Tma01

TMA 01
PART 1

This essay will describe different ways in which identity is addressed by two different theories. Two theories are the Social Identity Theory (SIT) and Social Constructionism. Firstly, essay will describe them as singular theories. Secondly, essay will show differences and similarities.
Let’s start from the Social Identity Theory. The Social Identity Theory (SIT) is created to describe the social process which makes people identify with groups and separate them as individuals from other people. Person who constructed a theory of social identities and intergroup relations is Henri Tajfel . Theory was created to generate a social identity rather than theory of individualistic identity. This theory was termed by his two students (Turner and Brown 1978) as Social Identity Theory. Henri Tajfel was sure that there are two disconnected types of identity. First - personal identity. He thought it is related to the person’s relations to other people. Second type is social identity. It was a much wider social relation such as gender or nationality. Henri Tajfel was studying intergroup relations. As he separated social identity from personal he tried to understand more of social identity. One of very important points of Tajfel’s Social Identity Theory is his findings that people are likely to cooperate themselves or get categorised in to a groups and feel as they belong to this type of group. Belonging to one group they will be ready to discriminate other groups just to favour their own even if there is nothing to gain from it. One of the researches that Henri Tajfel with his colleagues studied shows us classical social cooperation in groups and repulse for out – group. They had boys 14 and 15 years old which were separated into different groups and they were given a specific reason why they are exactly in this type of group. In this study boys were separated by which artist they liked to listen. Boys explained that they were in groups and that one was the...