Social identity

Social identity theory was first introduced by the social psychologist Henri Tajfel (1974), and later elaborated together with his colleague John Turner (Tajfel & Turner, 1979). Originally aiming to explain hostility between groups (Forsyth, 2010, p. 77), the authors noted how:

in order for the members of an ingroup to be able to hate or dislike an outgroup, or to discriminate against it, they must first have acquired a sense of belonging to a group which is clearly distinct from the one they hate, dislike or discriminate against (Tajfel, 1974, p. 66).

In other words, inter-group hostility follows processes of group identification, and Tajfel (ibid., p. 67) shows that this is the case even when the basis for identification is trivial, for

example on the basis of preference for one piece of art over another. According to social identity theory, a group is a:

collection of individuals who perceive themselves to be members of the same social category, share some emotional involvement in this common definition of themselves, and achieve some degree of social consensus about the evaluation of their group and of their membership in it (Tajfel & Turner, 1979, p. 40).

Importantly, group membership does not necessarily relate to physical groups. Rather, in the logic of social identity theory, groups are cognitive entities consisting of three or more people (Hogg, 2006, p. 111).

The process of group identification works through two main mechanisms: group categorization and group comparison (Brewer, 2001, p. 7728). Group categorization refers to the ordering of social information into meaningful distinct categories (Tajfel, 1974, p. 69; Ellemers, De Gilder, & Haslam, 2004, p. 462; Forsyth, 2010, p. 77). Through social categorization, the differences within groups are decreased, while the differences between groups are emphasized (Brewer, 1996, p. 292). As Hogg (2006) observes, social categories are essentially prototypes, or:

fuzzy set[s] of attributes (perceptions, attitudes, feelings, and behaviors) that are related to one another in a meaningful way and simultaneously capture similarities within the group and differences between the group and other groups of people who are not in the group (p. 118).

This process of categorization applies to other people as much as it applies to ourselves (Forsyth, 2010, p. 77). When identifying as a group member, people “depersonalize”

their identity and perceive of themselves in terms of their group membership; when depersonalizing out-group members, we speak of stereotyping (Hogg, 2006, pp. 118-9).

Such social categories gain meaning through comparison, the second process of interest. Here:

social comparisons with other groups (e.g., sales persons versus customers in a store/sales persons versus production workers in the organization) determine which features or behavioral norms help to define the group in a particular situation. Generally, these features are those that distinguish the group from relevant comparison groups (Ellemers et al., 2004, p. 462).

In other words, while categorization defines social groups, comparing social groups helps to understand the meaning of these categorizations. The category “women” does not mean anything without the existence of the category “men”, and the same is true for the categories “immigrants” and “natives”.

This discussion highlights two important implications of social identity theory. First, as Tajfel (1974, pp. 71-2) also observes, groups are technically meaningless without the presence of a relevant comparison group. If unique group features are identified through social comparison processes, the presence of out-group members is crucial to the definition of the in-group. Second, the fact that out-groups define which features of social groups become salient implies that individuals can hold multiple social identities depending on the situation in which they find themselves (Hogg, 2006, p. 115). In other words, a person can identify as Dutch, woman, academic, and in many additional ways, but the identity that is salient depends on the situation and the other people who are present in that context. To cite another example by Ellemers et al. (2004), in a work situation categorizations could be made based on professional roles when it comes to improving procedures, while ethnic or gender identities should be more salient when discussing affirmative action programs (p. 462).

Social identification leads to a preference for in-group members, called in-group favoritism (Brewer, 1996, p. 292). In Tajfel’s (1974) original experiments, participants who were asked to divide money between two others consistently preferred in-group members, even when social categorization was based on trivial features such as preference for one painting over another or performance in an estimation task (p. 67; Tajfel & Turner, 1979, pp. 38-9). In a more realistic group situation, Baldassarri and Grossman (2013) show how prosocial behavior of Ugandan farmers is shaped by group identification, with more generous allocations of money to in-group members. Besides preferences in allocations of resources, in-group favoritism is also found to affect evaluations of character and actions of others, and inter-group cooperation (Brewer, 2001, p. 7728).

Based on this discussion, we may hypothesize that stronger social identification leads to more negative feelings toward out-group members. For the case of attitudes toward immigrants, this implies that:

we should find stronger anti-immigrant attitudes among people who identify more strongly with their social group.

The ultimate goal of social identity processes is to construct a positive image of the self (Tajfel, 1974, p.68; Tajfel & Turner, 1979, p. 40; Brewer, 1991, p. 477; Hogg, 2006, p. 120), and therefore individuals will aim to identify with groups that contribute positively to their self-esteem. Indeed, groups strive to distinguish themselves positively from others, and people are found to identify more strongly with higher-status groups. For example, in a study on support for college football teams, Cialdini et al. (1976) found that students wore more team apparel and more often discussed matches in terms of “we” when their college’s team had won than when they had lost, especially when their self-esteem had been challenged. These results imply that the students identified more strongly when the team had the possibility to contribute positively to the students’ identity.

Instead, if it is the case that social groups do not contribute to a positive self-image, group members have a number of options. Of course, dissatisfied members could simply choose to leave the group for a higher-status group, thereby engaging in social mobility (Tajfel, 1974, p. 69; Tajfel & Turner, 1979, p. 43). If this is impossible for some reason, individuals might engage in social creativity (Tajfel & Turner, 1979, pp. 43-4): comparing their group on another dimension (e.g. “we may have lost but at least we played fair”), changing the value attached to their group attributes (e.g. “Black is beautiful” (Tajfel & Turner, 1979, p. 43)), or changing reference group (i.e. comparing the group to a lower-status group), thereby reducing the negative effects of low-status group membership. This way, beliefs about relative group status and permeability of group boundaries affect social behavior (Hogg, 2006, p. 122).