Henri Tajfel

Henri Tajfel {1919-1982)was a distinguished social psychologist

Biographical information
He was born of Polish-Jewish parentage, in Wloclawek, Poland on 22 nd June 1919.

Education
He began by studing chemistry at the Sorbonne. He was called up into the French army and, a year later was

Positions
Tajfel was professor of Social Psychology at Bristol University from 1967 until his death in 1982

Main areas of interest
Steven Reicher in his biography on the EAESP website makes the intereting point that Tajfel's intersts grew out of his wartime experience. Captured by the Germans in WWI, they never discovered he was a Jew so he was able to survive but the experience shaped his career in three ways:
 * 1) he developed an abiding interest in prejudice
 * 2) he recognised that his fate was tied entirely to his group identity
 * 3) he understood that the Holocaust was not a product of psychology but of the way in which psychological processes operate within a given social and political context

Books

 * Tajfel, H. (1981) Human Groups and Social Categories: Studies in Social Psychology, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Papers

 * Tajfel, H. (1969) Cognitive aspects of prejudice, Journal of Social Issues 25(4): 79-97.
 * Tajfel, H., Billig, M.G., Bundy, R.P. and Flament, C. (1971) Social categorisation and intergroup behaviour, European Journal of Social Psychology 1: 148-78.
 * Tajfel, H. and Jahoda, G. (1966) Development in children of concepts and attitudes about their own and other countries: a cross-national study, Proceedings of the XVIII International Congress of Psychology: Moscow Symposium 36: 17-33.
 * Tajfel, H. and Turner, J.C. (1979) An integrative theory of intergroup conflict. In: W.G. Austin and S. WorcheL (eds) The Social Psychology of Intergroup Relations, Monterey, Calif.: Brooks/Cole.
 * Tajfel, H. and Wilkes, A.L. (1963) Classification and quantitative judgement, British Journal of Psychology 54: 101-14.