Why Groups and Prejudices Form So Easily: Social Identity Theory
This classic social psychology experiment shows how little excuse people need to form into groups and start discriminating against others.
People's behaviour in groups is fascinating and frequently disturbing. As soon as humans are bunched together in groups we start to do odd things: copy other members of our group, favour members of own group over others, look for a leader to worship and fight other groups. Just glance at Sherif's Robbers Cave experiment for proof of how easy it is to provoke war between groups.
But think about the types of groups you belong to, and you'll realise they differ dramatically. Some groups are more like soldiers in the same unit or friends who have known each other from childhood. Long-standing, tight-knit, protecting each other. Perhaps it's not surprising people in these groups radically change their behaviour, preferring members of their own group over others in many ways.
Other groups, though, are much looser. Supporters of a large sports club, for example, or work colleagues only together on a project for a few months or even a group of people in an art gallery appreciating a painting.
It seems impossible that people stood together for only 30 seconds to look at a painting can be said to form a group in any measurable way. Surely it's too fleeting, too ephemeral? This is exactly the type of question social psychologist Henry Tajfel and colleagues set out to answer.
They believed it was possible for a group, along with its attendant prejudices, to form at the drop of a hat. In fact they thought a group could form even when there was no face-to-face contact between members, none of the people knew each other and their 'group' behaviour had no practical consequences. In other words they had absolutely nothing to gain (or lose) from this barely existent group.
Forming a 'minimal group'
Tajfel and colleagues came up with a neat solution for testing their idea. Participants, who were 14 and 15 year-old boys, were brought into the lab and shown slides of paintings by Klee and Kandinsky. They were told their preferences for the paintings would determine which of two groups they would join.
Of course, this was a lie designed to set up the idea of 'us' and 'them' in their minds. The experimenters wanted two groups of boys with not the faintest idea who was also in their own group or what the grouping meant or what they had to lose or gain.
After this setup, the boys were taken to a cubicle, one at a time. Each was then asked to distribute virtual money to the other members of both groups. The only information they had about who they were giving it to was a code number for each boy and that boy's group membership.
There were a series of rules for the distribution of the money that were designed to tease out who the boys favoured: their own group or the other group. The rules were changed slightly in different trials so that it was possible to test a number of theories. Did the boys distribute the money:
- Fairly?
- To obtain maximum joint profit?
- For maximum ingroup (own group) profit?
- For maximum difference between groups?
- Using favouritism? This involves a combination of maximum ingroup profit and maximum difference?
Startling findings
From the way the virtual money was distributed, the boys did indeed demonstrate the classic behavioural markers of group membership: they favoured their own group over the other. And this pattern developed consistently over many, many trials and has subsequently been replicated in other experiments in which groups were, if you can believe it, even more minimal.
When I first came across this experiment, my first reaction was to find it startling. Remember, the boys had no idea who was in their group 'with them' or who was in the other group. But, the most puzzling aspect of this experiment is that the boys had nothing whatsoever to gain from favouring their own group - there didn't seem to be anything riding on their decisions.
Out in the real world there's a good reason to favour your own group - normally it is also advantageous to yourself. You protect yourself by protecting others like you.
Social identity theory
What Tajfel argued, though, was that there was something riding on the decisions the boys made, but it was something very subtle, yet incredibly profound.
Tajfel argued that people build their own identities from their group memberships. For example, think of each of the groups you belong to: say at work, or within your family. Part of who you are is probably defined by these groups. Putting it the other way around: the nature of your group memberships define your identity.
As our group membership forms our identity, it is only natural for us to want to be part of groups that are both high status and have a positive image. Crucially though, high status groups only have that high status when compared to other groups. In other words: knowing your group is superior requires having a worse group to look down upon.
Seen in the light of social identity theory, then, the boys in the experiment do have a reason to be selfish about the allocation of the virtual cash. It is all about boosting their own identities through making their own group look better.
Criticisms
No experiment can, or should, be automatically taken at face value. Questions have to be asked about whether it is really telling us what the authors claim. There are two criticisms often levelled at this experiment and its interpretation:
- The participant's behaviour can be explained by simple economic self-interest. But: in another experiment only symbols were used rather than 'virtual' money and the results were the same.
- The participants were responding to what they thought the experimenters wanted (psychologists call this 'demand characteristics'). But: Tajfel argues it is unclear to the participants what the experimenters wanted. Recall that the rules for distributing money frequently changed. Also, the participants were encouraged to think that choosing whose paintings they liked (the 'first' experiment) was unrelated to the allocation of virtual money (the 'second' experiment).
