September 3, 2026 • 47 mins
In the 80s, a pair of psychologists theorized why being part of a group can change people’s thoughts and feelings, both about themselves and other people. It sounds dry, but SIT explains everything from how people justify genocide to football rivalries.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's Chuck,
and Jerry's here, too. And we're just a super cool
in-group looking down on your out-group here on Stuff You
Should Know.
Speaker 3 (00:22):
That's right. Did you hear that thunder? Can you hear that?
Speaker 2 (00:25):
No. It was a little too delicate, the sound was.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (00:31):
Yeah, it just started raining and it's thundering pretty good.
So maybe people can hear that. It might add a
little mood.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
That's nice. Because, yeah, I think we could use a
little mood on this one. This is a very rigid
look at what I think is a very interesting social
psychology theory.
Speaker 3 (00:49):
Oh, yeah?
Speaker 2 (00:50):
Yeah. Do you not find it very interesting?
Speaker 3 (00:53):
I didn't find this one super interesting. You know, like
a lot of social psychology, this one I filed under, like, yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (01:01):
I guess you're, you know, you're observing something that happens.
That's about where it ended for me.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
I get it. I get it. To me. Yeah. I mean,
I sense what you're talking about. Like there's just something.
I feel like we're talking people out of listening to this.
Speaker 3 (01:17):
Episode right now.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
Okay. Well, we'll just clue everybody in and you can
make up your own mind how you feel about this, guys. Well,
what we're talking about is social identity theory, which you
probably gleaned from the title. And. In a nutshell, social
identity theory basically says that we get a sense of
self and belonging and, well, we help develop our identity
(01:40):
from the groups we belong to. And that is very
different from the idea that we just develop as individuals
through normal developmental psychology. In fact, the guys who came
up with social identity theory basically say it's the group
that's the thing, not the individual. Like, that's where we
really develop Most of our identity is from interacting with
(02:02):
other people. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (02:03):
You know, I think I don't think anyone will be
talked in or out of liking or thinking this is
interesting because I think it'll be whether or not you're
into social psychology generally as a whole or not. I bet.
Speaker 1 (02:17):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (02:18):
Because for a lot of social psychology for me, I'm
like sort of like I was saying, I was like,
a lot of this stuff to me is like, well, yeah, duh.
But like, what's the point? Sure. Sure.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
Well, here's the point. This is the point as far
as I can tell. The part I just said is
definitely duh.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (02:36):
But the reason they came up with social identity theory
is to explain stuff that heretofore, and still some people
are like, I don't know about social identity theory, although
it's the dominant framework for explaining this stuff. Yeah. Explaining
things that are tough to explain. Like, why do normal
people become fascists, get swept up in fascist movements? Yeah.
(02:59):
Why do sports fans get in fights with sports fans
from rival teams?
Speaker 3 (03:05):
Alcohol.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
Like, these things, sure. I mean, yeah, you can't really
deny that. Yeah. But they're, like, they don't quite make
sense when you step back and look at things. And
so social identity theory says, All of this can be
explained with this theory. And I think that's where it
gets interesting for me, especially the idea that this is
(03:26):
so ingrained in our evolutionary history that we basically can't
do anything about it. Like even being aware of this
can only help to such a degree. Like you're still
innately attracted to being a member of a group.
Speaker 3 (03:41):
Yeah, I think that's my deal. And I promise I'm
not going to say, duh, like a hundred times. Because
I do think some of the social psychology stuff is
fairly interesting. I'm just more of a person who's like,
sort of a what, like, where does that get us
in the end? You know what I mean?
Speaker 2 (03:58):
Yes, I totally get that. We should also give our caveat,
because we make fun of social psychology and the studies
involved so frequently, it would be It would be pretty
rich to just be like, yeah, this is super cool
and proven. A lot of the studies, just like any
other social psychology field or sub-discipline, is there are like
(04:23):
30 people who are grad students or undergrad students that
were getting extra credit. That's what the study found or
that's what the study used. And then whatever they found,
that's now just universally applied to everybody. Yeah. in a
lot of cases it's, that's just not correct, but this
one is so, like you said, duh, that it seems like, yes,
(04:46):
this is very true.
Speaker 3 (04:48):
Yeah, for sure. Uh, and I guess we should start with, um, uh,
conflict intergroup conflict, uh, which is not intra group conflict.
So in this case, we're talking about conflict between, uh,
two different groups. Um, It's sort of like if you
just think of like us versus them for a lot
of this, you're along the right track. And in this case, it's,
(05:11):
you know, if you develop an intergroup conflict, it's developing
some sort of prejudice or bias maybe against another group. Like,
let's say you're the in-group. Everyone thinks you're the in-group,
but an in-group versus an out-group. And for a long
time before these two, Henri Tajfel and John Turner came
along in the 70s, There were people, other social psychologists
(05:35):
explaining it and in a different way and mainly in
a couple of different ways, starting with 1950 with Theodore
Adorno and his publishing, along with his colleagues of the
authoritarian personality and trying to trying to sort of describe like, hey,
what's the deal with Nazis and like the aftermath of
(05:56):
Nazis and like what kind of person is going to
get swept up in that kind of thing?
Speaker 2 (06:01):
Right. So Adorno basically said that it's the people who
are getting swept up that are essentially causing the sweeping
in the first place. That if you put a bunch
of what he called authoritarian personalities who aren't, that doesn't
describe somebody who aspires to become an authoritarian leader. Those
are people who feel most secure when submitting to an
(06:25):
authoritarian leader. So you put a bunch of those people together,
say in a Nazi party, um, that fascism is just
going to take off, um, and attract more like-minded people.
It makes sense, but it's, I don't think anybody was like,
that's it. That explains fascism.
Speaker 3 (06:43):
Yeah, for sure. Uh, and so the other one that
I mentioned, um, you know, before the other two guys
in the seventies that we're going to get to was, uh,
in the 1960s, there was a social psychologist named, uh,
Muzaffer Sharif, who, um, He again, these little like small experiments.
This is at a Boy Scout camp. He'd separated two
groups at Boy Scouts at camp. And he said, all right,
(07:07):
you know, you're just in two groups. Get to know
one another. Get to know each other. And everything was
going pretty good. And nothing was unusual until all of
a sudden he introduced the idea of competition for prizes. Yeah.
And that's when it became Lord of the Flies.
Speaker 2 (07:24):
Yeah, for sure. He was like, one group gets blue ribbons,
the other gets participant ribbons. And it was on from
that point, you know? So he came up with something
called realistic group conflict theory, because once the prizes were introduced,
there was all sorts of conflict that came out of it, right? Now,
all of a sudden, group A was discriminating against group B,
(07:46):
and maybe they would get into like little fights or
something like that stuff that was completely outside of the competition.
And He basically said, OK, that stands in for resources.
Like if you switched out, you know, first prize with
access to dwindling water, now you have a true general
(08:07):
universal explanation for why groups get in conflict. It's over
material scarcity.
Speaker 3 (08:13):
I'm not going to say duh. I promise.
Speaker 2 (08:16):
But even that one, realistic group conflict theory, people are like, yeah,
that sounds kind of good, but. Still, it just doesn't
smack of like, it doesn't smack of duh, as Chuck
will eventually put it. And that's when Tajfell and Turner
came around.
Speaker 3 (08:31):
Yeah, so Henri Tajfell, he was the first part of
this twosome. He was a social psychologist at the University
of Bristol. He was born to a Jewish family in
Poland and immigrated to France in the 1930s and lost
most of his family to the Holocaust and World War II.
And so he changed over from chemistry to, to social psychology,
(08:56):
I guess the inference there is in maybe some bid
to try and understand what the heck happened.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
Yeah, which was, I mean, he wasn't the only one. Like,
that's where Adorno and Sharif were. Like, Nazi Germany just
came out of nowhere.
Speaker 3 (09:10):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (09:11):
And then, yeah, the idea that his family had perished
at the hands of the Nazis, I could see that's
what the reason was.
Speaker 3 (09:19):
Yeah. So he hooked up with John Turner and, They
met at University of Bristol. He was a PhD student.
And as an undergrad, as far as his interest in
this kind of thing, he dropped out of college a
few times, ended up working just sort of, you know,
regular old blue collar jobs. And through those jobs, had
dealings with unions and things. And I guess just became
(09:39):
kind of fascinated about the social dynamic and group dynamics
within a union. So when he met Tajvel, I guess
love was in the air and they said, hey, let's
get together and work on this stuff together.
Speaker 1 (09:51):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (09:51):
And ended up writing sort of the watershed paper or
the initial one, at least on this from them. An
integrative theory of integration. conflict, which is like basically their
statement to the world of like, here's what we think
about all this.
Speaker 2 (10:07):
Yeah. This is where social identity theory came from. This
is the paper it was proposed in. And Should we
take a break now or dive into the nuts and bolts?
Speaker 3 (10:18):
No, no, no. I think it's a good break time.
Speaker 2 (10:20):
Okay, everybody. You're going to have to wait for the
nuts and bolts after these messages.
Speaker 3 (10:36):
Word up, Jerry. All right, Chuck.
Speaker 1 (10:36):
So where we left off, we're about to dive into
this seminal paper from 1979 by Tosh, Fell, and Turner,
an integrative theory of intergroup conflict. And it sounds dry
and boring, but it basically changed.
Speaker 2 (10:46):
How psychology, but also people outside of academia see the world,
(11:10):
you know? I wonder if one of the reasons why
it seems so duh is because this paper was persuasive
and became pervasive that now that we're living today in 2026,
it just seems of course to us, but at the
time it didn't necessarily. I wonder about that. You were
(11:30):
eight years old. Do you remember if people were walking
around already thinking this was duh?
Speaker 3 (11:35):
I didn't know it ate. By the way, that's the
most Snoop Dogg way you've ever described something in your life.
Speaker 2 (11:41):
What did I say?
Speaker 3 (11:42):
Pervasive and persuasive.
Speaker 2 (11:45):
Or shizzle.
Speaker 3 (11:48):
Yeah, I don't remember that, of course. But in that paper,
they proposed a few different basically processes that they think
explain how people form into groups and group behavior. And
then get into conflict with others and have prejudice against others.
And they started that with social categorization, which is basically
(12:10):
you have to form into a group to begin with
if you're going to have conflict with another group or
compare yourself to another group.
Speaker 2 (12:18):
Yeah. And then so within categorization, so what Tashfel and
Turner seem to have done is they took some other
existing ideas in social psychology that hadn't necessarily been applied
to groups or whatever and put them together to kind
of form social identity theory and apply it to groups.
