What contributes to self Esteem?

1. What contributes to self Esteem? Personal accomplishments or group identity ?

2. Application of terms • Do you think that dispositional and situational factors could both play important roles in influencing behavior? • Discuss and justify your answer by referring to your knowledge of biases in attribution.

3. Improving self esteem through groups • Brainstorm factors that enhance self esteem…things which help one feel good about oneself. • Esteem can enhanced through personal or social identity. • So…esteem can be improved either through personal accomplishments or through group identification

4. Social Identity theory • Based on a cognitive process of social categorization.

5. Social categorization • People favor their own group compared with other groups. This is because people tend to divide their social world into two categories: “us” and “them”. • Social categorization can result in prejudice, stereotyping, ethnocentrism. Why ? • …because it can produce competitive intergroup behavior.

6. Explain the following ‘story’- slides 7 -12

13. Minimum Group Paradigm

14. Conflict necessary? • Conflict is not even necessary for divisions between groups to exist according to Tajfel. • Merely belonging to a group and being aware of another’s existence is enough. • Explain this using Tajfel- Crane p 107 and scan on portal.

15. Tajfel et al. (1970) • Aim: Demonstrate that merely putting people into groups is sufficient for people to discriminate in favor of their own group and against members of the other group • Experimental Method • Subjects were 64 14/15 year-old-boys • Separated into groups of 8

16. Homework • Answer questions on portal- ‘Questions on SIT’ • ReadCrane 104-106; e book on portal; PPT scan “Social Categorization theory • Reading Social categorization and social identity approaches…

17. Pair work • Examine the document ‘Studies relating to social categorization.’ • Carefully discuss each study to decide…. • Which studies explain social identity theory? Justify clearly . • Complete ..’this study shows social identity theory because….’

18. Sherif (Robber’s Cave Experiment) How prejudice thoughts can be cultivated which will lead to discriminatory acts

19. Method: Experimental • Design: Repeated Measure • Variables: • Independent variable: Situations that the subjects were put into • In group formation exercises • Friction causing situations • Integration phase • Dependant variable The behavior of the subjects, whether hostile or non-hostile

20. Participants • Eleven year old boys • All with similar backgrounds • Western culture

21. Procedure • Boys were picked up by two buses, each containing 11 boys each • They were assigned to two living areas far apart enough that each group remained ignorant of the other's presence for the first few days • Groups were asked to choose names for their own teams. One group chose “The Rattlers” the other “The Eagles”.

22. In-group formation • At first group cohesion was low, as they didn't know one another. • Sherif gave each group a set of problems to solve which required that the boys in each group must co-operate (separately from the other group). • Group cohesion grew rapidly. Within two or three days, the two groups spontaneously developed internal social hierarchies.

23. A Friction Phase • Sherif introduced contests between the two groups in which either group could win a prize only at the expense of the other group. • Very rapidly, the groups began calling one another names, fights broke out regularly and there were raids on one another's camps. • Hostility between the groups escalated to the point where the study team concluded the friction-producing activities could not continue safely. Phase Two was terminated and Phase Three commenced.

24. Integration Phase (reducing friction) • Sherif devised and introduced tasks that required cooperation between the two groups in an attempt to bring them back together. • The first method he tried was to unite them by giving them a common enemy. This was fairly effective to the extent that the Eagles and the Rattlers became closer, but conflict was not reduced, strictly speaking, because they held hatred for their common enemy. • Sherif then tried confronting the two hostile groups with a common threat. For example, a water shortage 'suddenly developed' or the trucks bringing their food 'broke down' when the boys were particularly hungry. In these cases, the problems could only be solved if they co-operated.

25. Super-ordinate goals • These tasks are referred to in the study as super-ordinate goals. A superordinate goal is a desire, challenge, predicament or peril that both parties in a conflict need to get resolved, and that neither party can resolve alone. Challenges set up by the Sherifs included a water shortage problem, a "broken down" camp truck that needed enough "man" power to be pulled back to camp, and finding a movie to show. These and other necessary collaborations caused hostile behavior to subside. The groups bonded to the point that, by the end of the experiment, the boys unanimously insisted they all ride back home on the same bus.

26. Prejudice: The division of the boys into groups formed a prejudice against the other group where the other group was seen as the enemy or competitor. • Discrimination: The different groups exhibited hostile behavior towards one another where the friction-producing activities had to be halted due to the aggressiveness of the two teams and safety of the participants had become an issue.

