Social Identity Theory: Your Group Rules, Others Drool

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And we're just a super cool in-group looking down on your out-group and stuff you shouldn't. That's right. Did you get that thunder? Can you hear that? No.

There's a little too delicate, the sound was. Yeah, it just started raining and it's thundering pretty good, so maybe people can hear that and might add a little mood. 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. Yeah. Yeah, do you not find it very interesting? I didn't find this one super interesting, you know, like a lot of social psychology. This one I filed under, like, yeah, I guess you're, you know, you're observing something

that happens. That's about where it ended for me. 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 episode right now.

Okay. Well, we'll just clear 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 nutshell, social identity theory basically says that we get

a sense of self-belonging and, well, we help develop our identity 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 other people. Yeah.

“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. Yeah. 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. Well, here's the point. I mean, this is, this is the point as far as I can tell.

The part I just said is definitely duh, but the reason they came up with social identity theory is to explain stuff that here to for 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. Why do sports fans get in fights with sports fans from rival teams? Alcohol.

Like these things? Sure. Yeah. 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 so

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. Yeah. I think that's my deal. And I promise I'm not going to say like a hundred times, because I do think some of this 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? 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 pretty rich to just be like, yeah, this is super cool and proven a lot of the studies. It's like any other social psychology field or subdivist discipline is they're like 30 people who are grad students or undergrad students that we're 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. And in a lot of cases, that's just not correct, but this one is so like you said, duh, but it seems like, yes, this is very true. Yeah, for sure.

And I guess we should start with conflict, intergroup conflict, which is not intra group conflict. So in this case, we're talking about conflict between two different groups. 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, you know, if you develop an intergroup

conflict, it's developing some sort of prejudiced or bias, maybe against another group. Like, you know, like, let's say you're the end group, everyone thinks you're the end group, but an end group versus an out group. And for a long time before these two, Henri, Taj Spell, and John Turner came along in the 70s, there were people, other social psychologists explaining it in a different way.

And mainly in a couple of different ways, starting with 1950 with the Adorno and his publishing along with his colleagues of the authoritarian personality in trying to sort of describe, like, hey, what's the deal with Nazis and like the aftermath of Nazis, and like what kind

“of person is going to get swept up in that kind of thing?”

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 authoritarian leader. So you put a bunch of those people together, say, in a Nazi party, that fascism is just going

to take off and attract more like-minded people. It makes sense, but I don't think anybody was like, that explains fascism. Yeah, for sure. And so the other one that I mentioned before, the other two guys in the 70s, that we're going to get to was in the 1960s, it was a social psychologist named Muzafeir Sharif who,

again, these little small experiments, this is at a Boy Scout camp, he separated two groups at Boy Scouts at camp. And he said, all right, you know, you're just in two groups, get to know it, want 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.

And that's when it became Lord of the Flies. 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, and maybe they were getting a little fight or something like that, stuff that was completely outside of the competition.

And he basically said, okay, 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 universal explanation for why groups get in conflict, it's over material scarcity. I'm not going to say duh. A promise.

But even that one, realistic group conflict theory, people are like, yeah, that sounds kind of good. It's still, it just doesn't smack of like, it doesn't smack of duh as Chuck will eventually

And that's when Taj fell in Turner, came around. Yeah. So Henri Taj fell.

He was the first part of this, this too, so him.

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 a family to the Holocaust in World War II, and so he changed over from chemistry to social psychology. I guess the inference there is in maybe some bid to try and understand what the heck

happened. 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. Yeah. And then yeah, the idea that his family had perished at the hands of the Nazis.

“But I could see that's what the reason was.”

Yeah. So he hooked up with John Turner. 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 to sort of, you know, regular old blue collar jobs, and through those jobs had dealings with unions and things. And I guess just became kind of fascinated about the social dynamic and group dynamics within a union. Yeah.

I guess, love was in the air and they said, hey, let's get together and work on this stuff together and ended up writing sort of the watershed paper or the initial one, at least on this from them, an integrative theory of intergroup conflict, which is like basically their

statement to the world of like, here's what we think about all this.