(12:39):
But categorization had already been around. There's something that had
been identified as the category accentuation effect. And it is
basically like once we start identifying ourselves as members of
groups and other people as members of other groups, in
groups and out groups, we get busy categorizing. And when
(13:02):
we get busy categorizing, what we're doing is using a
very ancient technique. process, which is heuristics, right? Like our
brain loves to take shortcuts. So it's, it does away
with all the nuance and details and just basically does
this big lumpy thing that's good enough. And when we
categorize people into groups, it goes through that process. So
(13:23):
we start seeing them differently.
Speaker 3 (13:25):
Yeah, for sure. And the reason we've formed groups to
begin with is kind of twofold is one, they think
evolutionary is that We've always wanted to just sort of
classify the world around us by seeking patterns and things.
And then the sort of the obvious thing, which is
that it's a benefit, especially early on when people were evolving,
(13:46):
is to form a group for pulling resources and to
divide up the hunting and gathering and co-parenting and protecting
one another from either predators or other what would end
up being, you know, competitive groups outside your tribe or whatever.
And so for defense purposes, that kind of thing. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (14:05):
And I mean, it's no fun to watch knots landing
by yourself. It's much better with a group.
Speaker 3 (14:10):
That's a very good point.
Speaker 2 (14:11):
So because of the heuristics that our brains just innately
use to kind of take these shortcuts and use less energy,
when we start categorizing people and ourselves, the variability within
our own group, the in-group, starts to go away. So
we start seeing other people say other Falcons fans, right?
(14:35):
It's similar to us, right? Like we're all Falcons fans
and everything else that makes us different just kind of
vanishes because we're Falcons fans. And that's what we identify as.
At the same time, it does the same thing in
the out group, but in a much less positive way.
Those are Steelers fans. They all suck. They're terrible people.
And then the differences between the in group and the
(14:57):
out group is are boosted as well. So all these
things just basically go through this very distorted lens when
we start categorizing people into groups. And that's where trouble
starts to come. And that's just one point of social
identity theory.
Speaker 3 (15:13):
For sure. And by the way, we don't mean that
against Steelers fans, because I have a strong feeling that
Josh has no idea that the very first game of
the season is Falcons versus Steelers this year.
Speaker 2 (15:23):
Of course I knew that. Who doesn't know that?
Speaker 3 (15:27):
No, we don't. If you were, you certainly weren't trying
to say Steelers fans are bad people because you would
have said Eagles fans or Patriots fans probably.
Speaker 2 (15:35):
I think all three. It applies to all three.
Speaker 3 (15:38):
Oh, wow. Okay. Standing by it. I love it.
Speaker 2 (15:41):
You always get so much guff for talking about any
Philadelphia fans.
Speaker 3 (15:47):
Yeah, I know.
Speaker 2 (15:48):
It's funny because people get really mad at you.
Speaker 3 (15:52):
I know. It's because they're bad people.
Speaker 2 (15:54):
That always reminds me of that Onion teacher that said,
my local sports team is better than your local sports team.
Speaker 3 (16:01):
Oh, that's funny. I love fans of all stripes, people
of Philly. No, I'm just kidding around. I love the
city of Philadelphia. I love to visit there. Don't have
the best time when our teams play each other. And
that's not my fault. I'll just leave it at that.
Speaker 2 (16:16):
But look, you just did something that I think is
worth pointing out. You went from being a Falcons fan,
which you remained. which is your in-group and then Phillies
or Eagles fans are an out-group to you. But then
you kind of rose up, your altitude increased and you
went to like the 10,000 foot level and you included
(16:38):
Eagles fans in the in-group with yourself as just fans
in general.
Speaker 3 (16:43):
Yeah, because if it was up to me, all rivalry
like that would be just very good-natured and fun and like, hey,
let's just go have a good time at the game
and maybe rib each other. So, It's it's when like
people take it seriously and curse in front of children
and throw beers. And that's that's when it gets to
the point where I'm like, well, that's no fun.
Speaker 2 (17:04):
Well, that brings up the the next point or the
next nut or bolt, I guess, depending on your view
of social identity theory, which is social identification. I think
that kind of explains what you just described.
Speaker 3 (17:15):
I think you're right. That's when you start to identify
with with my group, let's say Falcons fans. Uh, and
then that becomes part of my sense of self, but
you know, we're influenced by the values and, you know,
when it comes to sports, maybe it's values and stuff
don't come as into play, but, but the opinions and
(17:37):
values and maybe behaviors of the larger group behavior for sure.
Speaker 2 (17:40):
For sure.
Speaker 3 (17:41):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (17:41):
And I mean, everybody I'm sure has met somebody who's like, wow,
your whole identity is tied up in being a Falcons fan.
Like this is your life, right?
Speaker 3 (17:49):
Well, not me, but yeah.
Speaker 2 (17:51):
No, not you. But there are people out there. I'm
sure you've met them just from being a Falcons fan.
You can't help but rub elbows with people who you're like, wow,
this is really important to you. Like you can tell
that this person identifies throughout life as a Falcons fan,
I think.
Speaker 3 (18:07):
That's true. But, you know, the problem with Falcons fans
is that we're not as like that as much as
a lot of cities.
Speaker 2 (18:12):
Well, that's Atlanta for you. Exactly. No support for anybody.
Speaker 3 (18:17):
Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 2 (18:18):
I do feel like we should at least acknowledge and
give a hat tip. to Anna, who helped us with this.
Every single example she used was the Mets. She's very
clearly a Mets fan. She tried very hard to get
the Mets in there. So go Mets.
Speaker 3 (18:35):
That's pretty funny. And then the final of the third
would be social comparison. And that's when, and we've kind
of been doing this a little bit with our joking
around about sports, is comparing our group or whatever, what
we think is our in-group to the out-groups and other
groups And, you know, it can be a lot of
different things because we've just been doing just that. Like
(18:55):
you said, sometimes it's a favorable opinion. Sometimes it's unfavorable.
Sometimes it's neutral. But like we're incentivized in a way
to make obviously favorable comparisons between our in group and
the out group, because that helps your own self-esteem and
the self-esteem of a group overall and what they called
(19:18):
positive distinctiveness.
Speaker 1 (19:19):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (19:20):
Yeah, like we're different from the out group in the
best possible way. And, you know, best possible way can
mean all sorts of things depending on the context of
the group.
Speaker 3 (19:28):
Which is what I was just doing. Like we don't
curse out in front of kids and throw beers and stuff.
Speaker 2 (19:33):
Exactly. Falcons fans don't do that. That seems to have
kind of adopted a pre-existing theory called social comparison theory
from 1954 by psychologist Leon Fetzinger. Yeah. And Fetzinger was
applied this to individuals basically saying that our self-worth is
(19:53):
very commonly determined by or Generated by comparison to others
it can be you know Comparing ourselves to somebody we
think is above us and then maybe that motivates us
to do better more often than not we compare ourselves
to people who who are, say, below us. I made
scare quotes just now. And that that generates attitudes of, like, superiority, prejudice, bias,
(20:17):
all that stuff. So what Tosh, Phil, and Turner did
was they seemed to have taken social comparison theory and
made it a component of social identity theory and applied
it to groups rather than just individuals.
Speaker 3 (20:30):
Yeah, and, you know, comparison, that can be tricky because
when you're talking about comparing sports fans, it's not that
big of a deal, but... if you're talking about comparing
like a, you know, an ethnic group that you're in
or a social socioeconomic group that you're in.
Speaker 2 (20:47):
Right.
Speaker 3 (20:47):
That's when it gets really kind of sticky and gross.
And that's when or why you hear, I think, famous
sayings like comparison is the thief of joy from Roosevelt
or Twain's comparison is the death of joy, because that's when,
you know, if you're really sitting around comparing yourself to
people of a of like a higher financial class or
(21:09):
something like that, that is truly the death of joy. Um,
because it can consume you, I would imagine. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (21:16):
I mean, that's what makes Instagram in particular. So toxic,
but pretty much all social media is it, it engenders comparison.
Like that's the, that you can't help, but do that.
Speaker 1 (21:26):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (21:27):
You know? So yeah, it's a, it is the death
of joy.
Speaker 3 (21:29):
Uh, here's the thing about a Taj fell and Turner though, is, um, it,
and this is kind of an important point. Like they
don't think that, um, like in the case I was
just talking about with what, like your socioeconomic status, that's
obviously something that has a, like a material basis at
its root, but it doesn't have to have that. And
that's what they posit. And I agree that conflict doesn't
(21:52):
need a material basis. Um, it can be, you know,
there can be a situation like back in the days
of Tuk Tuk where they're very, very limited resources and, um,
incompatible group goals, maybe within a group. And, It doesn't
necessarily have to do with the material thing.
Speaker 2 (22:11):
So I disagree with that. I think that if you
look deep enough or if you expand your definition of
resources widely enough, there always is one. So dominance is
probably a pretty common one. One group wants to dominate
the rest and have say over where the society that
(22:31):
all the groups form goes. That's a big one.
Speaker 3 (22:34):
Good point.
Speaker 2 (22:34):
You could say winning is a resource. Like there's really
only one group that can win unless you're playing soccer
and then everybody wins. So, yeah, if you start to
get more, you know, less tangible and more esoteric or ethereal,
one of those ethereal, I think, then then to me,
there's always some sort of resource at stake.
Speaker 3 (22:56):
OK, so you disagree because there are ideas that prejudice
doesn't require material inequality and you feel like it does.
Speaker 2 (23:03):
Yeah, depending on your definition of material, I think.
Speaker 3 (23:07):
All right. Well, that makes sense. So Taj, Feld, and
Turner were on to something, they felt. And so they
were like, all right, what if we dig down a
little bit deeper? And we started kind of poking, or
not poking holes, but asking questions about groups and a
person's place within a group. And one question they came
up with is like, what if you don't feel good
about the group that you're in?
Speaker 2 (23:27):
Right.
Speaker 3 (23:27):
And that could be a group that you're born into.
It could be an ethnic group that you're born into
or a financial group. strata that you're born into and
they said all right there's a few different strategies that
you can employ if you aren't so happy and the
first one was individual mobility which is this idea of
like let's say it's a high school click and you're
(23:48):
in the dungeons and dragons club yeah and you're starting
to not feel so great about that so what you
think the move to do is is to um To,
you know, to climb to what you perceive as a
higher social status and and become friends with like the
popular kids or the jocks or whatever. And this is
only the key here is this is only a thing
(24:10):
if if that's something that's possible to do. Like you
can't change your race, in other words, but you may
be able to elevate from the D & D group
to the whatever perceived more popular crowd is.