Despite these criticisms, Tajfel and colleagues' findings have stood the test of time. The experiment, or something like it, has been repeated many times with different variations producing much the same results.
Centrality of group membership
Social identity theory states that our identities are formed through the groups to which we belong. As a result we are motivated to improve the image and status of our own group in comparison with others.
Tajfel and colleagues' experiment shows that group membership is so important to us that we join the most ephemeral of groups with only the slightest prompting. We will then go out of our way to make our own group look better compared to others.
The simple fact of how important group membership is to us, and how easily we join groups, often without realising it, is both a subtle and profound observation about human nature.
» Read more of the top 10 social psychology experiments.
Reference
Tajfel, H., Billig, M. G., Bundy, R. P., & Flament, C. (1971). Social categorization and intergroup behavior. European Journal of Social Psychology, 1(2), 149-178.
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Couldn't this be because the kids distributed money to those they perceived as more similar to themselves (as evidenced by the preference relation established in the beginning) and not just some form of subconscious need to increase the value of their own groups?
This is surely an example of what Zizioulas might call 'being as communion'. A person's identity only has meaning in relation to others. There are no monads which can be considered in splendid isolation from other people. Descartes got it wrong when he wrote 'cogito, ergo sum'. 'I am I' indeed. But this is not enough to say who I am, not even to myself. Who am I? I am my mother's son. I am my brother's brother. I am my friend's friend, my girl's boyfriend, my enemy's foe etc,etc,etc... I can only know myself through my relations with others. The more immature I am, the more I restrict my 'in' group and favour them over the larger 'out' group. As I grow and mature, and become (I hope) more secure in my identity, the more I can feel safe to enlarge my 'in' group to include more and more of what I would previously have regarded as the 'out' group I would 'need' to avoid, reject, oppose etc,etc,etc...
This what the boys are doing. It is what we all do, until (if we are lucky) we can expand our consciousness to include the 'other' as part of 'us'.
This type of behavior can be seen in any extensive discussion thread about sports. Once a person's team affiliation is determined, people with the opposing affiliation will attack them for things completely irrelevant to sports. Rarely will you see someone attack members of their own group for similar things. Such things as grammatical errors, lifestyle inferences, and morality inferences.
Reading this has made me realise something that now seems quite obvous. When faced with uncertainty over a certain choice i have to make, i look upon the choices others made in a similar condition (for example, voting for certain options, where i can see the number of votes in each cathegory before). I do this only in uncertainty, otherwise i cast my own vote, but when i do look upon the the quantity of votes cast, i go with the highest voted choice, NOT because i consider others made the correct choice, but because (i realise now) it makes me belong to a winning group, with the highest chances of success. Furthermore, once this is done, i start thinking the option is not so bad, meaning i imediately start finding benefits of my choice, to further cement my oppinion as my own, most probably in case i need to defend my choice (group) either from external "foes" or internal ones (doubts).
I went through each of the ten choices with a note in front of me which read: "On a scale of 1 to 10 (no duplicates) how would I personally rate the effect of each effect regarding how our thoughts and actions are affected by other people".
I do not believe I am anal retentive, but I thought to do justice to your request
I should put in an honest (subjective) effort to answer your question. I figure that in the process I would be doing some pretty focused thinking on this general subject, which I find appealing. So in order of increasing significance (for me), here is the result of my appraisal:
1. False Consensus Bias
2. Dark Hearts - Stanford Prison
3. Bystander Apathy
4. Role of Power (Robbers Cave)
5. Cognitive Dissonance
6. Don't Threaten
7. Conforming to the Norm
8. Obedience to Authority
9. Halo Effect
10. Social Identity Theory
This probably doesn't mean very much, compared to how others feel. I see from the results answers other have given - Conforming to the Norm) that I'm not a conformist - much. But perhaps the strongest influence on me relates to the Social Identity Theory, so ~ who's kidding who here? Wanting to belong, even though we don't call it by that name, wanting to be like others, to be acceptable - I guess I want that, but not to the extent I would sacrifice my individuality, my ethics, morals, and sense of self-worth. Hope some of this helps...
Jonm, thanks for sharing that - I hope the exercise was useful for you.
And thanks to everyone else for your comments - very interesting.
Another philosophical "study" that can relate to this is the study of Groupthink by Irvin Janis. It is basically about how peoplen form groups so as to feel a certain unity, purpose, and cause while also feeling like they are playing an important role by going along with the rest of their group.. It is quite interesting to see many of the negative affects, as well as the positive ones, that come from it. Check it out on wikipedia or read over one of his books. They are quite interesting.
