What Social Identity Means - Research Paper Example

? Social Identity Henri Tajfel's greatest contribution to psychology was social identity theory. Social identity is a person’s senseof which they are based on their group membership(s).Tajfel proposed that the group’s 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 (the group we don’t belong to. For example, the Americans, French etc. are a bunch of losers! 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: the differences between groups and 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. Examples of In-groups – Out-groups, Northern Ireland: Catholics – Protestants, Rwanda: Hutus and Tutsis, Yugoslavia: the Bosnians and Serbs, Germany: Jews and the Nazis, Politics: Labor and the Conservatives, Football: Liverpool and Man United, Gender: Males and Females, Social Class: Middle and Working Classes. Social identity theory was developed by Henri Tajfel and John Turner in 1979. Tajfel and Turner (1979) proposed that there are three mental processes involved in evaluating others as “us” or “them” i.e. “in-group” and “out-group”. These take place in a particular order. The first is categorization. We categorize objects in order to understand them and identify 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 bus driver because they are useful. In the second stage, social identification, we adopt the identity of the group we have categorized ourselves as belonging to. If for example you have categorized yourself as a student, the chances are you will adopt the identity of a student and begin to act in the ways you believe students act and conform to the norms of the group. There will be an emotional significance to your identification with a group, and your self-esteem will become bound up with group membership. The final stage is social comparison. Once we have categorized ourselves as part of a group and have identified with that group we then tend to compare that group with other groups. If our self-esteem is to be maintained our group needs to compare favorably with other groups. This is critical to understanding prejudice, because once two groups identify themselves as rivals they are forced to compete in order for the members to maintain their self-esteem. Competition and hostility between groups is thus not only a matter of competing for resources like in Sheriff’s Robbers Cave) like jobs but also the result of competing identities. Just to reiterate, in social identity theory the group membership is not something foreign or artificial which is attached onto the person, it is a real, true and vital part of the person. Again, it is crucial to remember in-groups are groups you identify with, and out-groups are ones that we don't identify with, and may discriminate against. Immigrants are faced with a range of possible strategies for integrating into a host society, and often these options are conceptualized as lying on a continuum, defined at one extreme by assimilation and at the other, by heritage culture maintenance. On the one hand, immigrants might prefer to adopt an assimilation strategy whereby they give up their heritage culture and adopt the host country culture. On the other hand, immigrants might attempt to retain as much of ·their heritage culture as possible. While assimilations strategies are supported politically by a 'melting pot' policy in the U.S.A., heritage culture maintenance receives support from a 'multiculturalism' policy in Canada and Australia. From a social psychological perspective, the attitudes of immigrants toward their heritage cultures is pivotal, while in terms of behavior the most visible indicator of heritage cultural maintenance is membership in minority group cultural organizations. The purpose of this study, then, was to examine differences between immigrants adopting' assimilation' and 'heritage culture maintenance' integration options with respect to mobility strategies, personal ability, perceived justice, self-perception, and community contacts. Given our interest in contrasting assimilations and heritage culture maintenance strategies I decided to focus on Iranians in Montreal. There are at least four important reasons why Iranians are an especially important group to examine. First, because Iranians have arrived only recently in Canada in large numbers, they represent a group experiencing the process of making major decisions about an appropriate integration orientation to their new social surroundings. Thus, the issue of whether, and to what extent, they should invest in the retention of their Iranian culture or the adoption of the majority group culture is of practical importance in their everyday lives. Second, Iranians arriving in Canada are different from many other immigrant groups in that they tend to be relatively advantaged in resources, particularly education (Orivel 1981; Statistics Canada 1981). As a consequence, they might enjoy greater freedom in selecting an integration orientation in North America. Third, within the Canadian context, Iranians are not a 'visible minority'. This is another factor that offers them a genuine choice between alternative integration strategies. Fourth, a preliminary study of Iranian cultural groups in Montreal has identified three active organizations that are working toward the retention of the heritage culture among Iranians (Moghaddam et al. 1986). However, this same study also suggests that many Iranians are choosing not to join such organizations. Thus, despite being relatively recent arrivals, some groups of Iranians have already adopted the heritage culture maintenance integration option, while others clearly seem to prefer assimilation as an integration strategy. Consequently, there do seem to be alternative integration strategies within the Iranian population in Montreal. Two general orientations to integration emerge from these findings. The first seems to conform more with the spirit of multiculturalism and involved relatively greater endorsement of heritage culture maintenance, stronger support for Iranian cultural organizations, and a collective orientation to social mobility. This tendency to try to get ahead by relying more on the Iranian community and by being less inclined to want to leave Canada to live in another country seemed to be coupled with greater belief in the fairness and justice of the Canadian system. A second integration orientation seems in some ways to be more in harmony with assimilation and involved relatively less endorsement of heritage culture maintenance, less support for Iranian cultural organizations, and an