Social Identity Theory

"This is a mistake. We don't belong here. These people are different."
--Eddie Wilson (Eddie and the Cruisers)

Social identity theory, developed principally by Henri Tajfel and John Turner (e.g., Tajfel & Turner, 1979; 1986), offers perspective on social psychology by extending previous work on group identification (Tolman, 1943) and the influence of identification on motivation (Foote, 1951).

The central concept of social identity theory is that people seek out affiliation with groups in order to enhance self-esteem. To do so, people classify themselves into various social categories such as nationality, organizational membership, religion, race, gender, and age cohort. The individual thereby assumes characteristics thought to be possessed by members of the group. Group affiliation provides a sense of oneness or belongingness to some human aggregate.

To further self-esteem, however, individuals must believe that they are in the 'right' group. This creates the need for enhancing the status of the groups to which a person belongs. Social identification is thus relational and comparative (Tajfel & Turner, 1986) because people define themselves relative to individuals considered to belong to other categories.

Self-esteem is increased when individuals elevate the status of their groups ("Our school is great."), and when they lower the status of other groups ("Their school sucks."). Through the process of social categorization, individuals divide the world into "us versus them." In social identity theory, "us" is the "in-group" and "them" is the "out-group."

An implication of social identity theory is that, because of the natural tendency for in-group and out-group categorization, people have an inherent tendency to discriminate. In order to enhance self-esteem, people are likely to discriminate and hold prejudiced views against others deemed to belong to out-groups.

References

Foote, N.N. 1951. Identification as the basis for a theory of motivation. American Sociological Review, 16: 14-21.

Tajfel, H. & Turner, J.C. 1979. An integrative theory of intergroup conflict. In W.G. Austin & S. Worchel (Eds.), The social psychology of intergroup relations (pp: 33-47). Monterey, CA: Brooks-Cole.

Tajfel, H. & Turner, J.C. 1986. The social identity theory of intergroup behavior. In S. Worchel & W.G. Austin (Eds.), Psychology of intergroup relations (pp: 7-24). Chicago: Nelson-Hall.

Tolman, E.C. 1943. Identification and the post-war world. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 38: 141-148.