Evaluation of Social Identity Theory Essay

Social categorization is the filing of the certain type of people, which is usually expressed to individuals that are the similar to you as ‘us’ or to individuals who you see are different from what you think of yourself as ‘them’. When you observe at other people, you see the differences of how other people look and behave compared to how you usually behave and act during your daily life. Furthermore, you will categorize them as being ‘them’ as a word to describe either the significant or insignificant differences between people that are similar to you and people who are not similar to how you look or behave. For e.g. some people often think that they are ‘cool’ based on their own opinion, but when someone else is different they might be considered as being ‘uncool’. Social identity looks mainly at the individual characteristics that determine who you actually are. It is solely based on what you do that defines you socially or in public, which makes people believe that this is your identity. Social Identity is not personal identity as there is no correspondence. Personal identity basically looks at what you do personally compared to social identity, which is solely about the individual characteristics that you represent in the eye of the public. You can be socially identified to be e.g. ‘a nerd’, because of your individual characteristics that seem to define you in resemblance to a nerd, for example, being knowledgeable or smart in terms of IQ or the way you dress or look. Or that someone is gay or a lesbian, because they act unusually strange resembling of how the opposite gender usually acts. Additionally, the way they dress that is unusual in the public’s eye, so they will be easily identified as being gay or a lesbian, e.g. a man wearing tight-fit shorty shorts and long boots with a handbag or a woman with short hair  wearing a hoodie with baggie trousers and casual Nike shoes. Social comparison is the comparison between individuals due to the differences from the determination of the characteristics of one person. Our conscience is socially aware to help us be able to understand these differences so that we are able to distinguish people that are alike and people that are different. Furthermore, we tend to help people due to their individual characteristics that are similar to ours and instead we are hesitant or not willing to help someone else that are considered to be different from ‘us’. In Tajfel’s theory, it is an experiment conducted with students that are sorted into small groups. Each group produced an artwork and they were then told to rate the painting work of other groups, including their own. At the end result, one group that is pre-dominantly male-based has given their own artwork very high ratings, while the ratings of others were low. This shows the differences between self-admiration and egotistical thinking, as they are putting themselves in best priority. Positive Distinctiveness are †¦. That is recognized as being special and different to what is already common†¦