Speaker 2 (24:22):
It depends if that if that high school hierarchy is
so rigid that the jocks are like nerds need not apply,
even former nerds. Then maybe, you know, you're now you're
an outcast from both groups. You're just in the middle
and you're you're up the creek. They make teen movies
about this very thing.
Speaker 3 (24:38):
Oh, I mean, yeah. Every John Hughes movie almost is
sort of has this as a basis.
Speaker 2 (24:43):
Right. And then the lesson that's learned is that that
group that you originally felt superior to or thought were
losers or whatever, that they are the ones that truly
care about you. The jocks don't care about you guys.
Let's let's just face it. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (24:56):
And in the movies, though, it's almost always possible to
make that leap. Or if you don't make that leap
to for someone from that upper group to peel away
from them to recognize you anyway. Yes. You know what
I'm saying?
Speaker 1 (25:08):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (25:09):
What was the one with him? He was like the
hot guy on Grey's Anatomy at first.
Speaker 3 (25:16):
McDreamy.
Speaker 2 (25:17):
Yes.
Speaker 3 (25:18):
Can't buy me love.
Speaker 2 (25:19):
Yes. I don't think it's ever been done better than
that one.
Speaker 3 (25:23):
I love that movie. And we're kind of that one's
a little too far along for Ruby. But we did
have recently watched some kind of wonderful and pretty and pink,
which also have sort of this nice idea. But but yeah,
Can't Buy Me Love really nails it. I love all
three of those movies.
Speaker 2 (25:39):
I like I have forever like it's just in my
head that scene where he goes to the Italian pizza
guy who's like this kind of like Don Juan. And
he's like, what have you done before? Like if your
girlfriend's husband found out about you, he's like, I take
a knife and I stab him a bunch of times.
He don't bother me no more.
Speaker 3 (26:01):
Oh, the 80s movies.
Speaker 2 (26:06):
Yeah, they're great. All right.
Speaker 3 (26:08):
So individual mobility is one. Social creativity is the next one.
If you don't feel great about how your group as
a whole is perceived, you can maybe just start sort
of changing the language about how you're comparing your group
to other people. So the first subgroup of that is
comparing your in-group to the out-group in a different way.
(26:29):
So like, you know, the D & D group, like
we may not be as cool of the jocks, but
like we're a lot smarter than them.
Speaker 2 (26:37):
Precisely. That's an excellent example.
Speaker 3 (26:39):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (26:40):
Another one is you can basically change what attributes are
focused on about your group. Right. So I guess going
to the D & D one, say, I don't know,
I can't figure out how to use that one. You
got something for that?
Speaker 3 (26:57):
Well, it's sort of about changing how others perceive your group.
So maybe the D & D group may not be
looked at as cool, but we have the best homemade shirts.
Speaker 2 (27:12):
I guess so. That seems similar to the first one.
Speaker 3 (27:15):
It sort of does a little bit. but it's in,
it's in how, like, I think in the, in the
first one, it's like how they perceive themselves. Like we're,
we're smarter than they are and they'll just never know it.
And the other one is, is we've got like these
cool uniforms that we wear and everyone thinks they're awesome.
Speaker 2 (27:31):
Gotcha. Great, great example. I'll bet D and D uniforms
are awesome.
Speaker 3 (27:35):
Well, I was thinking of the, in stranger things, the
hellfire club and the cool t-shirts.
Speaker 2 (27:40):
Oh, okay. I only saw the first season. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (27:43):
You know, I liked it all, but it, it, it,
First season was great.
Speaker 2 (27:47):
Have you seen The Devil in Silver? It's the third
installation of the Terror series.
Speaker 3 (27:52):
I don't know about any of those things.
Speaker 2 (27:55):
Oh, well, just start watching The Terror.
Speaker 3 (27:58):
Well, yeah, you've told us about that. I remember that now.
Speaker 2 (28:00):
Skip over season two and then just go to season three.
It was pretty good.
Speaker 3 (28:03):
Okay. Wasn't season one like sailboats and frigates and stuff?
Speaker 2 (28:08):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (28:09):
Pirates or something?
Speaker 2 (28:10):
It was based on, I can't remember which expedition, but
a lost ship. British Navy expedition in the Arctic. And
it was like based on that, but also had like
all sorts of fiction. Okay.
Speaker 3 (28:22):
So seasons one and three?
Speaker 2 (28:23):
Yes. Just do not watch season two. All right.
Speaker 3 (28:27):
So the third way you can do that is change
what out group you're comparing yourself with. So the D &
D group would say like, well, we may be D &
D nerds, but have you seen the chess club?
Speaker 2 (28:39):
Right. Wow. You're just on fire today, man.
Speaker 3 (28:43):
And I love chess club. I love chess. I love
D & D. I'm not slagging any of these. If anything,
I'm anti-jock.
Speaker 2 (28:50):
There you go. Got to be anti-somebody, right? That's the
whole in-group, out-group basis.
Speaker 3 (28:55):
Oh, man. I'm just getting myself in trouble with all
our teen listeners.
Speaker 2 (28:59):
One of the things about the social creativity, too, is
all three of those, they don't actually change anything in
the way of the hierarchy. The jocks are still at
the top.
Speaker 3 (29:10):
They rule the school.
Speaker 2 (29:11):
But things have changed. Something has changed, right? Social mobility
is like the group has changed because you've left and
maybe the hierarchy has changed because you joined this higher
group or whatever. But social creativity does not actually change
any part of the larger structure, say, of society.
Speaker 3 (29:31):
Yeah, for sure. So those were the first two. The
last one is very easy. It's social competition. And that's
when you choose to take on the group that you
perceive ahead of you like head on. So that's Revenge
of the Nerds.
Speaker 2 (29:43):
Yes, it is. That or any, like if there was
some greedy developer who's trying to shut something down, that's
the basis of it. Whether it's a ski resort or
a car wash or a hot dog stand. That's it
right there. Taking it on.
Speaker 3 (30:02):
That's right. So one of the things these two guys,
Toshvel and Turner, Toshvel and Turner, wanted to point out
was that like resource or material inequality or scarcity, they
don't always have to lead to social conflict. So sometimes
if you're like a low status individual or something. You
(30:26):
might align with a new group identity or try and
redefine that group in a more positive light, like the
things kind of we were just talking about. Yeah. But
there's no difference in like your access to resources. Like
it might just happen within the group and how you're
perceiving yourself or having others perceive you. It's not like
you went out and got like cooler clothes for the
(30:48):
D & D group to wear.
Speaker 2 (30:49):
Right. That's a much better way of what I was
trying to say. Okay. Chuck, I say we take our
second break now and then come back and talk more
about social identity theory.
Speaker 3 (30:59):
Let's do it.
Speaker 1 (31:11):
So I guess we should compare social identity theory with
the two big ones that we talked about before. Adornos
and what was the other guy? I can't remember.
Speaker 3 (31:17):
That's right.
Speaker 1 (31:17):
Sharif. Oh, you want me to do that?
Speaker 2 (31:42):
Well, the big one between Adorno's authoritarian personality theory and
social identity theory is that Adorno is basically saying it's
a bunch of individuals, messed up issues coming together to
create fascism or to create combative in-group, out-group behavior. It's
(32:02):
these individuals who have problems. And that just is– it's
not the opposite, but it really does not– it's not
compatible with social identity theory because to social identity theory,
people coming together as a group, that group is what
generates just the fact that people are together generates those issues.
(32:22):
There are positives and negatives to the whole thing.
Speaker 3 (32:26):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (32:26):
Like for example, some of the benefits, just a sense
of belonging, which people make a case of that. We
have developed that evolutionarily to keep us in groups and,
That deep sense of well-being that we get from feeling
like we belong.
Speaker 3 (32:41):
Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 2 (32:42):
That's a huge, huge benefit of being in a group.
A sense of purpose. You know, groups typically have missions.
I know that you Falcons fans like to go on
weekend retreats at camps very often in the off season
to talk about the Falcons and their prospects for the
next season.
Speaker 3 (32:58):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (32:59):
That's a purpose.
Speaker 3 (33:00):
Yeah, totally.
Speaker 2 (33:01):
And then self-worth, just having a sense of self-esteem from
belonging to a group like the Falcons fans. Right. You
can't buy that kind of self-esteem that the Falcons give you.
Speaker 3 (33:16):
Boy, it's so funny that we're using the Falcons because
I don't know if there's a collective group of humans
on planet Earth that feels worse about themselves. That's funny.
The other one was the realistic group conflict theory. So
social identity theory is probably a little closer to that
one than Adorno's authoritarian personality theory or trait theory, because
(33:42):
it frames prejudice as a byproduct of an intergroup conflict.
I think maybe one of the differences is that RCT,
realistic group conflict theory, sort of frames it as like
the resource scarcity that we're talking about. And Tajfell, again,
and Turner, they say that scarcity doesn't necessarily have to
(34:04):
be a part of that or a precursor, at least
to that.
Speaker 2 (34:06):
Yeah. And like, there's a lot of different nuances that
are different between the two. I think social identity theory
like really spreads out much further. But that's the main
difference between them.
Speaker 3 (34:17):
Yeah, agreed.
Speaker 2 (34:18):
So there's a lot of people who are like, yeah, duh,
including you, Chuck. But there's also a lot of people
who are like, have you guys proven this? Like we're
talking social psychology here. Are we just, somebody did like
a study once and everybody says, well, now it's proven.
That's maybe. So there's this, this thing that they use
(34:38):
to test social identity theory called the minimal group paradigm.
And originally I thought minimal referred to like the fewest
number of people in a group, which made me think
of the special people club from welcome to the dollhouse.
Speaker 3 (34:52):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (34:53):
With Don Wiener and the kid. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (34:55):
Was it just like two people?
Speaker 2 (34:56):
Yes.
Speaker 3 (34:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (34:58):
But they mean minimal as far as like the minimum
circumstances that the people in the group have in common.
Like what is the least amount of stuff that those
people can have in common and still belong to a
group together that where this behavior will develop? And using
that as a test paradigm, I guess. That actually pans
(35:20):
social identity theory out basically every time.
