Tajfel & Turner's Social Identity Theory

Social identity is a theory formed by Henri Tajfel and John Turner to understand the psychological basis of intergroup discrimination. It is composed of three elements:


 * Categorization: We often put others (and ourselves) into categories. Labeling someone as a Muslim, a Turk, or soccer player are ways of saying other things about these people.
 * Identification: We also associate with certain groups (our ingroups), which serves to bolster our self-esteem.
 * Comparison: We compare our groups with other groups, seeing a favorable bias toward the group to which we belong...

As developed by Tajfel, Social Identity Theory is a diffuse but interrelated group of social psychological theories concerned with when and why individuals identify with, and behave as part of, social groups, adopting shared attitudes to outsiders. It is also concerned with what difference it makes when encounters between individuals are perceived as encounters between group members. Social Identity Theory is thus concerned both with the psychological and sociological aspects of group behaviour. Reacting against individualistic explanations of group behaviour (e.g. Allport) on one hand, and tendencies to reify the group on the other, Tajfel sought an account of group identity that held together both society and individual. Tajfel first sought to differentiate between those elements of self-identity derived from individual personality traits and interpersonal relationships (personal identity) and those elements derived from belonging to a particular group (social identity). Each individual is seen to have a repertoire of identities open to them (social and personal), each identity informing the individual of who he is and what this identity entails. Which of these many identities is most salient for an individual at any time will vary according to the social context. Tajfel then postulated that social behaviour exists on a spectrum from the purely interpersonal to the purely intergroup. Where personal identity is salient, the individual will relate to others in an interpersonal manner, dependent on their character traits and any personal relationship existing between the individuals. However, under certain conditions 'social identity is more salient then personal identity in self-conception and that when this is the case behaviour is qualitatively different: it is group behaviour.'

The first element in social identity theory is categorization. We categorize objects in order to understand them, in a very similar way we categorize people (including ourselves) in order to understand the social environment. We use social categories like black, white, Australian, Christian, Muslim, student, and busdriver because they are useful. If we can assign people to a category then that tells us things about those people, and as we saw with the busdriver example we couldn't function in a normal manner without using these categories; i.e. in the context of the bus. Similarly, we find out things about ourselves by knowing what categories we belong to. We define appropriate behaviour by reference to the norms of groups we belong to, but you can only do this if you can tell who belongs to your group.

The second important idea is identification. We identify with groups that we perceive ourselves to belong to. Identification carries two meanings. Part of who we are is made up of our group memberships. That is, sometimes we think of ourselves as "us" vs. "them" or "we' vs. "they", and at othertimes we think of ourselves as "I" vs. "he or she" or "me" vs. "him or her". That is sometimes we think of ourselves as group members and at other times we think of ourselves as unique individuals. This varies situationally, so that we can be more or less a group member, depending upon the circumstances. What is crucial for our purposes is that thinking of yourselves as a group member and thinking of yourself as a unique individual are both parts of your self-concept. The first is referred to as social identity, the latter is referred to as personal identity.

Just to reiterate, in social identity theory the group membership is not something foreign which is tacked onto the person, it is a real, true and vital part of the person. Again, it is crucial to remember ingroups are groups you identify with, and outgroups are ones that we don't identify with.

The other meaning implied by the concept of identity is the idea that we are, in some sense, the same, or identical to the other people. This should not be misinterpreted, when we say that we are the same, we mean that for some purposes we treat members of our groups as being similar to ourselves in some relevant way. To take the most extreme example, in some violent conflict such as a war, the members of the opposite group are treated as identical and completely different to the ingroup, in that the enemy are considered to be deserving of death. This behaviour and these beliefs are not the product of a bizarre personality disorder, but under these circumstances violent behaviour becomes rational, accepted and even expected behaviour.

The third idea that is involved in social identity theory is one that we have already dealt with. It is Festinger's (1954) notion of social comparison. The basic idea is that a positive self-concept is a part of normal psychological functioning. There is pretty good evidence that to deal effectively with the world we need to feel good about ourselves. The idea of social comparison is that in order to evaluate ourselves we compare ourselves with similar others.

We have already discussed the idea that we can gain self-esteem by comparing ourselves with others in our group, and also that we can see ourselves in a positive light by seeing ourselves as a member of a prestigious group. The question is, how do groups get this prestige? Tajfel and Turner's answer is that group members compare their group with others, in order to define their group as positive, and therefore by implication, see themselves in a positive way. That is, people choose to compare their groups with other groups in ways that reflect positively on themselves.

Two ideas follow from this. One is positive distinctiveness. The idea is that people are motivated to see their own group as relatively better than similar (but inferior) groups. The other idea is negative distinctiveness, groups tend to mimimize the differences between the groups, so that our own group is seen favourably.

The operation of these processes is subsumed within the concept of social creativity. Groups choose dimensions in order to maximise the positivity of their own group. For example, groups which perceive themselves to be of high status on particular dimensions will choose those as the basis of comparison. Groups of low status will minimise differences on those dimensions or choose new dimensions. For example, people from some Middle Eastern Islamic countries might regard their country as inferior to the West in terms of economic and technological advancement but might regard their way of life as being morally superior.