Rejecting Minorities Lectures
When the text is green, this means that a research or experiment is explained/used
Lecture 1: Social Identity Theory
Group formation
- Categorization process is a central component of SIT (we put everything into categories)
o Evolutionary perspective: necessary to distinguish friend and enemy
o Cognitive perspective: necessary to process large amount of information
- People always search actively for information, to comprehend what’s going on
- People simplify processing all that information by ignoring certain differences and
emphasizing (or even exaggerating) certain similarities of that information
o Example: Missing hammer when camping. You ignore other things about a stone that
are in this case irrelevant.
SIT experiment 1: non-social stimuli
Tajfel: How do people deal with categories?
Line experiment: guessing the length of the lines, with or without a letter underneath them.
Conclusion: we use categories to comprehend what is going on and to judge certain things
Non-social versus social stimuli
- Categorization of non-social stimuli: similarities within groups and differences between
groups are over-emphasized
- Can this be generalized to social stimuli?
SIT experiment 2: minimal group experiment
Tajfels goal: manipulate social categorizations as an independent variable
Step 1: Generate social categorization on basis of a trivial criterion
Step 2: Let participants give rewards to members of their own and the other group
Part 1: dot estimation task: how many dots do you estimate are on this picture?
Part 2: rewarding people, according to the table
Conclusion minimal-group experiments
- Group formation leads to discriminatory behavior (in-group favoritism)
- Even is groups are formed on basis of trivial category
- Tajfel: “Social categorization per se is a sufficient condition for the development of
intergroup bias” (=discrimination in favor of the own group)
SIT: four central concepts
1. Social categorization
, “Process of bringing together social objects or events in groups which are equivalent with
regard to an individual’s actions, intentions and system of beliefs” (Tajfel, 1981)
Similar to categorization of non-social stimuli:
- Use of any characteristic available
- Perceive more similarity within and more difference between categories
Can lead to dehumanization…
Not just the basis of how we perceive the world, but also whom we perceive ourselves…
2. Social identity
Social identity is based on the realization that one belongs to a social category and the
positive or negative evaluation associated with this membership. (for example: German
soccer pride vs holocaust guilt)
- Divisive and exclusive: you either belong or you don’t
- Context dependent; you identify with different groups in different situations. (for example:
student in a classroom, girl in the women’s toilet)
- Have a cultural component (wearing brown shoes = not a social identity) : with certain
behaviors and normative expectations, this turns a category into an identity
- Include a judgement of the nature of people in a certain group (“black people are inferior”)
This is more than a minimal group. Social identities may thus have even more powerful
consequences in intergroup interaction!
3. Social comparison
- Trough social comparison with other groups, people try to evaluate their group’s relative
status. Why? Because you want to feel good about yourself, this is achieveable by concluding
that you (your group) is better than another group.
- People strive for a positive social identity
o People are motivated to belong to a positively evaluated group. So we think of other
groups as worse, so we can feel better.
- They value their own group more than other groups. (social identification versus contra-
identification)
4. Psychological group distinctiveness
- On the one hand, people want to belong to a positively evaluated group
- On the other hand, people have the need to be distinct from others (we want to be special)
(just realizing you’re Dutch, doesn’t make you feel special, so it doesn’t make you feel happy)
- People thus try to achieve a position of their group that is distinct and positive
,SIT scheme:
Examples/explanation of the SIT scheme:
Attempt to maintain/extend superiority: (discriminate) give them less access to school systems, don’t
hire them
Are there cognitive alternatives? Can you persuade an alternative in which your groups comes out
better than they do know?
No: situation stable/legitimized. The society is not open to change. What can you do? Individual
strategy.
Individual strategy:
- Social mobility: you try to leave your group and join the majority group (difficult when you
have a darker skin or a very foreign name)
- Intra-group comparison: “I am doing much better than the rest of my group”
Yes: situation not stable/legitimized. The society is open to change. What can you do? Group
strategy.
Group strategy:
- Absorption: you and your group try to absorb in the majority (for example: Irish, German
immigrants in the US)
- Redefine characteristics: (for example: the black is beautiful movement) You change the
characteristics as something positive instead of something negative
, - Creativity: change social comparison, “We come out worse when it comes to education but
we are way better hosts”
- Challenge: try and go in direct competition to actually change the system (for example: the
gay rights movement)
SIT and Black Piet
Why are reactions so extreme?
Answers suggested by the Social Identity Theory:
Challenge: minority groups challenges dominant position of majority on cultural dimension (the
dominant position of the majority group is, according to their feeling, in danger)
Attempt to maintain superiority:
- People react negatively to threats to their positive social identity
- The Dutch gain part of their positive identity from the notion of being a very tolerant society
- Reaction: The Dutch react harshly to accusations that one of their traditions is racist
(agreeing that Black Piet is racist would mean the Dutch have been racists for decades, they
don’t want this to be true, so they simply don’t agree with Black Piet being racist in the first
place)
Lecture 2: Realistic Conflict Theory
Classical explanations of prejudice
- Early explanations (1950’s) of prejudice focused on personality characteristics
o Allport (founder of Contact theory): the prejudiced personality is ego-alienated, longs
for definitiveness, for safety, and authority (somebody standing above them telling
them wat to do)
o Authoritarian personality (will discuss later)
But if it is about personality, how can whole groups be prejudiced? (All Germans in the holocaust?)
It is not about one individual that has something against other groups, is it always about a conflict
between groups.
Foundation of RCT: Robbers Cave Experiment
Research questions: How do group conflicts develop? How can we solve group conflict?
Study design: summer camp, 22 boys (aged 12), don’t know each other, split up into two groups.
Phase 1: group formation (harmony)
Phase 2: group competition (competitions in which only the winners can win something)
- Groups became much more cohesive
- They started calling the other group names, there were fights and robbery’s