Speaker 3 (35:23):
Yeah, this is where I thought it got like a
little more interesting for me and that they in 1979,
they got together with another social psychologist named Rupert Brown
for a study called Social Comparison in Group Interest and
in Group Favoritism. Part of it would help is if
they just sexied up these titles for sure. But again,
(35:43):
they wanted to see like what what if we just
sort of arbitrarily grouped individuals together? And then task them
with some questions about something, which we'll see in a minute,
and see what happens. And so in this case, it
was 62 14- and 15-year-old students. And to group them arbitrarily,
they just gave them a series of abstract paintings and said,
(36:04):
pick out which one you like the best, and that'll
be your group or whatever. And they ended up in
four separate groups, the triangle group, the circle group, the
dichromatic group, and the polychromatic group.
Speaker 1 (36:16):
Mm-hmm.
Speaker 3 (36:17):
So here's what I don't understand is that she said, really,
they were just all put in the triangle group. What
does that mean?
Speaker 2 (36:23):
I think that so I didn't get that either. I
went and looked. Essentially, they were arbitrarily put into two
groups that had nothing to do with what the kids
involved thought they were a group member of.
Speaker 1 (36:35):
So.
Speaker 2 (36:36):
That whole triangle, circle, dichromatic, polychromatic. It was just to
fool the kids into thinking they were a member of
a group when really they were just arbitrarily assigned to
one of two groups. One was the control group and
one was the experimental group, essentially. But those kids didn't
think in those terms. They thought, I'm team triangle or
I'm team dichromatic.
Speaker 3 (36:56):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I got you.
Speaker 2 (36:57):
All right.
Speaker 3 (36:58):
So then they grouped them like this and then they said,
fill out these forms and we're going to determine how
much each group is going to get paid for the study.
And they had like the forms were side by side
with like a proposal for a dollar amount for each group.
Some of them are equal. Some are not equal. And
what they observed was, I think, fairly interesting is that
(37:22):
even when like like one of the things they observed
was that even when they had a chance for both
groups to make 11 bucks, they would choose to make
10 dollars for themselves if the other group made five. So. Essentially,
they all chose to have a disparity between the groups.
So in other words, to make their group get more
(37:45):
money than the other one, even if there was an
option to get paid equally and it was more money.
Speaker 1 (37:49):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (37:50):
So to their own detriment, they wanted to. But essentially,
the way that they explained it was that the people
choosing that were trying to enhance the status of their group.
They weren't trying to maximize their money. They're trying to
maximize their group status by making twice as much as
another group.
Speaker 3 (38:06):
Yeah, I mean, I think this is fascinating when you
look at it in the terms of like the idea
of like socialism versus capitalism and making sure everyone's taken
care of versus like, screw that guy. I want the
most for myself.
Speaker 2 (38:20):
Right.
Speaker 3 (38:21):
These are teenagers. It's a little distressing.
Speaker 2 (38:23):
For sure. There's another one that we turned up in
the Journal of Neuroscience from 2021, and it used a
brain scan study. This was 34 people. I don't know
how many were involved in the other one you just mentioned,
but these people had their brain scanned. So they were
figuring out what part of their brain they were using
while they were doing this. But the thing that really
(38:44):
has to do with social identity theory is that they
showed people like a video of somebody doing something. This
wasn't it, but say carrying a tray full of beer steins,
full beer steins, right?
Speaker 3 (38:57):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (38:58):
And you were watching somebody give it a shot and
then you tried it yourself, right? And if you saw somebody, say,
like lifting it with both hands and they were successful
or trying to lift it from the bottom and it
fell over, if you thought that person was a member
of a rival out group, in this case, Democrats or Republicans,
(39:20):
you would not learn from their mistake or their successful
way of doing it when you tried it. It's like
you would refuse to learn from the enemy or this
out group. even if it would help you.
Speaker 3 (39:33):
Yeah, that's fascinating to me.
Speaker 2 (39:35):
It is like super fascinating and it really kind of
jibes and makes sense. But a lot of people are like,
there's some real criticisms we can level against this. And
one of them is, okay, you guys are scanning 34
people's brains. You're studying like 16 Boy Scouts, you know,
like the stakes are really low here. If you take
this and apply it into the real world at higher stakes,
(39:59):
like say expressing prejudice or bias against another group publicly,
and then potentially have being ostracized or shamed or whatever
in response, like are people still going to carry out
these behaviors? Like, does it hold up in the real world?
Speaker 3 (40:14):
Yeah, for sure. And also this idea that like, kind
of what you were talking about earlier is sometimes with
these studies, I feel like there's a lack of nuance.
And so this idea that personal, that like the difference
between personal identity and group identity isn't just so cut
and dried as Tosh Bell and Turner think of it
or propose that it is. And there have been other
(40:37):
social psychologists, one in particular named Masaki Yuki, who says that,
or at least he argues that you know what, the
social identity theory has its limits. If the society is
a little more collectivist, like in East Asia was his example.
And I think that makes sense because, you know, again,
(40:57):
if you're taking these like small groups of like 60
teenagers or these Boy Scouts, it's hard to extrapolate that
to like, and this is true.
Speaker 2 (41:05):
All over the world. It is.
Speaker 1 (41:06):
It is.
Speaker 2 (41:07):
And I saw someone say like it is universal people
discriminating against outgroups in favor of their in-groups. And you
can make a case like there's a lot of rivalries
between Japanese baseball teams in Japan. Oh, sure. You know,
there's rivalries between China and Japan and South Korea and Japan. Yeah.
Like it does exist in one form or another. I
(41:29):
think that's probably what Tajfell and Turner would point to
if they were both still alive. They could be pointing
from their graves right now. We wouldn't know, though.
Speaker 3 (41:37):
That's right. So back to the study with the kids
choosing to pay the other groups less. Again, very distressed
about that. They thought like, hey, we nailed that study, everybody,
because that really bolsters this idea that bias can occur
in the absence of conflict. Like there was no reason
(41:59):
for these groups to like not want the other group
to have as much money. Yet they still did. And
this idea of the desire for positive social identity. can
lead to bias because the students chose those financial options
that made them different from the other group, even, even
to their own detriment.
Speaker 2 (42:19):
Yeah. And just to restate again, these kids had nothing
in common. They weren't even in the groups that they
thought they were in. And yet that immediate sense of
group membership made them discriminate against people who they thought
were in other groups.
Speaker 3 (42:34):
Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 2 (42:35):
Yeah. So, um, I think Taj fell and Turner would
be like, Hey, we're still pointing. Let's talk about some
of this, this stuff in, in real world. Like you
want some real world proof. How about some anecdotal proof? Everybody. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (42:50):
And one great example, they came up with, uh, where
a group particular group used social creativity to achieve like
a positive distinctiveness that they were talking about, which can
be attained was the black is beautiful movement in the
1960s when black Americans were like, you know what, we're
sort of tired of hearing about how this idea of
beauty is so Eurocentric and, you know, blonde hair and
(43:12):
blue eyes is all that. Like, no, no, black is beautiful.
Our skin color is beautiful. Our hair and our culture
is all beautiful. And just the black aesthetic was like
fully embraced and touted as a movement. And that did a,
I think that was a huge like cultural change in
the 1960s.
Speaker 2 (43:31):
Yeah. And that was a great example of social creativity, right?
Speaker 3 (43:34):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (43:35):
And then another example of social creativity is poor white racism,
where a group, in this case, poor white Americans... choose
to discriminate against poor black Americans because they are capable
of feeling superior of the other group rather than comparing
themselves to wealthy white Americans. And then kind of fast
(44:01):
forwarding to today, there's also a lot. I mean, it's
still very much going on. Like in the United States,
the more you identify with not just your political party,
but like what your political party stands for, The more
you take that on yourself as part of your identity,
the more likely you are to view the opposing party
(44:23):
as bad people, as dumb, as not having any idea
what you're supposed to do with the country, that kind
of stuff.
Speaker 3 (44:31):
Yeah, for sure. There are people that argue that in
order to radicalize somebody into maybe an extremist group, it
really helps when you appeal to them. with a real
distinctive identity for the in-group that they're trying to get
you in. Yes.
Speaker 2 (44:49):
Another one is that products, like domestic versus foreign-made products.
Speaker 3 (44:55):
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (44:56):
That in-group, out-group predicts that, your sense of ethnocentrism or nationalism. Sure.
And then musical preference. There was a study done by
a guy named Daniel Shepard who found that the more
strongly you identify with your musical preference, the more likely
you were to say, say other musical preferences suck. And, um,
(45:18):
that reminded me of disco demolition night from 1979. You
remember that?
Speaker 3 (45:22):
Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 2 (45:23):
Where all those rockers like rioted because they hated disco
so much.
Speaker 3 (45:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (45:29):
Um, and I guess that's about it. Like, yeah, duh,
definitely sums it up. But to me, it was like
the nuts and bolts of the whole thing that were so, uh,
interesting that in your, all of your awesome examples.
Speaker 3 (45:41):
Well, I really enjoyed that study of the kids choosing
to pay the other kids less. I thought that was fascinating.
And I think a lot of this stuff is fairly
fascinating at the end of the day. Good. I think
it won me over a bit.
Speaker 2 (45:54):
Good. I'm glad. Well, since Chuck's been won over, you
know everybody. That automatically triggers listener mail.
Speaker 3 (46:05):
I'm going to do the shorter one around this one. So, hey, guys.
In the Judy Blume episode, you guys were talking about
we must, we must, we must increase our bust. That
actually wasn't invented by Blume. She's the same generation as
my mother, and they did that in junior high school.
The rest of the rhyme, according to my mom, goes,
the bigger the better, the tighter the sweater, the boys
(46:27):
are counting on us. Judy Blume and Beverly Cleary shaped
generations of young mind guys. That is from Margo in
New York City, and we had a few different people
write in and tell us that, and I I tried
to find online like the origination of that and almost
everything says Judy Blume until you dig into Reddit and
then somebody has a pretty exhaustive list of like, you know,
(46:49):
in the 1950s it was used in this thing and
it was used in this thing. But I don't think
anyone ever nailed like the first person to say it.
Speaker 2 (46:55):
Good old Reddit.
Speaker 3 (46:57):
Good old Reddit.
Speaker 2 (46:58):
That was from Margo?
Speaker 3 (47:00):
That was Margo in New York City.
Speaker 2 (47:01):
Awesome. Thanks a lot, Margo. That was wonderful. And if
you want to be like Margo and make us laugh
and delight us, you can send us an email too.
