Social Identity Theory (SIT)

Question 1

What are the 6 different dimensions of studying groups?

Answer 1

numbers
longevity e.g religion
concentration
un/structured groups e.g army or crowd of shoppers
purpose
autocracy / democracy

Question 2

What is a common bond group?

Answer 2

group which involves people you see regularly like family

Question 3

What is a common identity group?

Answer 3

where you belong to it but don’t meet all members of the group regularly e.g a nation

Question 4

What does social aggregate mean?

Answer 4

where you belong to groups but don’t realise that you belong to those groups
don’t think of yourself as being part of it
e.g people with blue eyes

Question 5

What does entitativity mean?

Answer 5

extent to which a group is seen as a distinct, coherent, bounded entity
helps to understand who is in the group or not

Question 6

What is group cohesiveness?

Answer 6

a powerful emotional sense of connection to that group
having goals and working together to reach them
e.g team spirit

Question 7

What is ‘social attraction’ in terms of cohesiveness?

Answer 7

liking someone based on their proto-typicality within the group
leads to more cohesiveness in the group

Question 8

Groups are described as what overtime?

Answer 8

dynamic over time
join them and leave them

Question 9

What are the 6 stages of a person moving into a group then leaving it?

Answer 9

investigation
socialisation
maintenance
negotiation
resocialisation
remembrance

Question 10

Decker et al (2014) study on leaving a gang findings

Answer 10

found leaving a gang occurred in stages
how many stages and how long it takes depends on level of embeddedness of individual in gang

Question 11

What are norms?

Answer 11

shared belief about appropriate conduct for group members

Question 12

what does violation of group norms lead to?

Answer 12

ostracism

Question 13

McNeill et al (2013) study on norms of medical students

Answer 13

found medical students suffer from stress / burnout
norms of work hard, party hard and being strong not seeking help
identified as a medical student had beneficial effect on well being

Question 14

Status becomes what overtime?

Answer 14

institutionalised
stays the same in different situations

Question 15

What are high status members like?

Answer 15

assertive
contribute ideas
have obligations

Question 16

What are marginal members like?

Answer 16

disliked by group
people who are part of group but go against norms e.g traitors

Question 17

What type of criticism is taken more seriously in a group?

Answer 17

ingroup criticism over outgroup criticism

Question 18

Abrams et al (2014) study, children reaction to disloyalty

Answer 18

normative behaviour: going to fair
non-normative: wanting to stay home
children viewed not wanting to go to fair as strange

Question 19

What does intergroup behaviour involve?

Answer 19

shifting from personal identity to social identity

Question 20

Social identity frames are what?

Answer 20

dynamic
some identities are more important in different situations

Question 21

What does prototype refer to?

Answer 21

an ideal group member

Question 22

Dollard (1930s) frustration-aggression hypothesis

Answer 22

face situations which builds up frustration
achieve life goals to get rid of that
if cannot get rid of frustration by achieving goals then turn to aggression

Question 23

Sherif (1966) realistic conflict theory

Answer 23

conflict between groups arises due to mutually exclusive goals which they both want but cannot have
example of eagles and rattlers
groups attacked each other and stole when one group didn’t win prizes

Question 24

What is Game theory e.g Commons Dilemma?

Answer 24

players can graze one or two cows on common land each turn - receives reward for each one e.g £1, £2
if too many cows are grazed in one turn land is destroyed
game doesn’t last long as they all wanna earn more money

Question 25

What would solve issues in commons dilemma?

Answer 25

if players share a common identity people tend to be less selfish when playing game and make more money

Question 26

Tajfel's (1971) minimal groups study

Answer 26

set up games study add other elements to game to see what stage would create intergroup conflict

Question 27

Tajfel's (1971) procedure

Answer 27

shown 2 paintings from 2 different artists (placed into groups based on which one they chose) shown piece of paper with pairs of numbers (didn't mean anything at first) first no. assigned to in-group second no. given to outgroup

Question 28

Examples of pairs of numbers used in Tajfel's study?

Answer 28

4:3 minimises outgroup score, maximises ingroup 3:5 favours outgroup 10:10 fairness

Question 29

Tajfel's (1971) findings

Answer 29

when fairness pair was taken away, groups chose to maximise in-group score the most

Question 30

What are 2 advantages of social identification?

Answer 30

self enhancement uncertainty reduction

Question 31

What is social creativity?

Answer 31

ability to redefine or reinterpret intergroup relations e.g If hierarchies are stable then can seek new dimensions of comparison

Question 32

What is social competition?

Answer 32

if status hierarchy is viewed as illegitimate and unstable the competition occurs low status groups seek to change status hierarchy e.g through political action, revolution