Yeah. This is where social aid didn't be 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? No, no.

I think it's a good break time. Okay, everybody, you're going to have to wait for the nuts and bolts after these messages. Now, the lean, instant oil change presents wisdom from the road, summer means wide open spaces and a whole lot of extra miles. Last place you want your engine to give out is halfway to nowhere. Out here, vote oil or a week batteries just an ambush way to happen.

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Listen to our town on the I-Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Alright, Chuck, so where we left off, we were about to dive into the seminal paper

And it sounds dry and boring, but it basically changed how psychology, but also people

outside of academia, see the world, you know? I wonder, if one of the reasons why it seems so dull 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 eight years old, do you remember if people were walking around already think

that this was dull? Uh, I didn't know it eight, by the way, this is the most snoop dog way you've ever described something in your life. But what, what, what is it? Pervasive and persuasive, which is all.

“Uh, 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 in conflict with others and have prejudice against others and they started that with social categorization which is basically 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.

Yeah. And then so within categorization, so what Taj Fell and Turner seem to have done is they took some other existing ideas and 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.

But categorization had already been around. There's something that had been identified as the category accentuation affect. 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 start, we go, we get busy categorizing and when we get busy categorizing, what we're doing is using a very ancient

process which is heuristics, right? Like, our brain loves to take shortcuts, so 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 we start seeing them differently.

Yeah. And the reason we form groups to begin with is kind of too fold as 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, is to form a group for pulling resources and to divide up the hunting and gathering and co-parenting and protecting one another for me. Either predators or other what would end up being competitive groups outside your tribe or whatever and so for defense purposes, that kind of thing.

Yeah. And I mean, it's no fun to watch, not slanting by yourself, it's much better with a group. That's very good point. 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? 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 their terrible people and then the differences between the in group and the out group are boosted as well. So all these things is 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. 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.

Of course I knew that, who doesn't know that? No, we don't, if you were, you were certainly weren't trying to say Steelers fans or bad people because you would have said Eagles fans or Patriots fans probably.

“Um, I think all three, it applies all three.”

Oh wow, okay, standing by, I love it.

You always get so much guff for talking about any Philadelphia fans.

Yeah, I know. It's funny because people get really mad at you and they know, because they're bad people. Then always reminds me of that onion teacher that said my local sports team is better

Oh, that's funny. Yeah.

I love fans of all stripes, people of Philly know 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 say, I'll just leave it at that.

“But look what, you just did something that I think is worth pointing out, right?”

You went from being a Falcons fan, would you remain? Which is your in group and then Philly's, if 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 Eagles fans in the in group with yourself as just fans in general. Yeah, because if it was up to me, I'll rivalry like that would be just very good nature

and fun and like, hey, let's just go have a good time at the game and maybe ribby each other. So it's when like people take it seriously and curse in front of children and throw beers and that's when it gets to the point where I'm like, well, that's no fun. Well, that brings up 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. I think you're right. That's when you start to identify with, with my group, let's say Falcons fans. 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 the opinions and values and maybe behaviors of the larger group, behavior for sure. For sure. Yeah, 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?”

Well, not me, but yeah, 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. 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. Well, that's, that's Atlanta for you.

Exactly. For anybody. Yeah, for sure. I do feel like we should at least acknowledge and give a hat tip to Anna who helped us with this.

Yeah, every single example she used was the Matt, Matt she was very clearly a Matt's fan. She tried very hard to get the Matt in there, so yeah, go Matt. 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, you know, 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 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, can favorable comparisons between our in group and the out group, because that helps your own self-esteem in the self-esteem of a group overall, and what they called positive, distinctiveness. Yeah, like we're different from the out group, but in the best possible way, and you know, best possible way, communal sorts of things, depending on the context of the group,

which is what I was just doing, like we curse out in front of kids and throw beers and stuff. Exactly. Faulkens 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, and Fetzinger was applying this to individuals

basically saying that our self-worth is 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 are, say, below us, I made scare quotes just now, and that that generates attitudes of like superiority, prejudice, bias,

all that stuff. So what Taj Fell and Turner did was they seemed to take in social comparison theory and made it a component of social identity theory and apply it to groups rather than just individuals. 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

“an ethnic group that you're in or a social socioeconomic group that you're in, right?”