Send it off to stuffpodcast at iheartradio.com.
Speaker 1 (47:16):
Stuff You Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For
more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's Chuck,
and Jerry's here, too. And we're just a super cool
in-group looking down on your out-group here on Stuff You
Should Know.
Speaker 3 (00:22):
That's right. Did you hear that thunder? Can you hear that?
Speaker 2 (00:25):
No. It was a little too delicate, the sound was.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (00:31):
Yeah, it just started raining and it's thundering pretty good.
So maybe people can hear that. It might add a
little mood.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
That's nice. Because, yeah, I think we could use a
little mood on this one. This is a very rigid
look at what I think is a very interesting social
psychology theory.
Speaker 3 (00:49):
Oh, yeah?
Speaker 2 (00:50):
Yeah. Do you not find it very interesting?
Speaker 3 (00:53):
I didn't find this one super interesting. You know, like
a lot of social psychology, this one I filed under, like, yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (01:01):
I guess you're, you know, you're observing something that happens.
That's about where it ended for me.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
I get it. I get it. To me. Yeah. I mean,
I sense what you're talking about. Like there's just something.
I feel like we're talking people out of listening to this.
Speaker 3 (01:17):
Episode right now.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
Okay. Well, we'll just clue everybody in and you can
make up your own mind how you feel about this, guys. Well,
what we're talking about is social identity theory, which you
probably gleaned from the title. And. In a nutshell, social
identity theory basically says that we get a sense of
self and belonging and, well, we help develop our identity
(01:40):
from the groups we belong to. And that is very
different from the idea that we just develop as individuals
through normal developmental psychology. In fact, the guys who came
up with social identity theory basically say it's the group
that's the thing, not the individual. Like, that's where we
really develop Most of our identity is from interacting with
(02:02):
other people. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (02:03):
You know, I think I don't think anyone will be
talked in or out of liking or thinking this is
interesting because I think it'll be whether or not you're
into social psychology generally as a whole or not. I bet.
Speaker 1 (02:17):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (02:18):
Because for a lot of social psychology for me, I'm
like sort of like I was saying, I was like,
a lot of this stuff to me is like, well, yeah, duh.
But like, what's the point? Sure. Sure.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
Well, here's the point. This is the point as far
as I can tell. The part I just said is
definitely duh.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (02:36):
But the reason they came up with social identity theory
is to explain stuff that heretofore, and still some people
are like, I don't know about social identity theory, although
it's the dominant framework for explaining this stuff. Yeah. Explaining
things that are tough to explain. Like, why do normal
people become fascists, get swept up in fascist movements? Yeah.
(02:59):
Why do sports fans get in fights with sports fans
from rival teams?
Speaker 3 (03:05):
Alcohol.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
Like, these things, sure. I mean, yeah, you can't really
deny that. Yeah. But they're, like, they don't quite make
sense when you step back and look at things. And
so social identity theory says, All of this can be
explained with this theory. And I think that's where it
gets interesting for me, especially the idea that this is
(03:26):
so ingrained in our evolutionary history that we basically can't
do anything about it. Like even being aware of this
can only help to such a degree. Like you're still
innately attracted to being a member of a group.
Speaker 3 (03:41):
Yeah, I think that's my deal. And I promise I'm
not going to say, duh, like a hundred times. Because
I do think some of the social psychology stuff is
fairly interesting. I'm just more of a person who's like,
sort of a what, like, where does that get us
in the end? You know what I mean?
Speaker 2 (03:58):
Yes, I totally get that. We should also give our caveat,
because we make fun of social psychology and the studies
involved so frequently, it would be It would be pretty
rich to just be like, yeah, this is super cool
and proven. A lot of the studies, just like any
other social psychology field or sub-discipline, is there are like
(04:23):
30 people who are grad students or undergrad students that
were getting extra credit. That's what the study found or
that's what the study used. And then whatever they found,
that's now just universally applied to everybody. Yeah. in a
lot of cases it's, that's just not correct, but this
one is so, like you said, duh, that it seems like, yes,
(04:46):
this is very true.
Speaker 3 (04:48):
Yeah, for sure. Uh, and I guess we should start with, um, uh,
conflict intergroup conflict, uh, which is not intra group conflict.
So in this case, we're talking about conflict between, uh,
two different groups. Um, It's sort of like if you
just think of like us versus them for a lot
of this, you're along the right track. And in this case, it's,
(05:11):
you know, if you develop an intergroup conflict, it's developing
some sort of prejudice or bias maybe against another group. Like,
let's say you're the in-group. Everyone thinks you're the in-group,
but an in-group versus an out-group. And for a long
time before these two, Henri Tajfel and John Turner came
along in the 70s, There were people, other social psychologists
(05:35):
explaining it and in a different way and mainly in
a couple of different ways, starting with 1950 with Theodore
Adorno and his publishing, along with his colleagues of the
authoritarian personality and trying to trying to sort of describe like, hey,
what's the deal with Nazis and like the aftermath of
(05:56):
Nazis and like what kind of person is going to
get swept up in that kind of thing?
Speaker 2 (06:01):
Right. So Adorno basically said that it's the people who
are getting swept up that are essentially causing the sweeping
in the first place. That if you put a bunch
of what he called authoritarian personalities who aren't, that doesn't
describe somebody who aspires to become an authoritarian leader. Those
are people who feel most secure when submitting to an
(06:25):
authoritarian leader. So you put a bunch of those people together,
say in a Nazi party, um, that fascism is just
going to take off, um, and attract more like-minded people.
It makes sense, but it's, I don't think anybody was like,
that's it. That explains fascism.
Speaker 3 (06:43):
Yeah, for sure. Uh, and so the other one that
I mentioned, um, you know, before the other two guys
in the seventies that we're going to get to was, uh,
in the 1960s, there was a social psychologist named, uh,
Muzaffer Sharif, who, um, He again, these little like small experiments.
This is at a Boy Scout camp. He'd separated two
groups at Boy Scouts at camp. And he said, all right,
(07:07):
you know, you're just in two groups. Get to know
one another. Get to know each other. And everything was
going pretty good. And nothing was unusual until all of
a sudden he introduced the idea of competition for prizes. Yeah.
And that's when it became Lord of the Flies.
Speaker 2 (07:24):
Yeah, for sure. He was like, one group gets blue ribbons,
the other gets participant ribbons. And it was on from
that point, you know? So he came up with something
called realistic group conflict theory, because once the prizes were introduced,
there was all sorts of conflict that came out of it, right? Now,
all of a sudden, group A was discriminating against group B,
(07:46):
and maybe they would get into like little fights or
something like that stuff that was completely outside of the competition.
And He basically said, OK, that stands in for resources.
Like if you switched out, you know, first prize with
access to dwindling water, now you have a true general
(08:07):
universal explanation for why groups get in conflict. It's over
material scarcity.
Speaker 3 (08:13):
I'm not going to say duh. I promise.
Speaker 2 (08:16):
But even that one, realistic group conflict theory, people are like, yeah,
that sounds kind of good, but. Still, it just doesn't
smack of like, it doesn't smack of duh, as Chuck
will eventually put it. And that's when Tajfell and Turner
came around.
Speaker 3 (08:31):
Yeah, so Henri Tajfell, he was the first part of
this twosome. He was a social psychologist at the University
of Bristol. He was born to a Jewish family in
Poland and immigrated to France in the 1930s and lost
most of his family to the Holocaust and World War II.
And so he changed over from chemistry to, to social psychology,
(08:56):
I guess the inference there is in maybe some bid
to try and understand what the heck happened.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
Yeah, which was, I mean, he wasn't the only one. Like,
that's where Adorno and Sharif were. Like, Nazi Germany just
came out of nowhere.
Speaker 3 (09:10):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (09:11):
And then, yeah, the idea that his family had perished
at the hands of the Nazis, I could see that's
what the reason was.
Speaker 3 (09:19):
Yeah. So he hooked up with John Turner and, They
met at University of Bristol. He was a PhD student.
And as an undergrad, as far as his interest in
this kind of thing, he dropped out of college a
few times, ended up working just sort of, you know,
regular old blue collar jobs. And through those jobs, had
dealings with unions and things. And I guess just became
(09:39):
kind of fascinated about the social dynamic and group dynamics
within a union. So when he met Tajvel, I guess
love was in the air and they said, hey, let's
get together and work on this stuff together.
Speaker 1 (09:51):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (09:51):
And ended up writing sort of the watershed paper or
the initial one, at least on this from them. An
integrative theory of integration. conflict, which is like basically their
statement to the world of like, here's what we think
about all this.
Speaker 2 (10:07):
Yeah. This is where social identity theory came from. This
is the paper it was proposed in. And Should we
take a break now or dive into the nuts and bolts?
Speaker 3 (10:18):
No, no, no. I think it's a good break time.
Speaker 2 (10:20):
Okay, everybody. You're going to have to wait for the
nuts and bolts after these messages.
Speaker 3 (10:36):
Word up, Jerry. All right, Chuck.
Speaker 1 (10:36):
So where we left off, we're about to dive into
this seminal paper from 1979 by Tosh, Fell, and Turner,
an integrative theory of intergroup conflict. And it sounds dry
and boring, but it basically changed.
Speaker 2 (10:46):
How psychology, but also people outside of academia see the world,
(11:10):
you know? I wonder if one of the reasons why
it seems so duh is because this paper was persuasive
and became pervasive that now that we're living today in 2026,
it just seems of course to us, but at the
time it didn't necessarily. I wonder about that. You were
(11:30):
eight years old. Do you remember if people were walking
around already thinking this was duh?
Speaker 3 (11:35):
I didn't know it ate. By the way, that's the
most Snoop Dogg way you've ever described something in your life.
Speaker 2 (11:41):
What did I say?
Speaker 3 (11:42):
Pervasive and persuasive.
Speaker 2 (11:45):
Or shizzle.
Speaker 3 (11:48):
Yeah, I don't remember that, of course. But in that paper,
they proposed a few different basically processes that they think
explain how people form into groups and group behavior. And
then get into conflict with others and have prejudice against others.
And they started that with social categorization, which is basically
(12:10):
you have to form into a group to begin with
if you're going to have conflict with another group or
compare yourself to another group.
Speaker 2 (12:18):
Yeah. And then so within categorization, so what Tashfel and
Turner seem to have done is they took some other
existing ideas in social psychology that hadn't necessarily been applied
to groups or whatever and put them together to kind
of form social identity theory and apply it to groups.
