Social Identity Theory

Social identity theory (SIT) 

SIT was developed by Tajfel and his colleagues (Tajfel and Turner 1979) and it it based on four concepts. Social categorization, social identity, social comparison and positive distinctiveness. Social categorization is that we divide the social environment into in-groups and out-groups and belonging to a group creates a feeling of "us vs. them". An example of this would be the minimal group papadigm (Tajfel 1971). In this study a group of British schoolboys were divided into two groups thinking that it was based on if they liked paintings from Klee or Kandinsky. Then they were asked to give out points to both "teams" and the boys showed a strong tendency for choosing to give their in-group way more than the out-group, even if that meant less points for them in total. What this showed is that the participants would rather create a huge gap between them and the out-group than giving both groups more points but having less of a difference between the teams. This supports the idea that we want to increase perceived variability between the in-group and the out-group. Social identity is not the same as personal identity. It is related to how we behave in our in-group or because of our social identity in a specific group. In a competition for example, two individuals can compete as individuals or as members of rival teams. And depending on if they are alone or a part of a team, they will act differently and take different decisions (Fiske and Taylor, 2008). The last two points are social comparison and positive distinctiveness. According to SIT we strive for a positive self-concept. This means that we seek positive social identities to build, maintain and enhance our self-esteem. This may be a result from the process of social comparison which means that we compare our in-group with out-groups. Positive distinctiveness is the motivation to show that our in-group is better than the out-groups. 

Strengths:
SIT has been supported by hundreds of studies which increases its credibility. It also drew the distinction between personal and social identity and explored the ways our basic need to belong affects social interaction. SIT also contributes to explain areas of psychology like stereotypes and intergroup conflict in settings where there was no realistic basis for conflict. 

Limitations: 
Some studies have showed that the increase in self-esteem associated with out-group discrimination is too short-lived to have long lasting effects on how in-group members view themselves (Rubin and Hewstone, 1998). SIT has more to do with situational explanations over dispositional ones. But there are evidence suggestion that individual differences do affect SIT processes.  

Situational and dispositional factors

Describe the role of situational and dispositional factors in explaining behavior.

Attribution is defined as how people interpret and explain casual relationships in the social world. We want to know how and why things happen the way they do. Dispositional attributions refers to our attitudes, beliefs and personality (internal), while situational attributions refers to rewards and punishments, social setting and pressures (external). Personality is individual differences in characteristic patterns of thinking, feeling and behaving and it's composed of a variety of traits. The trait theory states that we don't behave the same in every similar situation, but we have the tendency to behave a certain way (Epstein, 1983). These are the things that comes from within. Often people unconsciously makes judgments about behaviors depending on who is performing it. We are more likely to explain others behavior by dispositional factors rather than by the situation they are in when it happens. 

Discuss two errors of attribution.

Self-serving bias
People always want to feel good about them selves and they take credit for everything they can. When a person is successful in an area they feel like they themselves are responsible for their success. For example when we pass a test it was because of hard work, concentration, and intelligence.  But, when we fail, it's because the teacher gave us a test with things he never taught us, he didn't give us enough time, or he just doesn't like us and that's why he gave us a bad grade. That's because we want to protect our ego. So when something goes wrong we try to blame it on someone or something that's not us. We simply think that internal factors are responsible for our success and external factors are responsible for failure. 

Spotlight effect error
People have a tendency to overestimate the extend to which others are paying attention to them. We think that we are the center of the universe and that everybody will notice our every move. We think that people will notice everything we do, both good and bad, but in fact they are way to busy focusing on themselves. A perfect example is the Barry Manilow T-Shirt experiment. The participants, who were university students, had to wear a T-Shirt with a picture of Barry Manilow for a full day. The students thought that 50% of the other students on campus would notice and judge them, but in fact less than 20% noticed it at all. 

IA ideas

Imagery vs rehearsal.  Bower (1967); Paivio (1971)

Participants were shown a list of 20 words and were then asked to recall as many of them as possible. It was found that using an imagery method where the participant forms a vivid mental image and links it to the item was the most efficient way and worked better than either rehearsal or no particular method.


Does background music impair memory? (e.g. Perham & Vizard 2010).

In 2010 a study of how music affects our memory was conducted by Nick Perham and Joanne Vizard. The participants had to recall a list of 8 consonants in presentation order during five different circumstances. When it was quite, or when they were listening to liked music, disliked music, a changing state (hearing random numbers) and a steady state (hearing a repeated number). Their ability to recall was approximately the same but worst was music and the changing state. The authors expected that it was because when you are trying to memorize things in order you get thrown off by the other changing words that you are hearing at the same time. So, although music is good for our health by reducing anxiety for example, it is better to perform hard tasks is silence and listen to the music prior to the task rather that during it.


Exercise and memory. Coles & Tomporowski (2008)

This study was conducted to see how exercise effects short-term and long-term memory. 18 young adults were asked to perform different memory test before and then after a 40 minutes workout. The exercise did not improve the short-term memory but it improved the long-term memory. Before exercising lot of information was lost between short-term and long-term memory but after exercise the information was maintain and easier to recall.

Serial position effect

In 1962, Murdock did an experiment with the aim to provide evidence to support the multi-store explanation of memory. The multi-store model suggests that there are three types of memory: sensory memory, short term memory and long term memory. In his study, 40 participants were shown a list of between 10 and 40 worlds. Each word was shown for 1-2 seconds and when all the words had been shown, the participants were asked to recall as many of them as possible. Murdock found that most people remembered the first and the last words of the list, and the ones in the middle were more easily forgotten. This is known as the serial position effect. Remembering the first words would be called the primary effect and recalling the last words would be the recency effect. During the first few words the participant have time to go over and kinda reflect over the words and then by waiting for the whole list to finish, Murdock suggested that the memory was moved from the short term memory (STM) to the long term memory (LTM). The recency effect works since we can keep things in our STM for a while and that's what we are thought to do. But the words in the middle become replaced and moved from the STM, but they never make it to LTM so they are easily forgotten. This study suggests that memories are pulled out from two different section.

