Introduction
Social Identity Theory – or SIT, for short – emerged in the 1970s within social psychology, through the work of Henri Tajfel and John Turner.
This theory aims to explain how people identify with the groups they feel they belong to, and how that identification influences their behavior, emotions, and the way they perceive reality and themselves.
Through the psychological mechanisms described by SIT, it becomes surprisingly easy to manipulate people, even to the point of leading them to take part in extreme acts like genocide. That’s why understanding how group thinking works is especially important today, in a context of growing polarization.
1. Origins and theoretical foundations
SIT arose as an attempt to understand prejudice and discrimination between social groups.
Until then, existing theories mostly focused on the individual traits of the people showing such attitudes. However, SIT shifts the focus to how mere membership in a group can influence our behavior and ways of thinking.
According to this theory, each person has a personal identity, which defines them as unique, and a social identity, which comes from the groups they belong to. The importance of one or the other will depend on the context we find ourselves in.
2. Key processes of the theory
SIT describes three fundamental stages in this process:
1) Social categorization
Our brain is very skilled at creating categories. This ability helps us organize reality, anticipate outcomes, and make quicker decisions. However, it can also lead us to reduce people to labels.
We constantly categorize: ourselves and others. We might see someone as a mother, a police officer, a politician, right-wing, left-wing, etc. This simplifies reality, but also distorts it.
For example, if we believe that all Italians love pasta, when we meet an Italian person, we’ll automatically assume they love it – even if it’s not true.
2) Social identification
When we feel like we’re part of a group, we begin to identify with it. We adopt its values, beliefs, and attitudes, and are emotionally affected by what happens to the group.
The group’s successes or failures feel like our own, which directly impacts our self-esteem. To protect that self-esteem, we activate mechanisms like denial or rationalization, justifying or downplaying anything that might damage the group’s image… and by extension, our own.
3) Social comparison
Once we identify with a group (our ingroup), we tend to compare it to others (outgroups) to maintain or boost our self-esteem.
In this process, it’s common to look down on or devalue other groups, which allows us to feel that ours – and therefore ourselves – is better.
3. Psychological and social implications
Self-esteem and worldview
When our self-esteem strongly depends on the group we belong to, we may lose critical thinking toward that group’s actions or discourse. We might even justify things we would have previously rejected.
A clear example would be people defending Elon Musk’s Nazi salute, when not long ago they might have condemned that gesture if it had come from someone else.
Over-identification and conformity
Some people, especially those with low self-esteem or a poorly defined individual identity, may merge with the group. In these cases, they adopt the group’s ideas and values unquestioningly, as if they were their own.
This way, they may end up supporting behaviors they once rejected – or would reject if they saw them in another group.
Prejudice and discrimination
The need to see our group as superior can generate prejudices and discriminatory attitudes toward others. Some groups even promote these prejudices, by dehumanizing others or glorifying their own worth.
In these dynamics we find the psychological roots of many conflicts, including genocide.
Aggression dynamics
Prejudices can translate into more or less visible forms of aggression. Some are subtle, like microaggressions or institutional discrimination; others are more overt, like verbal violence, exclusion, or even physical attacks.
Conclusion
Social Identity Theory helps us understand how:
- We classify people (and ourselves) into different groups
- We identify with some of them
- And we compare ourselves to others, seeking to maintain a positive image of our group
It suggests that our identity is made up, at the very least, of two parts:
- An individual identity, which makes us unique
- And a group identity, which comes from the groups we belong to
When this group identity is very strong, psychological defense mechanisms are activated to protect not just the group’s image, but our own. We may end up justifying questionable actions, denying facts, or adopting attitudes that go against our own values.
Also, seeing others as part of outside groups can lead us to distort their image, prejudge them, or even dehumanize them – especially when we are part of intolerant groups.
That’s why it’s essential to be aware of these mechanisms: to ask ourselves when we’re being prejudiced, when we’re defending our group without thinking, or when we’re justifying the unjustifiable just out of loyalty.
Developing this awareness is key to a healthier, less manipulable, and more humane coexistence. Because, above all, we all belong to one common group: humanity.