(12:39):
But categorization had already been around. There's something that had
been identified as the category accentuation effect. And it is
basically like once we start identifying ourselves as members of
groups and other people as members of other groups, in
groups and out groups, we get busy categorizing. And when
(13:02):
we get busy categorizing, what we're doing is using a
very ancient technique. process, which is heuristics, right? Like our
brain loves to take shortcuts. So it's, it does away
with all the nuance and details and just basically does
this big lumpy thing that's good enough. And when we
categorize people into groups, it goes through that process. So
(13:23):
we start seeing them differently.
Speaker 3 (13:25):
Yeah, for sure. And the reason we've formed groups to
begin with is kind of twofold is one, they think
evolutionary is that We've always wanted to just sort of
classify the world around us by seeking patterns and things.
And then the sort of the obvious thing, which is
that it's a benefit, especially early on when people were evolving,
(13:46):
is to form a group for pulling resources and to
divide up the hunting and gathering and co-parenting and protecting
one another from either predators or other what would end
up being, you know, competitive groups outside your tribe or whatever.
And so for defense purposes, that kind of thing. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (14:05):
And I mean, it's no fun to watch knots landing
by yourself. It's much better with a group.
Speaker 3 (14:10):
That's a very good point.
Speaker 2 (14:11):
So because of the heuristics that our brains just innately
use to kind of take these shortcuts and use less energy,
when we start categorizing people and ourselves, the variability within
our own group, the in-group, starts to go away. So
we start seeing other people say other Falcons fans, right?
(14:35):
It's similar to us, right? Like we're all Falcons fans
and everything else that makes us different just kind of
vanishes because we're Falcons fans. And that's what we identify as.
At the same time, it does the same thing in
the out group, but in a much less positive way.
Those are Steelers fans. They all suck. They're terrible people.
And then the differences between the in group and the
(14:57):
out group is are boosted as well. So all these
things just basically go through this very distorted lens when
we start categorizing people into groups. And that's where trouble
starts to come. And that's just one point of social
identity theory.
Speaker 3 (15:13):
For sure. And by the way, we don't mean that
against Steelers fans, because I have a strong feeling that
Josh has no idea that the very first game of
the season is Falcons versus Steelers this year.
Speaker 2 (15:23):
Of course I knew that. Who doesn't know that?
Speaker 3 (15:27):
No, we don't. If you were, you certainly weren't trying
to say Steelers fans are bad people because you would
have said Eagles fans or Patriots fans probably.
Speaker 2 (15:35):
I think all three. It applies to all three.
Speaker 3 (15:38):
Oh, wow. Okay. Standing by it. I love it.
Speaker 2 (15:41):
You always get so much guff for talking about any
Philadelphia fans.
Speaker 3 (15:47):
Yeah, I know.
Speaker 2 (15:48):
It's funny because people get really mad at you.
Speaker 3 (15:52):
I know. It's because they're bad people.
Speaker 2 (15:54):
That always reminds me of that Onion teacher that said,
my local sports team is better than your local sports team.
Speaker 3 (16:01):
Oh, that's funny. I love fans of all stripes, people
of Philly. No, I'm just kidding around. I love the
city of Philadelphia. I love to visit there. Don't have
the best time when our teams play each other. And
that's not my fault. I'll just leave it at that.
Speaker 2 (16:16):
But look, you just did something that I think is
worth pointing out. You went from being a Falcons fan,
which you remained. which is your in-group and then Phillies
or Eagles fans are an out-group to you. But then
you kind of rose up, your altitude increased and you
went to like the 10,000 foot level and you included
(16:38):
Eagles fans in the in-group with yourself as just fans
in general.
Speaker 3 (16:43):
Yeah, because if it was up to me, all rivalry
like that would be just very good-natured and fun and like, hey,
let's just go have a good time at the game
and maybe rib each other. So, It's it's when like
people take it seriously and curse in front of children
and throw beers. And that's that's when it gets to
the point where I'm like, well, that's no fun.
Speaker 2 (17:04):
Well, that brings up the the next point or the
next nut or bolt, I guess, depending on your view
of social identity theory, which is social identification. I think
that kind of explains what you just described.
Speaker 3 (17:15):
I think you're right. That's when you start to identify
with with my group, let's say Falcons fans. Uh, and
then that becomes part of my sense of self, but
you know, we're influenced by the values and, you know,
when it comes to sports, maybe it's values and stuff
don't come as into play, but, but the opinions and
(17:37):
values and maybe behaviors of the larger group behavior for sure.
Speaker 2 (17:40):
For sure.
Speaker 3 (17:41):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (17:41):
And I mean, everybody I'm sure has met somebody who's like, wow,
your whole identity is tied up in being a Falcons fan.
Like this is your life, right?
Speaker 3 (17:49):
Well, not me, but yeah.
Speaker 2 (17:51):
No, not you. But there are people out there. I'm
sure you've met them just from being a Falcons fan.
You can't help but rub elbows with people who you're like, wow,
this is really important to you. Like you can tell
that this person identifies throughout life as a Falcons fan,
I think.
Speaker 3 (18:07):
That's true. But, you know, the problem with Falcons fans
is that we're not as like that as much as
a lot of cities.
Speaker 2 (18:12):
Well, that's Atlanta for you. Exactly. No support for anybody.
Speaker 3 (18:17):
Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 2 (18:18):
I do feel like we should at least acknowledge and
give a hat tip. to Anna, who helped us with this.
Every single example she used was the Mets. She's very
clearly a Mets fan. She tried very hard to get
the Mets in there. So go Mets.
Speaker 3 (18:35):
That's pretty funny. And then the final of the third
would be social comparison. And that's when, and we've kind
of been doing this a little bit with our joking
around about sports, is comparing our group or whatever, what
we think is our in-group to the out-groups and other
groups And, you know, it can be a lot of
different things because we've just been doing just that. Like
(18:55):
you said, sometimes it's a favorable opinion. Sometimes it's unfavorable.
Sometimes it's neutral. But like we're incentivized in a way
to make obviously favorable comparisons between our in group and
the out group, because that helps your own self-esteem and
the self-esteem of a group overall and what they called
(19:18):
positive distinctiveness.
Speaker 1 (19:19):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (19:20):
Yeah, like we're different from the out group in the
best possible way. And, you know, best possible way can
mean all sorts of things depending on the context of
the group.
Speaker 3 (19:28):
Which is what I was just doing. Like we don't
curse out in front of kids and throw beers and stuff.
Speaker 2 (19:33):
Exactly. Falcons fans don't do that. That seems to have
kind of adopted a pre-existing theory called social comparison theory
from 1954 by psychologist Leon Fetzinger. Yeah. And Fetzinger was
applied this to individuals basically saying that our self-worth is
(19:53):
very commonly determined by or Generated by comparison to others
it can be you know Comparing ourselves to somebody we
think is above us and then maybe that motivates us
to do better more often than not we compare ourselves
to people who who are, say, below us. I made
scare quotes just now. And that that generates attitudes of, like, superiority, prejudice, bias,
(20:17):
all that stuff. So what Tosh, Phil, and Turner did
was they seemed to have taken social comparison theory and
made it a component of social identity theory and applied
it to groups rather than just individuals.
Speaker 3 (20:30):
Yeah, and, you know, comparison, that can be tricky because
when you're talking about comparing sports fans, it's not that
big of a deal, but... if you're talking about comparing
like a, you know, an ethnic group that you're in
or a social socioeconomic group that you're in.
Speaker 2 (20:47):
Right.
Speaker 3 (20:47):
That's when it gets really kind of sticky and gross.
And that's when or why you hear, I think, famous
sayings like comparison is the thief of joy from Roosevelt
or Twain's comparison is the death of joy, because that's when,
you know, if you're really sitting around comparing yourself to
people of a of like a higher financial class or
(21:09):
something like that, that is truly the death of joy. Um,
because it can consume you, I would imagine. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (21:16):
I mean, that's what makes Instagram in particular. So toxic,
but pretty much all social media is it, it engenders comparison.
Like that's the, that you can't help, but do that.
Speaker 1 (21:26):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (21:27):
You know? So yeah, it's a, it is the death
of joy.
Speaker 3 (21:29):
Uh, here's the thing about a Taj fell and Turner though, is, um, it,
and this is kind of an important point. Like they
don't think that, um, like in the case I was
just talking about with what, like your socioeconomic status, that's
obviously something that has a, like a material basis at
its root, but it doesn't have to have that. And
that's what they posit. And I agree that conflict doesn't
(21:52):
need a material basis. Um, it can be, you know,
there can be a situation like back in the days
of Tuk Tuk where they're very, very limited resources and, um,
incompatible group goals, maybe within a group. And, It doesn't
necessarily have to do with the material thing.
Speaker 2 (22:11):
So I disagree with that. I think that if you
look deep enough or if you expand your definition of
resources widely enough, there always is one. So dominance is
probably a pretty common one. One group wants to dominate
the rest and have say over where the society that
(22:31):
all the groups form goes. That's a big one.
Speaker 3 (22:34):
Good point.
Speaker 2 (22:34):
You could say winning is a resource. Like there's really
only one group that can win unless you're playing soccer
and then everybody wins. So, yeah, if you start to
get more, you know, less tangible and more esoteric or ethereal,
one of those ethereal, I think, then then to me,
there's always some sort of resource at stake.
Speaker 3 (22:56):
OK, so you disagree because there are ideas that prejudice
doesn't require material inequality and you feel like it does.
Speaker 2 (23:03):
Yeah, depending on your definition of material, I think.
Speaker 3 (23:07):
All right. Well, that makes sense. So Taj, Feld, and
Turner were on to something, they felt. And so they
were like, all right, what if we dig down a
little bit deeper? And we started kind of poking, or
not poking holes, but asking questions about groups and a
person's place within a group. And one question they came
up with is like, what if you don't feel good
about the group that you're in?
Speaker 2 (23:27):
Right.
Speaker 3 (23:27):
And that could be a group that you're born into.
It could be an ethnic group that you're born into
or a financial group. strata that you're born into and
they said all right there's a few different strategies that
you can employ if you aren't so happy and the
first one was individual mobility which is this idea of
like let's say it's a high school click and you're
(23:48):
in the dungeons and dragons club yeah and you're starting
to not feel so great about that so what you
think the move to do is is to um To,
you know, to climb to what you perceive as a
higher social status and and become friends with like the
popular kids or the jocks or whatever. And this is
only the key here is this is only a thing
(24:10):
if if that's something that's possible to do. Like you
can't change your race, in other words, but you may
be able to elevate from the D & D group
to the whatever perceived more popular crowd is.
