Social Identity Theory

Henri Tajfel's greatest contribution to psychology was social identity theory.
Social identity is a person’s sense of who they are based on their group membership(s).

Tajfel proposed that the groups (e.g. social class, family, football team etc.) which people belonged to were an important source of pride and self-esteem.  Groups give us a sense of social identity: a sense of belonging to the social world.
In order to increase our self-image we enhance the status of the group to which we belong. For example, England is the best country in the world!  We can also increase our self-image by discriminating and being prejudice against the out group.
Therefore we divided the world into “them” and “us” based through a process of social categorization (i.e. we put people into social groups).
This is known as in-group (us) and out-group (them).  
Social identity theory states that the in-group will discriminate against the out-group to enhance their self-image.

The central hypothesis of social identity theory is that group members of an in-group will seek to find negative aspects of an out-group, thus enhancing their self-image.

Prejudice between cultures may result in racism; in its extreme forms, racism may result in genocide, such as occurred in Germany with the Jews, in Rwanda between the Hutus and Tutsis and, more recently, in the former Yugoslavia between the Bosnians and Serbs.

Henri Tajfel proposed that stereotyping (i.e. putting people into groups and categories) is based on a normal cognitive process: the tendency to group things together. In doing so we tend to exaggerate:

1. the differences between groups

2. the similarities of things in the same group.

We categorize people in the same way. We see the group to which we belong (the in-group) as being different from the others (the out-group), and members of the same group as being more similar than they are. Social categorization is one explanation for prejudice attitudes (i.e. “them” and “us” mentality) which leads to in-groups and out-groups.

A Class Divided provides me with a lot of concepts about the Social Identity Theory. First of all, the video is about a teacher who is experimenting a race discrimination with the kids of her room. throughout the experiment, the children eventually fight over what they are dominant, powerful over, and some kids start to cry. From these experiments, we can see that the theory of social Identity Theory effects very much in the social life of humans. For example, I noticed that there are examples in our school life also. In groups and Out groups have very categorized theories.
Since I am very big fan of Soccer, I will provide an exampe of a football ingroup and outgroup
It isn’t very often that, as an experimental psychologist, you get to see the thing that you study played out in real life in front of you – but that is what has happened to me today, watching the FA Cup football match between Liverpool and Manchester United.
For anyone unaware of the events leading up to this match, the Liverpool footballer Luis Suarez was found guilty by the Football Association of racially abusing the Man Utd footballer Patrice Evra in a match between the teams a few months ago. He was banned for eight maches after Evra complained that Suarez had called him things such as ‘Nigrito’, which Suarez admitted to but claimed it would not be considered racist in his home country of Uruguay.
Fast forward to the match today, with Evra playing and Suarez sat in the stands serving his ban. Every time Evra touched the ball a sizeable minority of Liverpool fans booed him. Why? Evra didn’t campaign for Suarez’s ban to be increased, he didn’t make hyperbolic statements on what happened – he merely reported what had happened. So why boo a player who is the victim of the situation?
It is very easy to say that the people who were booing are racist. It is equally easy for those booing to point out that they aren’t racist, as they didn’t boo other black Man Utd players such as Danny Wellbeck. This is where it gets interesting (and slightly more complicated) for researchers into prejudice, because there is an explanation that fits this model of behaviour very well – that of aversive racism.

The power of situation

Milgram's Studies to obedience to authority:
Stanley Milgram's research reveals that there is a very good likelihood that you, or at least people lilke you, would carry out orders impairing another's life.He added to our understanding of how human behavior can be dictated when an individual is in a situation in which he or she feels required to obey. Some 65% of his subjects would have gone "all the way," delivering what they thought were dangerous electric shocks to people who gave wrong answers to the test. People lose perspective and basic decency when in the grip of a credible authority figure or even just a difficult group dynamic.

