Sample response

Social Identity Theory is based on the assumption that we have both an individual and a social self. Social identity theory argues that one's self-esteem comes from their membership of social groups. Tajfel argued that there were three steps to Social Identity Theory: Categorization, in which an individual considers himself a member of a group. Then there is social identification when the person conforms to the behaviours and values of the group. Then, the individual achieves self-esteem by comparison with members of the out-group. By seeing the traits of one's own group as positive and the out-group as inferior, this raises a sense of self-esteem.  Social Identity Theory also argues that one's group membership is made salient, it has an effect on behaviour.

One study that demonstrates the role of one's Social Identity on behaviour was done by Abrams et al.  Abrams wanted to see if being made aware of one's social identity would increase the level of conformity to a group.  To do this, he had participants take part in the Asch paradigm.  In this test, there is a group of confederates and one naive participant.  The group is shown a line and then asked to match it with the line of the same length in a set of three lines. In half of the trials, the confederates gave the correct answer; in half they did not.

To test the role of social identity, one group of naive participants was told that the other participants were "fellow psychology students from the university."  In the other condition, they were told that they were "ancient history students from the competitor university."  When they thought it was their in-group, participants conformed almost 50% of the time to the incorrect answer; when they thought it was their out-group, they conformed only 5% of the time.

It appears that when the participants' social identity was made salient, conformity increased in order to be accepted by one's in-group and to maintain self-esteem, but this did not happen when the participant believed that he was with an out-group. One type of conformity is normative social influence where the need to belong influences the likelihood that one will conform.  This apepars to be the case in this study, where the need to belong to one's in-group increased the level of conformity, whereas the lack of desire to belong to an out-group meant that conformity levels were low.

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