Social Identity & Peer Influence in the Development of Self (DP IB Psychology): Revision Note

Social identity theory

• Social identity theory (SIT) suggests that a person’s sense of self is shaped by their group memberships

• An individual’s social identity is a combination of the various different ingroups to which they belong

  • E.g., family, college, psychology class, rugby team, etc.

• An individual may choose their ingroups but there are many ingroups over which an individual has no control

  • E.g., nationality, given sex at birth, ethnicity, age group

• Groups to which an individual does not belong are known as outgroups

• Negative attitudes towards outgroups can lead to prejudice and discrimination

Key processes

Social categorisation

• Social categorisation is the process by which people arrange others into groups according to specific group characteristics

  • E.g., . Millennials, Boomers, Americans, Italians, punks, hippies, etc.

  • Social categorisation can be a starting point by which stereotypes form

• Social categorisation occurs as an easy way of understanding others, as it requires little cognitive energy

Social comparison

• People compare their own ingroups with outgroups to maintain or enhance self-esteem

• Downward comparison: ingroup viewed as superior (e.g., employed person looking down on unemployed person)

• Upward comparison: outgroup seen as superior (e.g., small business owner admiring a billionaire entrepreneur)

Positive distinctiveness & ingroup favouritism

• Individuals emphasise the positive aspects of their ingroup to differentiate it from outgroups

• Ingroup: seen as diverse, distinct individuals

• Outgroup: seen as homogeneous, lacking individuality (the “they’re all the same” effect)

• Leads to ingroup favouritism and outgroup derogation

  • E.g., asylum seekers labelled as “criminals” or a “threat”, making them easier to dismiss or demonise

Social identity & peer influence

• Social identity can lead to individuals – particularly young people – to conform to the norms of their ingroups

  • This in turn may lead to them conforming to risky behaviour such as drinking and driving

• Adolescents are especially vulnerable as:

  • peers replace parents as key sources of influence

  • the adolescent brain is highly sensitive to social rewards (e.g., approval, acceptance), which often accompany risky behaviours

  • a strong need for peer approval motivates conformity

• Adolescents often imitate or amplify the behaviours of high-status individuals in their peer group to strengthen their ingroup identity

Research support for social identity & peer influence in the development of self

Graupensperger et al. (2018)

Aim:

• To investigate the extent to which college-age athletes, who strongly identify with their team, are at increased risk of conforming to teammates’ risky behaviours

Participants:

• 379 student athletes who were members of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA)

• The mean age of the sample was 19 years, with 46% female and 44% male participants

• The sample represented 23 sports in all, including baseball, soccer, lacrosse, field hockey

• Most of the participants were in their first year of college

Procedure:

• The participants were presented with hypothetical risky-behaviour scenarios (e.g., being offered marijuana), asking them to say how they would respond in such a situations

• The participants were then shown (fictional) responses from team-mates which appeared to show high agreement for these risky behaviours

• The participants were later given the chance to respond to the same hypothetical scenarios, altering their initial answers if they chose to

• A focus group interview was conducted with seven recently-graduated NCAA athletes that each played a different sport

  • They discussed their experience of college life, focusing on times when they had been faced with the prospect of engaging in risky behaviours

Results:

• Participants who displayed higher levels of social identity were more willing to conform to risky behaviours

  • Such behaviours included binge drinking, smoking marijuana, drinking and driving

• Student athletes who were on teams with higher levels of social identity were more willing to conform to concealing a concussion so that they could keep playing for the team

Conclusion:

• An individual can develop a strong sense of social identity by aligning their behaviour with that of the group (specifically, the ingroup)

• An individual with a strong social identity based on membership of a sports team are most likely to conform

Evaluation of social identity & peer influence in the development of self

Strengths

• SIT has been supported by a wealth of studies over several decades

  • This means that it is a robust theory that has withstood both quantitative statistical testing and inductive qualitative research

• There is good application to SIT and peer influence

  • E.g., it could be used to inform anti-bullying programmes in schools by presenting a positive, prosocial picture of what it means to be a member of the student body

Limitations

• People (both children and adults) do not always show in‐group preference; in fact, they may actively dislike or reject one or more of their ingroups

  • This means that SIT is overly simplistic in its assertion that people identify with the groups to which they belong

• The above study used a sample of US college athletes who, by very definition, are competitive and have strong group loyalty

  • The results, therefore, cannot be generalised to young people who are not competitive athletes and who are not from the USA

Link to concepts

Perspective

• A strong sense of social identity does not necessarily lead to negative acts such as conforming to possibly dangerous behaviours

  • Social identity in the above study was also found to predict conformity to teammates’ prosocial behaviours, e.g., being helpful

    • This suggests that it is possible to harness the influence of social identity to promote desirable behaviours among young people, particularly those who are involved in sport and are thus more likely to have formed strong group identities

Causality

• Social identity is difficult to measure and difficult to form strong conclusions about, given the unpredictable, changing nature of people's group identities

  • Someone may be a passionate supporter of Manchester United yet they live in London and have never even been to Manchester, so why do they support a team which is hundreds of miles away?

  • It can be difficult to discern the point at which someone's group membership (e.g., being a psychology student) becomes part of their social identity (e.g., feeling a sense of belonging and affinity with other psychology students)