This makes me wonder about the prisoner's dilemma-- the classic game theory experiment. For those of you unfamiliar, imagine the following (copied from Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner%27s_dilemma):
The classical prisoner's dilemma (PD) is as follows:
Two suspects, A and B, are arrested by the police. The police have insufficient evidence for a conviction, and, having separated both prisoners, visit each of them to offer the same deal: if one testifies for the prosecution against the other and the other remains silent, the betrayer goes free and the silent accomplice receives the full 10-year sentence. If both remain silent, both prisoners are sentenced to only six months in jail for a minor charge. If each betrays the other, each receives a five-year sentence. Each prisoner must make the choice of whether to betray the other or to remain silent. However, neither prisoner knows for sure what choice the other prisoner will make. So this dilemma poses the question: How should the prisoners act?
The dilemma can be summarized thus:
If both are silent: 6 months
If A is silent B talks: Prisoner A serves ten years
Prisoner B goes free
If A talks B is silent: Prisoner A goes free
Prisoner B serves ten years
If A and B talks: both serve five years.
This dilemma is classically considered an example of exercising self-interest. Doesn't the social identity theory imply that rather than maximizing self interest in this situation, the prisoners would be interested in one another's welfare too?
Anon, yes the prisoner's dilemma is another classic game about co-operation, or lack of it. As ever, self-interest is important but humans are social animals and other people have a large influence on how and when we choose to exercise our self-interest.
In the prisoner's dilemma the answer (in reality) is in the relationship between the two prisoners and situation in which they find themselves.
just read this and gnasche mention a point.
" Once a person's team affiliation is determined, people with the opposing affiliation will attack them for things completely irrelevant to sports. "
try intergroup sensitivity effect. It might give a more comprehensive explanation on the "cognitive effect" of social identity.
It seems to me that you guys are overthinking things a bit. People want to be a part of a large successful group for the same reasons they like to eat chocolate: they just do. It's instinctive, and it has nothing to do with whatsoever with any conscious/subconscious thinking.
All pack animals have the "us vs. them" mentality. They are all kinder to the members of their group and hostile to "them". Mostly because "them" means either a predator trying to eat them or a competitor trying to steal their food. To say that there are reasons why this is so (e.g., it increases their chance of survival), is not the same as saying that this behavior is the result of explicit thinking and planning.
Likewise with people, the desire to join a group is just that: a desire. It isn't the result of thinking about possibilities or rewards or consciously/subconsciously deciding what is best for them. We feel better if we are part of a large, successful group. We enjoy when the members of the group are happy and (shamefully) we enjoy when members of "them" suffer. All the other stuff is merely a consequence of this.
This is the big one! "Groups" ... tribes ... nations ... this behaviour dictates the success/failure of kings, politicians, nations....
al said.. (sorry, is that arabic?.. or just Al speaking? ;) ) ... no doubt it IS instinctive behaviour, and natural selection clearly favours the continuity of this "group/herding instinct"
The really interesting part is that some humans have learnt so well to exploit this trait in their fellow man.
By the way... one of the greatest examples of this group behaviour can be seen on the internet; The photography site dpreview has a huge dataset in it's forums where people dispute the camera choices and preferences of others as if they were opposing football team fans (to be fair to the site and it's members, this is interspersed amongst some really great information and discussion on photography.
It makes little sense that they should do this, as the choices of others does not affect in any way their own photography results or happiness whith the performance of their camera.
I say dataset, because I am sure there is a great paper hidden in that data somewhere. PhD anyone?
I wonder if, when the boys assigned symbols, if the symbols had any positive or negative connotations. What if they had?
What if, instead of money, they assigned the members "nick-names," like 'The Conqueror,' 'Chief,' and others that would be considered positive, as opposed to those like, 'Stupid-Head' or whatever teenage boys tease each other with.
I'm wondering if, in a situation where the only information given was which group a boy was in, a young man would quickly assign something he considers to be a horribly insulting name to someone who is simply not in his group.
great article. good example of "self" organization. the gist is whatever is identified as being self, i.e., a part of self is given more value. like directing blood and oxygen to parts of the brain as opportunity deems its activity necessary. self is certainly a complex and not a simple term. in fact as contexts shift so do the terms of meaningfulness, behavior & identity.
if the boys had distributed their money favoring their "team" and were suddenly a part of the other team there would probably be regret and immediate bio-conscious efforts to repair their new, more relevant interests.
neat how the limbic frames what the RAS selects and how it is implemented by the pre-frontal.
brassneck references a good point. i often suggest to peers a high value in the "self" system and see amazing results of those mature and secure enough to recognize self beyond the skin. those who are less mature tend to act more destructively by deprivation.
enrich. love. learn.
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