27. Evaluation • Culture: The subjects used were from a western culture only and the findings cannot be applied to people from other cultures. • Ethical: The ethical aspects of this experiment can be questioned as the boys were provoked to violent behavior • Gender: This experiment is ethically unsound as the experiment only focuses on males. It does not show whether females would behave the same way. • Methodological: It lacks mundane realism as the variables are fabricated situations that may not always reflect real-life situations. Variables such as the background of the boys are hard to control therefore there are extraneous variables present.

28. Bibliography • http://www.age-of-the-sage.org/psychology/social/sherif_robbers_cave_experiment.html • http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Sherif/

29. Muzafer Sherif et al (1954)

30. Cave experiment (Sherif) • The hypotheses tested were: * (1) When individuals having no established relationships are brought together to interact in group activities with common goals, they produce a group structure with hierarchical statuses and roles within it.

31. *(2) If two in-groups thus formed are brought into functional relationship under conditions of competition and group frustration, attitudes and appropriate hostile actions in relation to the out-group and its members will arise and will be standardized and shared in varying degrees by group members.

32. Participants • The experiment plan called for the selection of 24 boys of about 12 years of age from similar, settled, lower middle-class Protestant backgrounds. These boys moreover were to be well-adjusted psychologically, of normal physical development and in the same year of schooling.

33. Procedure • In the event 22 such young persons were selected and weredivided by the researchers into two groups with efforts being made to balance the physical, mental and social talents of the groups. • They were then, as individual groups, picked up by bus on successive days in the summer of 1954 and transported to a 200 acre Boy Scouts of America camp which was completely surrounded by Robbers Cave State Park in Oklahoma.

34. At the camp the groups were kept separate from each other and were encouraged to bond as individual groups through the pursuit of goals which had a common appeal value and the achievement. • The initial five or six day was called the "first stage”. Which, was based basically on observing and letting the groups settle and get used to each other.

35. Then researches arranged for their “Stage Two” where friction between the groups was to be facilitated over 4-6 days. In this phase it was intended to bring the two groups into competition in conditions which would imply some frustration in group relations one against the other. • A series of competitive activities were made, which would be rewarded with a trophy and also individual prizes (a medal and a pocket knife). • No consolation prizes for the losing team.

36. Then researchers embarked upon “Stage Three” which they hoped would be an Integration Phase which was intended to dissipate the present contrived state of friction and which was intended to last some 6-7 days. • There were to be a number of improvised, and hopefully reconciliatory, get-to-know-you opportunities such as a bean-collecting contest, or the showing of a film, or the shooting of Firecrackers in association with the fourth of July.

37. As expected, in line with the findings of earlier studies, over an initial five or six day "first stage" the two groups of boys tended to individually generate their own acceptance of common membership and their own status hierarchies.

38. Stage 1 reaction • One group took spontaneously took unto itself the name of "The Rattlers" and the other similarly adopted the name of "The Eagles.” • Both groups tended to insistently ask the camp staff (i.e. the researchers) to arrange some sort of competition against the other.

39. Stage 2 reaction • On stage two, after the competitive event,groups showed disrespect for each others flags (i.e. each group actually felt moved to burn the others flag) and they also raided each others cabins. After the Eagles, with the discreet connivance of the researchers, won the contest the Rattlers raided again and removed any medals or pocket-knives they could lay their hands on.

40. Stage 3 reaction • And in stage three, neither of the groups did any effort in getting to terms. Some of the “get to know opportunities” ended up in food fights.

41. The researchers concluded that such contrived contact opportunities were not going to promptly secure any meaningful lessening of tensions between the groups. They now arranged for the introduction of a number of scenarios presenting subordinate goals which could not be easily ignored by members of the two antagonistic groups, but the attainment of which is beyond the resources and efforts of one group alone. These scenarios were played out at a new location in the belief that this would tend to inhibit recall of grievances that had been experienced at Robbers Cave.

42. There were a serious of problems that the subjects had to face: • 1) The Drinking Water Problem • 2) The Problem of Securing a Movie

43. The purpose for these problems: • Was to see whether the initial conflict between the groups would keep on making them competitive and aggressive or if their behavior towards the other group would vary depending on the situation.

44. Conclusion • The Robbers Cave experiment reveals that competition for limited resources can easily produce prejudice and aggression in those that are relatively similar in age, socioeconomic status, religious views and ethnic identity. This study is highly relevant to modern society and thus it is my first choice.