individualistic orientation to social mobility. This tendency to try to get ahead by 'going it alone', rather than as part of the Iranian community, seemed to be coupled with less faith in the fairness and justice of the Canadian system. Respondents who adopted a collective orientation and desired to retain the heritage culture in Canada had the same high level of confidence about doing well, as did respondents who adopted an individualistic orientation and desired to adopt the Canadian way of life. This generally high level of confidence might be due to the fact that Iranians in Canada generally have a high level of education and also perceive themselves as belonging to the middle-or upper-classes of their own ethnic group. Also, perhaps part of the reason for the two very different but equally optimistic integration strategies within the Iranian community is that Iranians may not perceive themselves to be a 'visible' minority. Thus, unlike members of visible minorities (Moghaddam and Taylor 1987) they may perceive that they have a genuine choice in terms of strategy for integration. On the one hand, they can maintain their heritage culture in the context of a just Canadian society while, on the other hand, as individuals they can successfully pass into the mainstream of Canadian society. The case of Iranians in Canada is particularly instructive in that it represents an example of a culture in which both individualistic and collective integration orientations seem to have evolved. This example suggests that it might be useful to reconceptualize the differentiation of cultures on a dimension of individualism versus collectivism (Hofstede 1980, 1983: Hui and Traindis 1986: Triandis 1987) since both individualistic and collective orientations seem to be influential in fundamental ways within some cultures. Also important is the possibility that both individualistic and collective orientations be present within the same individuals, with greater emphasis being placed on one or the other orientation depending upon the demands of the social situation. This possibility was not examined in the present study, but deserves serious attention in future research. The results of this study, point to several topics that could usefully become a focus for future research, among them being the relationship between perceived justice and mobility orientations. Perceived injustice is generally regarded as a prerequisite for collective action (Tajfel and Turner 1986; Taylor and McKiman 1984; Taylor and Moghaddam 1987). However, in this case those respondents who believed more in the justice and fairness of the system were more likely to endorse heritage culture maintenance and a collective strategy for 'getting ahead'. This is probably because those who perceived Canadian society to be more just were also more likely to be motivated to work according to the rules of the system, such as the official multiculturalism policy. However, it is doubtful if the politicians who formulated the policy of multiculturalism were fully aware of the implications this policy could have for individualistic and collectivistic mobility orientations. The possibility that cultural retention and pride in the heritage culture will be associated with stronger support for collective mobility strategies is both conceptually exciting and of fundamental practical importance. A brief literature review of the concept of ethnic identity To outline how the concept of ethnic identity has been described in the literature, several scholars’ papers on the social identity construction have been analyzed. In an effort to conceptualize ethnic identity, they all tend to accentuate the role of categorization in the process of constructing social identity, and ethnic identity in particular. Joane Nagel (1994) designates identity and culture as basic elements of ethnicity which is defined as constantly evolving property of both individual identity and group organisation, and shaping as a result of ethnic groups’ self-definition, as well as external social, economic, political factors together with common ethnic categories and definitions. Nagel also notes that both structure (ethnic groups) and agency (the larger society) participate in ethnic identity and culture construction (p.154). Richard Jenkins (1994) specifies ethnic identity as an example of social identity, and attaches great importance to the social categorization processes as such due to which internal group identification processes occur. Power and authority relations are necessary for the social construction as well. Jenkins also draws a distinction between the nominal (static forms) and the virtual (practical accomplishments) dimensions of ethnic identity (p. 202). Roland Pierik (2004) conceptualizes cultural groups and cultural difference by means of social mechanism approach, and argues that they are the result of cognitive (self-categorization) and social (categorization by others) processes of categorization. The first type is the product of ascription: the attribution by others of certain characteristics to individuals, the second one is caused by inscription: the adoption of certain beliefs and practices as a result of socialization (p. 532). Kanchan Chandra (2005) defines ethnic identity as a set of identity categories in which membership is determined by descent-based attributes, differentiating between membership categories and individual attributes, qualifying for membership in certain category (p. 4). Therefore, as we see, scholars tend to converge in associating the concept of ethnic identity with both internal and external interdependent processes of categorization. REFERENCE Chandra, K. (2005). What is ethnic identity and does it matter? Forthcoming in the Annual Review of Political Science. New York University Department of Politics. Jenkins, R. (1994). Rethinking ethnicity: Identity, categorization and power. Ethnic and Racial Studies. 17(2), 197-223. Nagel, J. (1994). Constructing Ethnicity: Creating and Recreating Ethnic Identity and Culture. Social Problems. 41(1), 152-176. Pierik, R. (2004). Conceptualizing cultural groups and cultural difference. Ethnicities. 4(4), 523-544. Mael, F.A. and B.E. Ashforth, Alumni and their alma mater: a partial test of the reformulated model of organizational identification. 1992. 13(2): p. 103-123. Dutton, J.E., J.M. Dukerich, Keeping an eye on the mirror: Image and identity in organizational adaptation. 1991. 34(3): p. 517-554. Knippenberg, v.e.a., Organizational Identification after a merger: A social identity perspective. 2002. 41: p. 233-252. Read More