Speaker 2 (24:22):
It depends if that if that high school hierarchy is
so rigid that the jocks are like nerds need not apply,
even former nerds. Then maybe, you know, you're now you're
an outcast from both groups. You're just in the middle
and you're you're up the creek. They make teen movies
about this very thing.
Speaker 3 (24:38):
Oh, I mean, yeah. Every John Hughes movie almost is
sort of has this as a basis.
Speaker 2 (24:43):
Right. And then the lesson that's learned is that that
group that you originally felt superior to or thought were
losers or whatever, that they are the ones that truly
care about you. The jocks don't care about you guys.
Let's let's just face it. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (24:56):
And in the movies, though, it's almost always possible to
make that leap. Or if you don't make that leap
to for someone from that upper group to peel away
from them to recognize you anyway. Yes. You know what
I'm saying?
Speaker 1 (25:08):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (25:09):
What was the one with him? He was like the
hot guy on Grey's Anatomy at first.
Speaker 3 (25:16):
McDreamy.
Speaker 2 (25:17):
Yes.
Speaker 3 (25:18):
Can't buy me love.
Speaker 2 (25:19):
Yes. I don't think it's ever been done better than
that one.
Speaker 3 (25:23):
I love that movie. And we're kind of that one's
a little too far along for Ruby. But we did
have recently watched some kind of wonderful and pretty and pink,
which also have sort of this nice idea. But but yeah,
Can't Buy Me Love really nails it. I love all
three of those movies.
Speaker 2 (25:39):
I like I have forever like it's just in my
head that scene where he goes to the Italian pizza
guy who's like this kind of like Don Juan. And
he's like, what have you done before? Like if your
girlfriend's husband found out about you, he's like, I take
a knife and I stab him a bunch of times.
He don't bother me no more.
Speaker 3 (26:01):
Oh, the 80s movies.
Speaker 2 (26:06):
Yeah, they're great. All right.
Speaker 3 (26:08):
So individual mobility is one. Social creativity is the next one.
If you don't feel great about how your group as
a whole is perceived, you can maybe just start sort
of changing the language about how you're comparing your group
to other people. So the first subgroup of that is
comparing your in-group to the out-group in a different way.
(26:29):
So like, you know, the D & D group, like
we may not be as cool of the jocks, but
like we're a lot smarter than them.
Speaker 2 (26:37):
Precisely. That's an excellent example.
Speaker 3 (26:39):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (26:40):
Another one is you can basically change what attributes are
focused on about your group. Right. So I guess going
to the D & D one, say, I don't know,
I can't figure out how to use that one. You
got something for that?
Speaker 3 (26:57):
Well, it's sort of about changing how others perceive your group.
So maybe the D & D group may not be
looked at as cool, but we have the best homemade shirts.
Speaker 2 (27:12):
I guess so. That seems similar to the first one.
Speaker 3 (27:15):
It sort of does a little bit. but it's in,
it's in how, like, I think in the, in the
first one, it's like how they perceive themselves. Like we're,
we're smarter than they are and they'll just never know it.
And the other one is, is we've got like these
cool uniforms that we wear and everyone thinks they're awesome.
Speaker 2 (27:31):
Gotcha. Great, great example. I'll bet D and D uniforms
are awesome.
Speaker 3 (27:35):
Well, I was thinking of the, in stranger things, the
hellfire club and the cool t-shirts.
Speaker 2 (27:40):
Oh, okay. I only saw the first season. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (27:43):
You know, I liked it all, but it, it, it,
First season was great.
Speaker 2 (27:47):
Have you seen The Devil in Silver? It's the third
installation of the Terror series.
Speaker 3 (27:52):
I don't know about any of those things.
Speaker 2 (27:55):
Oh, well, just start watching The Terror.
Speaker 3 (27:58):
Well, yeah, you've told us about that. I remember that now.
Speaker 2 (28:00):
Skip over season two and then just go to season three.
It was pretty good.
Speaker 3 (28:03):
Okay. Wasn't season one like sailboats and frigates and stuff?
Speaker 2 (28:08):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (28:09):
Pirates or something?
Speaker 2 (28:10):
It was based on, I can't remember which expedition, but
a lost ship. British Navy expedition in the Arctic. And
it was like based on that, but also had like
all sorts of fiction. Okay.
Speaker 3 (28:22):
So seasons one and three?
Speaker 2 (28:23):
Yes. Just do not watch season two. All right.
Speaker 3 (28:27):
So the third way you can do that is change
what out group you're comparing yourself with. So the D &
D group would say like, well, we may be D &
D nerds, but have you seen the chess club?
Speaker 2 (28:39):
Right. Wow. You're just on fire today, man.
Speaker 3 (28:43):
And I love chess club. I love chess. I love
D & D. I'm not slagging any of these. If anything,
I'm anti-jock.
Speaker 2 (28:50):
There you go. Got to be anti-somebody, right? That's the
whole in-group, out-group basis.
Speaker 3 (28:55):
Oh, man. I'm just getting myself in trouble with all
our teen listeners.
Speaker 2 (28:59):
One of the things about the social creativity, too, is
all three of those, they don't actually change anything in
the way of the hierarchy. The jocks are still at
the top.
Speaker 3 (29:10):
They rule the school.
Speaker 2 (29:11):
But things have changed. Something has changed, right? Social mobility
is like the group has changed because you've left and
maybe the hierarchy has changed because you joined this higher
group or whatever. But social creativity does not actually change
any part of the larger structure, say, of society.
Speaker 3 (29:31):
Yeah, for sure. So those were the first two. The
last one is very easy. It's social competition. And that's
when you choose to take on the group that you
perceive ahead of you like head on. So that's Revenge
of the Nerds.
Speaker 2 (29:43):
Yes, it is. That or any, like if there was
some greedy developer who's trying to shut something down, that's
the basis of it. Whether it's a ski resort or
a car wash or a hot dog stand. That's it
right there. Taking it on.
Speaker 3 (30:02):
That's right. So one of the things these two guys,
Toshvel and Turner, Toshvel and Turner, wanted to point out
was that like resource or material inequality or scarcity, they
don't always have to lead to social conflict. So sometimes
if you're like a low status individual or something. You
(30:26):
might align with a new group identity or try and
redefine that group in a more positive light, like the
things kind of we were just talking about. Yeah. But
there's no difference in like your access to resources. Like
it might just happen within the group and how you're
perceiving yourself or having others perceive you. It's not like
you went out and got like cooler clothes for the
(30:48):
D & D group to wear.
Speaker 2 (30:49):
Right. That's a much better way of what I was
trying to say. Okay. Chuck, I say we take our
second break now and then come back and talk more
about social identity theory.
Speaker 3 (30:59):
Let's do it.
Speaker 1 (31:11):
So I guess we should compare social identity theory with
the two big ones that we talked about before. Adornos
and what was the other guy? I can't remember.
Speaker 3 (31:17):
That's right.
Speaker 1 (31:17):
Sharif. Oh, you want me to do that?
Speaker 2 (31:42):
Well, the big one between Adorno's authoritarian personality theory and
social identity theory is that Adorno is basically saying it's
a bunch of individuals, messed up issues coming together to
create fascism or to create combative in-group, out-group behavior. It's
(32:02):
these individuals who have problems. And that just is– it's
not the opposite, but it really does not– it's not
compatible with social identity theory because to social identity theory,
people coming together as a group, that group is what
generates just the fact that people are together generates those issues.
(32:22):
There are positives and negatives to the whole thing.
Speaker 3 (32:26):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (32:26):
Like for example, some of the benefits, just a sense
of belonging, which people make a case of that. We
have developed that evolutionarily to keep us in groups and,
That deep sense of well-being that we get from feeling
like we belong.
Speaker 3 (32:41):
Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 2 (32:42):
That's a huge, huge benefit of being in a group.
A sense of purpose. You know, groups typically have missions.
I know that you Falcons fans like to go on
weekend retreats at camps very often in the off season
to talk about the Falcons and their prospects for the
next season.
Speaker 3 (32:58):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (32:59):
That's a purpose.
Speaker 3 (33:00):
Yeah, totally.
Speaker 2 (33:01):
And then self-worth, just having a sense of self-esteem from
belonging to a group like the Falcons fans. Right. You
can't buy that kind of self-esteem that the Falcons give you.
Speaker 3 (33:16):
Boy, it's so funny that we're using the Falcons because
I don't know if there's a collective group of humans
on planet Earth that feels worse about themselves. That's funny.
The other one was the realistic group conflict theory. So
social identity theory is probably a little closer to that
one than Adorno's authoritarian personality theory or trait theory, because
(33:42):
it frames prejudice as a byproduct of an intergroup conflict.
I think maybe one of the differences is that RCT,
realistic group conflict theory, sort of frames it as like
the resource scarcity that we're talking about. And Tajfell, again,
and Turner, they say that scarcity doesn't necessarily have to
(34:04):
be a part of that or a precursor, at least
to that.
Speaker 2 (34:06):
Yeah. And like, there's a lot of different nuances that
are different between the two. I think social identity theory
like really spreads out much further. But that's the main
difference between them.
Speaker 3 (34:17):
Yeah, agreed.
Speaker 2 (34:18):
So there's a lot of people who are like, yeah, duh,
including you, Chuck. But there's also a lot of people
who are like, have you guys proven this? Like we're
talking social psychology here. Are we just, somebody did like
a study once and everybody says, well, now it's proven.
That's maybe. So there's this, this thing that they use
(34:38):
to test social identity theory called the minimal group paradigm.
And originally I thought minimal referred to like the fewest
number of people in a group, which made me think
of the special people club from welcome to the dollhouse.
Speaker 3 (34:52):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (34:53):
With Don Wiener and the kid. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (34:55):
Was it just like two people?
Speaker 2 (34:56):
Yes.
Speaker 3 (34:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (34:58):
But they mean minimal as far as like the minimum
circumstances that the people in the group have in common.
Like what is the least amount of stuff that those
people can have in common and still belong to a
group together that where this behavior will develop? And using
that as a test paradigm, I guess. That actually pans
(35:20):
social identity theory out basically every time.