Flashbulb memory

Flashbulb memories are vivid, precise and long lasting memories about almost everything surrounding a big and shocking event. These memories involve things like where they were, who they were with and what they were doing.
Brown and Kulik (1977) had their own theory of how FBMs are formed and maintained. They thought that the memories were formed in situations where we get surprised and receive highly emotional information. Why they stay so strong was thought to be because we tend to talk and discuss the event with others but also think about it ourselves. Brown and Kulik thought that all of this
reflection could be the cause of the memory being preserved so well. They also though that this would be the reason why we can remember details for so long after the event and still be pretty accurate.
Brown and Kulik were the first modern psychologists to study FBMs. They did a study with 80 participants (40 white and 40 black) and asked them questions about 10 events.  9 of the questions were about well-known event and the last one was personal. The participants were then asked to recall the circumstances they were in when they found out about the news of the event. Then they
were asked to think about how many times they had reflected and thought about it after the event, alone or with others. These events were all very surprising and many people have personal connections to them as well so they were expected to form FBMs, and they did. For example, 90% of the participants could recall the assassination of J. F. Kenny in 1963, and they new its reception context in vivid detail! The participants could also easily recall the personal FBM which often had to do with the death of a close one. This supports the theory perfectly since death is both surprising
and very emotional, and it’s also something we feel like we have to talk about a lot to deal with grief.

Biological factors affect on memory

Our memory is not always controlled by us. Sometimes we remember things we don't want to remember and other times we forget even if we want to remember. Sometimes this is caused by different biological factors. PTSD is a shorter name for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. This can happen to people who have experienced a very extreme and discomforting situation. It can be children who have been exposed to abuse, raped women, or soldiers coming back from war. Adrenaline is a powerful hormone produced by the adrenal gland during high stress and in these situations lots of adrenaline is released into the system and this helps you remember the event better. If you get PTSD all the emotions you experience will haunt you for years after the event is over and you will remember it as vividly as if it's happening all over again. Dr. Pittman did a study where he dropped rats in a tub of water with a clear plastic box in the middle that the rats could't see. The rats would swim along the edge and eventually they would panic and start swimming around in different directions towards the middle and stumble upon the box. The next time the rats got dropped in the same tub they would first swim around the edge but would turn to the middle and find the box quicker. Then Dr. Pittman did a second trial and injected the rats with adrenaline. The rats would swim towards the middle of the tub at once the second time they were dropped into it, suggesting that they remembered that there was a box. On the third trial Dr. Pittman injected the rats with propranolol. Propranolol works against the adrenaline with beta-blockers that inhibit the binding of the neurotransmitters at the receptors where the memories are formed therefore propranolol may both dampen memory formation and dissociate the memory from emotional response. These rats swam around the tub edge just as if they had never been there before and there was no time change between the first and second time they were dropped. Another thing that can make us forget is not a drug but a disease called Alzheimer's that affects the brain. It kills nerve cells and causes tissue loss throughout the brain. The first and most affected area is the hippocampus. The hippocampus is responsible for the formation of new memories and also some learning and emotions. So this is why the first signs of Alzheimer's is memory loss. During the middle stage the memory loss gets worse and patients start forgetting family and friends and they also easily get lost even in familiar settings. At the last stage the brain is so damaged that the patient can no longer take care of themselves and they need around the clock supervision. There is no medication for Alzheimer's, so the patient will die from it. 

Is a cognitive process reliable

Memories are not copies but reconstructions of our experiences, and therefore memories of events have been shown to vary widely among witnesses. Loftus and Palmer theorized that it could be caused by information supplied after the event that activates our schema ans thereby inducing an altered memory of what actually occurred. So they decided to study the effects of language on memory in a study, Loftus and Palmer (1974). In the study they had 45 university students that watched several videos of car accidents. Then they were given the question, "About how fast were the cars driving when they..." and then they changed the verb for different groups. They got contracted, hit, bumped, collided, or smashed into each other. The results were statistically different between the first and last but not between every one of them even though the speed estimated increased the stronger the verb was. This showed that the participants were influenced by the words used when they were questioned about the even. If memory is altered easily it is not very reliable. Some limitations of the study was that the experiment only was conducted on university students and if they haven't been driving for a very long time it can have been hard for them to estimate the speed that the cars were going and they might have looked a lot at the verbs for clues while a more experienced driver would rely more on experiences and what their instincts are. Also the study was conducted in a lab and not at the actual accident so the accidents did not feel as "real" to the participants and they therefore lacked the emotional content so it's hard to say that this study would be completely accurate in real life events. Some strengths of having the experiment so controlled on the other hand is that it was easy to measure the results and see the relationship between the independent and dependent variables. Also this study has been replicated many times and showed similar results every time. This is a strength since it shows that it was not a one time thing and that it wasn't just a specific group of people that it worked on and that makes the study more reliable. Going back to talking about how the lack of emotional content by not being at the place where it happens, affects the memory. Ihlebaek et al. (2003), staged a robbery involving two robbers armed with guns. The participants were split into two groups. The first group were on the place of the robbery while the second group watched a video of the robbery. The study showed that the group that had watched the video had a more accurate memory of what actually happened.   The people who experienced the robbery probably had much more emotions connected to what they had seen. This support the idea that eye witnesses don't have very reliable memories. A limitation of this experiment is that it was staged and therefore it has a low ecological validity. A strength on the other side, is that the experiment clearly showed the difference between seeing an even with your own eyes and being there compared to looking at a video.