Critics have raised a variety of ethical considerations regarding this kind of research. Some say it is morally wrong to use deception -- that deceit is dishonest. Further, even when the subjects are debriefed, they see themselves as gullible and naive. This lowers their self-esteem and undermines their trust in scientici endeavor.
Even more serious is that such experients expose subjects to psychological truma--perhaps even to physical, mental, and emotional impairment. Subjects may derive a devastating reflectiion of themselves as sadists or potential murderers. At the very least, they may feel embarrassed, guilty, or anxious regarding their behavior. Does this experiment show a lack of concern for a subject's dignity and welfare?
In 1974, Milgram defended his procedures, stressing that a follow-up study revealed that participants felt positive about the study: 84 percent of the subjects stated they were glad to have participated in the experiment; 15 percent indicated neutral feelings; and only 1.3 percent indicated negative feelilngs. In addition, 80% felt that more experiments of a similar sort should be carried. Seventy-four percent said they had learned something of personal importance from the study.

Due to the extreme emotional stress and  inflicted insight suffered by the participants Milgram's research raised a few questions about the ethics. It brought emotional criticism being obedient.
This research brings the limitation of being liable, however, the strengths are that we can see that the obedience to authority can be one of the major experiments, we can use in the social aspects.
Asch’s studies of conformity (1956)
Nobody wants to believe that they’re susceptible to conforming to the behaviour of others. We have our own minds, our own will, and hate thinking that anything else has an influence over that. It is certainly not that case, however, according to vast amounts of research into the area.
Perhaps one of the most influential studies into the field of majority influence is that of Asch. He conducted a number of experiments throughout the 1950′s aiming to test just how easily people are willing to conform when pressured by a majority. His results were important not just in minority influences, but also group interaction. So, what did he do and what were the results?
The set-up
Participants believed they were participating in a visual discrimination task. It sounded simple enough; they were told they needed to sit in small groups (of between 7-9 other participants) and publicly declare which of three ‘comparison’ lines matched the ‘standard line’ (see fig. 1). Everyone took turns to say whether line A, B or C matched the standard line.
In reality, there was only one participant at a time – the other 7-9 people were confederates working for the experimenter. The real (aka naive) participant had no idea everyone else was a stooge, and was always placed so that he answered second to last. There were a total of eighteen trials, all consisting of different line lengths.

'X' is the standard line. Participants needed to decided whether A, B or C was the same length as X.

The other confederates were asked to pick incorrect answers for 12 of the 18 trials. On 6 of them, they would pick a line too short and on the other 6 they would pick a line too long. For the remaining 6 trials, they were asked to pick the correct answer. There was also a control condition, where participants completed the task on their own with no group influence. Less than 1% of participants made genuine errors in the control condition, so it was assumed that the task was unambiguous.
Results for the non-control condition.
Although the results were not massively shocking, they were interesting and definitely showed conformity in some cases:

• 25% of participants refused to conform on any trial and provided correct answers on all 18 trials.
• 50% of participants conformed on at least six trials and provided incorrect answers on them; correct answers were provided on the other trials.
• 5% conformed to all erroneous trials – therefore providing 12 incorrect answers and 6 correct ones.