Speaker 3 (35:23):
Yeah, this is where I thought it got like a
little more interesting for me and that they in 1979,
they got together with another social psychologist named Rupert Brown
for a study called Social Comparison in Group Interest and
in Group Favoritism. Part of it would help is if
they just sexied up these titles for sure. But again,
(35:43):
they wanted to see like what what if we just
sort of arbitrarily grouped individuals together? And then task them
with some questions about something, which we'll see in a minute,
and see what happens. And so in this case, it
was 62 14- and 15-year-old students. And to group them arbitrarily,
they just gave them a series of abstract paintings and said,
(36:04):
pick out which one you like the best, and that'll
be your group or whatever. And they ended up in
four separate groups, the triangle group, the circle group, the
dichromatic group, and the polychromatic group.
Speaker 1 (36:16):
Mm-hmm.
Speaker 3 (36:17):
So here's what I don't understand is that she said, really,
they were just all put in the triangle group. What
does that mean?
Speaker 2 (36:23):
I think that so I didn't get that either. I
went and looked. Essentially, they were arbitrarily put into two
groups that had nothing to do with what the kids
involved thought they were a group member of.
Speaker 1 (36:35):
So.
Speaker 2 (36:36):
That whole triangle, circle, dichromatic, polychromatic. It was just to
fool the kids into thinking they were a member of
a group when really they were just arbitrarily assigned to
one of two groups. One was the control group and
one was the experimental group, essentially. But those kids didn't
think in those terms. They thought, I'm team triangle or
I'm team dichromatic.
Speaker 3 (36:56):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I got you.
Speaker 2 (36:57):
All right.
Speaker 3 (36:58):
So then they grouped them like this and then they said,
fill out these forms and we're going to determine how
much each group is going to get paid for the study.
And they had like the forms were side by side
with like a proposal for a dollar amount for each group.
Some of them are equal. Some are not equal. And
what they observed was, I think, fairly interesting is that
(37:22):
even when like like one of the things they observed
was that even when they had a chance for both
groups to make 11 bucks, they would choose to make
10 dollars for themselves if the other group made five. So. Essentially,
they all chose to have a disparity between the groups.
So in other words, to make their group get more
(37:45):
money than the other one, even if there was an
option to get paid equally and it was more money.
Speaker 1 (37:49):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (37:50):
So to their own detriment, they wanted to. But essentially,
the way that they explained it was that the people
choosing that were trying to enhance the status of their group.
They weren't trying to maximize their money. They're trying to
maximize their group status by making twice as much as
another group.
Speaker 3 (38:06):
Yeah, I mean, I think this is fascinating when you
look at it in the terms of like the idea
of like socialism versus capitalism and making sure everyone's taken
care of versus like, screw that guy. I want the
most for myself.
Speaker 2 (38:20):
Right.
Speaker 3 (38:21):
These are teenagers. It's a little distressing.
Speaker 2 (38:23):
For sure. There's another one that we turned up in
the Journal of Neuroscience from 2021, and it used a
brain scan study. This was 34 people. I don't know
how many were involved in the other one you just mentioned,
but these people had their brain scanned. So they were
figuring out what part of their brain they were using
while they were doing this. But the thing that really
(38:44):
has to do with social identity theory is that they
showed people like a video of somebody doing something. This
wasn't it, but say carrying a tray full of beer steins,
full beer steins, right?
Speaker 3 (38:57):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (38:58):
And you were watching somebody give it a shot and
then you tried it yourself, right? And if you saw somebody, say,
like lifting it with both hands and they were successful
or trying to lift it from the bottom and it
fell over, if you thought that person was a member
of a rival out group, in this case, Democrats or Republicans,
(39:20):
you would not learn from their mistake or their successful
way of doing it when you tried it. It's like
you would refuse to learn from the enemy or this
out group. even if it would help you.
Speaker 3 (39:33):
Yeah, that's fascinating to me.
Speaker 2 (39:35):
It is like super fascinating and it really kind of
jibes and makes sense. But a lot of people are like,
there's some real criticisms we can level against this. And
one of them is, okay, you guys are scanning 34
people's brains. You're studying like 16 Boy Scouts, you know,
like the stakes are really low here. If you take
this and apply it into the real world at higher stakes,
(39:59):
like say expressing prejudice or bias against another group publicly,
and then potentially have being ostracized or shamed or whatever
in response, like are people still going to carry out
these behaviors? Like, does it hold up in the real world?
Speaker 3 (40:14):
Yeah, for sure. And also this idea that like, kind
of what you were talking about earlier is sometimes with
these studies, I feel like there's a lack of nuance.
And so this idea that personal, that like the difference
between personal identity and group identity isn't just so cut
and dried as Tosh Bell and Turner think of it
or propose that it is. And there have been other
(40:37):
social psychologists, one in particular named Masaki Yuki, who says that,
or at least he argues that you know what, the
social identity theory has its limits. If the society is
a little more collectivist, like in East Asia was his example.
And I think that makes sense because, you know, again,
(40:57):
if you're taking these like small groups of like 60
teenagers or these Boy Scouts, it's hard to extrapolate that
to like, and this is true.
Speaker 2 (41:05):
All over the world. It is.
Speaker 1 (41:06):
It is.
Speaker 2 (41:07):
And I saw someone say like it is universal people
discriminating against outgroups in favor of their in-groups. And you
can make a case like there's a lot of rivalries
between Japanese baseball teams in Japan. Oh, sure. You know,
there's rivalries between China and Japan and South Korea and Japan. Yeah.
Like it does exist in one form or another. I
(41:29):
think that's probably what Tajfell and Turner would point to
if they were both still alive. They could be pointing
from their graves right now. We wouldn't know, though.
Speaker 3 (41:37):
That's right. So back to the study with the kids
choosing to pay the other groups less. Again, very distressed
about that. They thought like, hey, we nailed that study, everybody,
because that really bolsters this idea that bias can occur
in the absence of conflict. Like there was no reason
(41:59):
for these groups to like not want the other group
to have as much money. Yet they still did. And
this idea of the desire for positive social identity. can
lead to bias because the students chose those financial options
that made them different from the other group, even, even
to their own detriment.
Speaker 2 (42:19):
Yeah. And just to restate again, these kids had nothing
in common. They weren't even in the groups that they
thought they were in. And yet that immediate sense of
group membership made them discriminate against people who they thought
were in other groups.
Speaker 3 (42:34):
Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 2 (42:35):
Yeah. So, um, I think Taj fell and Turner would
be like, Hey, we're still pointing. Let's talk about some
of this, this stuff in, in real world. Like you
want some real world proof. How about some anecdotal proof? Everybody. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (42:50):
And one great example, they came up with, uh, where
a group particular group used social creativity to achieve like
a positive distinctiveness that they were talking about, which can
be attained was the black is beautiful movement in the
1960s when black Americans were like, you know what, we're
sort of tired of hearing about how this idea of
beauty is so Eurocentric and, you know, blonde hair and
(43:12):
blue eyes is all that. Like, no, no, black is beautiful.
Our skin color is beautiful. Our hair and our culture
is all beautiful. And just the black aesthetic was like
fully embraced and touted as a movement. And that did a,
I think that was a huge like cultural change in
the 1960s.
Speaker 2 (43:31):
Yeah. And that was a great example of social creativity, right?
Speaker 3 (43:34):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (43:35):
And then another example of social creativity is poor white racism,
where a group, in this case, poor white Americans... choose
to discriminate against poor black Americans because they are capable
of feeling superior of the other group rather than comparing
themselves to wealthy white Americans. And then kind of fast
(44:01):
forwarding to today, there's also a lot. I mean, it's
still very much going on. Like in the United States,
the more you identify with not just your political party,
but like what your political party stands for, The more
you take that on yourself as part of your identity,
the more likely you are to view the opposing party
(44:23):
as bad people, as dumb, as not having any idea
what you're supposed to do with the country, that kind
of stuff.
Speaker 3 (44:31):
Yeah, for sure. There are people that argue that in
order to radicalize somebody into maybe an extremist group, it
really helps when you appeal to them. with a real
distinctive identity for the in-group that they're trying to get
you in. Yes.
Speaker 2 (44:49):
Another one is that products, like domestic versus foreign-made products.
Speaker 3 (44:55):
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (44:56):
That in-group, out-group predicts that, your sense of ethnocentrism or nationalism. Sure.
And then musical preference. There was a study done by
a guy named Daniel Shepard who found that the more
strongly you identify with your musical preference, the more likely
you were to say, say other musical preferences suck. And, um,
(45:18):
that reminded me of disco demolition night from 1979. You
remember that?
Speaker 3 (45:22):
Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 2 (45:23):
Where all those rockers like rioted because they hated disco
so much.
Speaker 3 (45:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (45:29):
Um, and I guess that's about it. Like, yeah, duh,
definitely sums it up. But to me, it was like
the nuts and bolts of the whole thing that were so, uh,
interesting that in your, all of your awesome examples.
Speaker 3 (45:41):
Well, I really enjoyed that study of the kids choosing
to pay the other kids less. I thought that was fascinating.
And I think a lot of this stuff is fairly
fascinating at the end of the day. Good. I think
it won me over a bit.
Speaker 2 (45:54):
Good. I'm glad. Well, since Chuck's been won over, you
know everybody. That automatically triggers listener mail.
Speaker 3 (46:05):
I'm going to do the shorter one around this one. So, hey, guys.
In the Judy Blume episode, you guys were talking about
we must, we must, we must increase our bust. That
actually wasn't invented by Blume. She's the same generation as
my mother, and they did that in junior high school.
The rest of the rhyme, according to my mom, goes,
the bigger the better, the tighter the sweater, the boys
(46:27):
are counting on us. Judy Blume and Beverly Cleary shaped
generations of young mind guys. That is from Margo in
New York City, and we had a few different people
write in and tell us that, and I I tried
to find online like the origination of that and almost
everything says Judy Blume until you dig into Reddit and
then somebody has a pretty exhaustive list of like, you know,
(46:49):
in the 1950s it was used in this thing and
it was used in this thing. But I don't think
anyone ever nailed like the first person to say it.
Speaker 2 (46:55):
Good old Reddit.
Speaker 3 (46:57):
Good old Reddit.
Speaker 2 (46:58):
That was from Margo?
Speaker 3 (47:00):
That was Margo in New York City.
Speaker 2 (47:01):
Awesome. Thanks a lot, Margo. That was wonderful. And if
you want to be like Margo and make us laugh
and delight us, you can send us an email too.
Send it off to stuffpodcast at iheartradio.com.
Speaker 1 (47:16):
Stuff You Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For
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