they view themselves as alike with
particular group of people but very different from some
others.
 Collective Self: “Who Are We?”

• Redefinition of self at a collective level

requires cognitive representation of some
people as a group, including one’s self.
• Thus, the representation of group in the mind
is the basis or the prerequisite of one’s
definition of his or her self collectively.
• In other words, individuals transform their
definition of self qualitatively in terms of their
group membership.
 Historical Background
• Although collective self-conceptualization as an important
part of one’s self-concept is a relatively recent
phenomenon.
• Cognitive representation of the group as a whole is one of
the basic conflict points in the history of social psychology
• This conflict started with intensive denial of McDougall’s group mind
thesis by behaviorist approach.
• McDougall, influencing from Durkheim’s ideas about society as the
only real entity, claimed that the group mind which is formed through
collective thoughts and soul is independent from the individual
persons’ mind
• Accordingly social groups are autonomous entities, which possess
their own rules, laws, power, and minds. Such views regard individuals
as only passive receptacles.
 Historical Background
• McDougall’s group mind thesis was met by very strong rejection by 1920’s
positivistic/behaviorist approach

• Viewing the group with its own life, law and mind, which is destructive, primitive
and irrational, induced behaviorist approach to refuse not only group mind thesis,
but also the group as a distinct psychological process

• For example Allport (1924) believed that psychological processes occur only in
individuals who are the only units accessible to observation.
• Allport (1924) claimed that if individuals are the only real actors, the term group is a fictitious
abstraction if it intends anything more than to refer to the sum of reactions of individuals to one
another.

• Despite the domination of behaviorism in the first half of the twentieth century,
some researchers such as Sherif and Asch continued group studies.
• For example Asch (1952) saw individuals both as an agent and as members of groups at the same time
with the statement “individual and group are the twin fundamental poles of social existence”
 Basic Premises of
Social Identity Theory
• By 1970’s with the emergence of Tajfel’s Social Identity Theory (SIT), the
neglected question of how individual’s psychology influence and is
influenced from the reality of group has started to draw attention and to
be examined again.

• SIT starts with accepting the psychological reality of group.

• According to SIT human mind is not purely individual process or product;
rather its content, structure and functioning are socially shaped and
interdependent with society

• The basic proposition of SIT is that concept of group is a distinct

psychological mechanism by which people can orient themselves in order
to have a reference point for the self.

• A social category to which one belongs provides a basis for self-definition.

• This cognitive definition of self as a member of a group, with the values

and emotions attached to it, is called social identity
 Basic Premises of
Social Identity Theory
• The interpersonal-intergroup continuum hypothesis
• at the interpersonal end of the continuum, individuals define their
self in terms of differences from other individual persons.
» Thus, through the process of interindividual comparisons, people
can set their idiosyncratic attributes and define themselves as
distinct and unique individuals.
• On the other hand, at the intergroup end of the continuum,
individuals define themselves and behave in accordance with their
group membership as a product of comparison between one’s own
group and the other groups
• Whereas personal identity requires categorization of self in terms
of individual differences from other people, social identity is
achieved through the social categorization of the self in terms of
shared similarities with members of a certain social category with
respect to other social categories
 Basic Premises of
Social Identity Theory
• Self-Categorization Theory (SCT)
• categorization is the cognitive grouping process, which
is an inevitable result of human perception system that
transforms differences into similarities (vice versa), in
order to make stimuli meaningful objects and events.
• Self perception also occurs in the same way.
• self can be categorized at many different levels of
abstraction: interpersonal (e.g. being smart), intergroup
(being Turkish), interspecies (Being human)
 Basic Premises of
Social Identity Theory
• Depersonalization
• As a result of perceptual accentuation of intragroup
similarities and intergroup differences, the self is
redefined from uniqueness to shared similarities
through sharing the same stereotype in any particular
situation. This process is called depersonalization of
self-perception.
• people perceive themselves as no more different from
other members of their own category on the related
dimension but very much different from members of
the other categories
 Basic Premises of
Social Identity Theory
• Positive self-view
• Whereas personal identity produces individual perception
and behavior, social identity induces group perception and
behavior. Personal self behaves to form positive
distinctiveness and uniqueness from other individuals
• “We” self, on the other hand, tries to be positively distinct
not from individual persons, but from a group of people.
• Because individuals are motivated to evaluate their selves in
a positive light, they are inclined to evaluate their group
positively in order to acquire a positive social identity
• Positive social identity is achieved through establishment of
positive distinctiveness of the ingroup from relevant
outgroups
 Basic Premises of
Social Identity Theory
• SIT suggests that if positive social identity
cannot be achieved on comparison dimension
(when an individual has a negative social
identity due to being member of a
disadvantaged social category) that individual
will attempt to improve his/her own situation:
•
Strategies for negative social identities
• Tajfel (1978) suggested three strategies to
altering one’s negative social identity:
• individual mobility: individual strategy involves leaving a
disadvantaged group behaviorally, or at least psychologically
• social creativity: refers to a reevaluation of the comparative
context, which does not make any real change in one’s social
group’s status, but does provide a positive sense of that
social identity
» For example changing comperative dimension
• collective competition: direct competition with the out-
group to reverse the relative status of the in-group to the
out-group
Strategies for negative social identities
• According to SIT, identity management strategies
to be adopted by group members depend on
perceived social-structural relations:
• stability is the in-group members’ beliefs about the
changeability of the difference in status between groups,
• legitimacy is the in-group members’ perceptions of fairness
and justice of the status difference between the in-group
and out-group.
• Permeability of group boundaries refers to the in-group
members’ perception of the probability of their elevating
into the high-status groups.
Strategies for negative social identities
• There have been numerous experimental and
field studies addressing the question of under
what circumstances do disadvantaged-group
members accept their situation, take individual
action or attempt to adopt collective action
• when members of low-status groups believed the
boundaries of high-status group was open; they tended to
accept the situation and endorse individual action.
• collective competition could be predicted primarily through
a perceived illegitimacy of status inferiority, whereas
mobility is mainly predicted by a perceived stability of status
inferiority.
Strategies for negative social identities
• that if group boundaries are permeable and the
status quo is stable, people tend to move into
higher status groups.
• On the other hand, if group boundaries are
impermeable and the status quo is stable, low-
status group members accept their inferiority and
tend to come up with creative strategies.
• If group boundaries are impermeable and the
status quo is unstable, members of lower status
groups seek to change the status quo through
collective strategies