The average conformity rate was 33% across all trials (the total number of times participants conformed divided by the number of participants x the number of trials.)
After the experiment
Asch asked participants why they conformed to the incorrect majority. All participants reported feeling uncertainty and doubt as a result of the differing opinions of themselves and the group. The majority of participants admitted knowing that they saw the lines differently to the group but thought they may have been perceiving it wrong, and the group must have been right. Others did not want to stand out or look “stupid”, so just went along to avoid any conflict. A small minority reported actually seeing the lines as the group did.
It seems therefore that we conform to avoid ridicule and social disapproval. Nobody wants to be the only person to voice a different answer or opinion.
Alterations upon the above experiment.
In 1951, before the above had taken place, Asch conducted exactly the same experiment, but with 16 naive participants and only 1 confederate. When he gave incorrect answers, the other participants openly humiliated him and laughed at him. The experimenter found the situation so odd, that even he joined in at laughing at the confederate!
It seems therefore, that social ridicule is a major reason for conformity. Asch tested this by asking the 7-9 confederates to publicly declare their answers, but the naive participant to write their answer down privately on paper. Conformity dropped to just 12.5%, suggesting that there was no longer a fear of social disapproval.
Deutsch and Gerard (1955) further altered Asch’s original experiment, finding that when group pressure is low and the lines are quite ambiguous (it was hard to get the right answer), conformity reduced. Some participants were allowed to keep the stimuli when making decisions, and others had the lines removed so they couldn’t see them. When they had no stimuli present, and hence had reason to be uncertain – conformity dropped even more. However, 23% of participants still conformed when they could see the stimulus and answered privately!
***
It can therefore be seen that even in unambiguous tasks, the pressure to conform is very high. We do this to avoid social disapproval, ridicule and humiliation. Since Asch’s experiments from the 1950′s, there has been much research delving deep into conformity – but Asch’s experiment certainly paved the way for such research to occur.

Works Cited: Wikipedia 

Trait Theory of Personality: The Big Five Test

The trait approach to personality is one of the major theoretical areas in the study of personality. The trait theory suggests that individual personalities are composed broad dispositions. Consider how you would describe the personality of a close friend. Chances are that you would list a number of traits, such as outgoing, kind and even-tempered. A trait can be thought of as a relatively stable characteristic that causes individuals to behave in certain ways.
Unlike many other theories of personality, such as psychoanalytic or humanistic theories, the trait approach to personality is focused on differences between individuals. The combination and interaction of various traits forms a personality that is unique to each individual. Trait theory is focused on identifying and measuring these individual personality characteristics.

Raymond Cattell’s Sixteen Personality Factor Questionnaire

Trait theorist Raymond Cattell reduced the number of main personality traits from Allport’s initial list of over 4,000 down to 171,³ mostly by eliminating uncommon traits and combining common characteristics. Next, Cattell rated a large sample of individuals for these 171 different traits. Then, using a statistical technique known as factor analysis, he identified closely related terms and eventually reduced his list to just 16 key personality traits. According to Cattell, these 16 traits are the source of all human personality. He also developed one of the most widely used personality assessments known as the Sixteen Personality Factor Questionnaire (16PF).

Eysenck’s Three Dimensions of Personality

British psychologist Hans Eysenck developed a model of personality based upon just three universal trails:

1. Introversion/Extraversion:
   Introversion involves directing attention on inner experiences, while extraversion relates to focusing attention outward on other people and the environment. So, a person high in introversion might be quiet and reserved, while an individual high in extraversion might be sociable and outgoing.
2. Neuroticism/Emotional Stability:
   This dimension of Eysenck’s trait theory is related to moodiness versus even-temperedness. Neuroticism refers to an individual’s tendency to become upset or emotional, while stability refers to the tendency to remain emotionally constant.
3. Psychoticism:
   Later, after studying individuals suffering from mental illness, Eysenck added a personality dimension he called psychoticism to his trait theory. Individuals who are high on this trait tend to have difficulty dealing with reality and may be antisocial, hostile, non-empathetic and manipulative.⁴

The Five-Factor Theory of Personality

Both Cattell’s and Eysenck’s theory have been the subject of considerable research, which has led some theorists to believe that Cattell focused on too many traits, while Eysenck focused on too few. As a result, a new trait theory often referred to as the "Big Five" theory emerged. This five-factor model of personality represents five core traits that interact to form human personality.⁵ While researchers often disagree about the exact labels for each dimension, the following are described most commonly:

1. Extraversion
2. Agreeableness
3. Conscientiousness
4. Neuroticism
5. Openness

Assessing the Trait Approach to Personality

While most agree that people can be described based upon their personality traits, theorists continue to debate the number of basic traits that make up human personality. While trait theory has objectivity that some personality theories lack (such as Freud’s psychoanalytic theory), it also has weaknesses. Some of the most common criticisms of trait theory center on the fact that traits are often poor predictors of behavior. While an individual may score high on assessments of a specific trait, he or she may not always behave that way in every situation. Another problem is that trait theories do not address how or why individual differences in personality develop or emerge.

