Social categorization and similarity in intergroup behaviour

Abstract

The present study is one of a series exploring the role of social categorization in intergroup behaviour. It has been found in our previous studies that in 'minimal' situations, in which the subjects were categorized into groups on the basis of visual judgments they had made or of their esthetic preferences, they clearly discriminated against members of an outgroup although this gave them no personal advantage. However, in these previous studies division into groups was still made on the basis of certain criteria of 'real' similarity between subjects who were assigned to the same category. Therefore, the present study established social categories on an explicitly random basis without any reference to any such real similarity.It was found that, as soon as the notion o f 'group' was introduced into the situation, the subjects still discriminated against those assigned to another random category. This discrimination was considerably more marked than the one based on a division of subjects in terms of interindividual similarities in which the notion of 'group' was never explicitly introduced. In addition, it was found that fairness was also a determinant o f the subjects' decisions.The results are discussed from the point of view o f their relevance to a socialcognitive theory of intergroup behaviour.Previous papers (Tajfel, 1970, Tajfel et al., 1971 reported a set of studies which aimed to elucidate the role played by social categorization in intergroup behaviour. The major purpose of these studies was to show that an individual's act of categorizing his social world into distinct social groups, into 'them' and 'us', can be, at least in I . This stndy was conducted with the help of a grant from the Ford Foundation. The authors wish to thank E. Land, A. Monk, G . Shorten and J. Smith for helping to run the experiment.

Similarity predicts liking in 3-year-old children

“…That is, what children look like or the kinds of foods they enjoy would not necessarily be good indicators of whether they will play well together-choosing similar toys and type of play-and be compatible as friends. However, research with adults and older children suggests that initial interpersonal attraction is often influenced by similarities that are not especially relevant for long-term friendship such as a preference for a certain modern painter (Billig & Tajfel, 1973) or similar political attitudes (Neimeyer & Mitchell, 1988). Thus, it was possible that children in the current experiment would be influenced by similarities in food preferences and physical appearance.…”

“…For adults and adolescents, similarity between two individuals has been consistently found to be related to interpersonal liking and friendship. Predictors of initial liking and friendship include similarities in attitudes (Byrne & Nelson, 1965;Neimeyer & Mitchell, 1988), behaviors (Urberg, Degirmencioglu, & Tolson, 1998), preferences (Billig & Tajfel, 1973;Brewer & Silver, 1978), and values and background (Johnson, 1989).…”

Setting the bar - an experimental investigation of immigration requirements

“…This finding could be interpreted as a form of in-group favoritism (see Tajfel et al 1971;Billig and Tajfel 1973). As a real-world comparison, we observe that immigration requirements, such as income or sociocultural requirements often exceed population averages.…”

“…al. (1971) and Billig and Tajfel (1973) show that such a random assignment of roles is sufficient to create feelings of in-group affiliation and in-group favoritism. 4 We let the citizens play a giving-and-taking public good game (see Khadjavi and Lange, forthcoming), but restrict migrants' opportunities to contribute to or receive returns from a public good.…”

Group membership influences social control of perpetrators of uncivil behaviors

“…This minimal differentiation between the two groups yielded a situation close to what is encountered in real life where group membership is rarely more salient. In addition, we manipulated group membership based on the similarity between the participant and the target because similarity is one of the main criterions that individuals use to judge of other individuals' group membership in an interpersonal setting (Billig & Tajfel, 1973;Wilder and Simon, 1998). This similarity-based categorization is reinforced by the data of our pilot study.…”