Errors of Attribution

1. What is the difference between dispositional factors and situational factors?
2. Explain and give an example of the fundamental error of attribution.
3. Explain and give an example of the self-serving-bias error of attribution.
4. Explain two possible explanations for these errors.
5. What does the study by Miyamoto and Kitayama tell us about cultural differences in attribution errors?
 
The roles that situational and dispositional play in explaining behavior differ. When people show their own behavior, they tend to attribute it to external factors (Crane 104). This is known as situational factor. In other words, situational factor is the attribution of of certain behaviors to factors that are related to a situation (environment) Situational factors are caused by external factors, so it is not the individuals cause. Dispositional factors on the other hand is the opposite. The attributions are based off an individuals behavior which is caused by factors which are internal, which can be a persons personality.
One error in attribution is the fundamental attribution error which is where individuals oversize the role of dispositional over situational factors. This error was presented in a study by Lee at. al in 1977. Lee wanted to see whether student participants would make the fundamental attribution error even when they knew that actors were playing a specific role. From this study, it shows that students have used dispositional factors (where the students base their intelligence) as opposed to situational factors (supposedly correct) (Crane 104). The college students failed to attribute the person’s role to the correct situation because they believed that since the game show host was one of the options, that he/she would be the most intelligent.
Another example of situational and dispositional factors in the role of explaining behavior is the self-serving bias. Self-serving bias is “when people take credit for their successes, attributing them to dispositional factors, and dissociate themselves from their failures, attributing them to situational factors” (Crane 105). A study carried out by Lau and Russel in 1980 realized that American football players and coaches tend to associate their wins towards internal factors– such as being in shape, hard work put forth, natural talents from the team. They would then relate their failures to external factors such as the weather, injuries, and fouls committed by the other team. Here, we attribute internal factors with positive things which can lead to success and external factors to negative things which are failures.

Excuses, Excuses, and Excuses: Why people lie, cheat, and procrastinate
Even if they are grown-ups they tend to show the habit of cheating, lying, and procrastinating. Therefore, these actions cause people to go into a wrong direction. In the process of these acts, there are four reasons to do these.
Reinforcement, which is the desperation that causes one to lie. Memory distortion, when lies and cheating build up and cause bad results.Also called as the source memory, false memory. Then the protection of positive sense of identity, which is the act of making people believe in one mentally. Finally, the  self-serving biases is when someone blames others for their acts. These reasons are similar to the attribution errors, which will make one very bad.

The power of Situation: Real Life

The trait approach to personality is one of the major theoretical areas in the study of personality. The trait theory suggests that individual personalities are composed broad dispositions. Consider how you would describe the personality of a close friend. Chances are that you would list a number of traits, such as outgoing, kind and even-tempered. A trait can be thought of as a relatively stable characteristic that causes individuals to behave in certain ways.

• Cardinal Traits: Traits that dominate an individual’s whole life, often to the point that the person becomes known specifically for these traits. People with such personalities often become so known for these traits that their names are often synonymous with these qualities. Consider the origin and meaning of the following descriptive terms: Freudian, Machiavellian, narcissism, Don Juan, Christ-like, etc. Allport suggested that cardinal traits are rare and tend to develop later in life.²
• Central Traits: These are the general characteristics that form the basic foundations of personality. These central traits, while not as dominating as cardinal traits, are the major characteristics you might use to describe another person. Terms such as intelligent, honest, shy and anxious are considered central traits.
• Secondary Traits: These are the traits that are sometimes related to attitudes or preferences and often appear only in certain situations or under specific circumstances. Some examples would be getting anxious when speaking to a group or impatient while waiting in line.