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

is truly the death of joy, because it can consume you. I would imagine. Yeah, I mean, that's what makes sense to Graham, in particular, so toxic, but pretty much all social media is it engenders comparison, like that's the, that you can't help but do that. Yeah.

You know, so, yeah, it's a, it is the death of joy.

“Here's the thing about Taj Fell and Turner, though, is, and this is kind of an important”

point, like they don't think that, 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 that it's root, but it doesn't have to have that, and that's what they posit not agree, that conflict doesn't need a material basis. It can be, you know, there can be a situation like back in the days of took took, where

there are very, very limited resources and, in compatible group goals, maybe, within a group and, like, it doesn't necessarily have to do with a material thing. So I disagree with that. I, I think that if you look deep enough or if you expand your

definition of resources widely enough, yeah, maybe, there always is one.

So dominance is, is probably a pretty common one. One group wants to dominate the rest and have, say, over what, you know, where the society that all the groups form goes, that's a big one, you could say, winning is a resource, like there's really only one group that can win, let's just say soccer and then everybody wins. So yeah, if you could 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. Okay, so you disagree, and because there are ideas that prejudice doesn't require material inequality and you feel like it does. Yeah, depending on your definition of material, I think. All right, well, that makes sense.

So Todd's 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 in 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?

Right. 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 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 in the Dungeons and Dragons Club, and you're starting to not feel so great about that. So what you think the move to do is to climb to what you perceive as a higher social status 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 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. 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 up the creek.

They make teen movies about this very thing. Oh, I mean, yeah, every John Hughes movie almost is sort of has this at the best basis. 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 jacks don't care about you guys, let's just face it. Yeah.

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? Yep.

“What was the one with um, he was like the hot guy on Grey's Anatomy at first?”

Mick Dreamy. Yes. I don't think it's ever been done better than that one. 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 in pink, which also have sort of this idea. But yeah, can't buy me love really nails it. I loved all three of those movies. 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, um, uh, Don Juan.

And he's like, what do you, what, what have you done before, like if your, you know, girlfriend husband found out about you, he's like, I take a knife and I stab him a bunch of times. You don't bother me. No more. Oh, the 80s movies.

They're great. All right.

“So individual mobility is one, uh, social creativity is the next one.”

If you don't feel about like great about how your group as a whole is perceived, um, you can maybe just start sort of changing the language about how you're comparing your group to other people.

So, uh, the first sub group of that is comparing your in group to the out group in a different

way. 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. Precisely. That's an excellent example.

Yeah. Another one is, um, you can basically change what attributes are focused on about your group. Right. So, um, I guess going to the D&D one, say, uh, I don't know.

I can't figure out how to use that one. You got something for that. Uh, well, it's sort of about how changing how others perceive your group. So, right. Maybe the D&D group may not be looked at as as cool, but like we have the best, like, homemade,

uh, like shirts. I guess so that that seems similar to the first one. It sort of does a little bit.

“But it's in, it's in how, like, I think in the, uh, in the first one, it's like how they”

perceive themselves, like, 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. Gotcha. Great. Great example.

How about D&D uniforms are awesome? Well, I was thinking of the, uh, in Stranger Things, the Hellfire Club and the cool t-shirts. Oh, okay. I only saw the first season. Yeah.

You know, I liked it all, but it, it's, first season was great. Have you seen the devil in silver? It's the third installation of the terror. I don't know about any of those things. Oh, well, just start watching the terror.

Well, yeah. You've told us about that. I remember that now. Skip over season two. And then just go to season three.

It was pretty good. Okay. The season one, like sailboats and frigates and stuff. Yeah. Pirates or something?

It was based on, I can't remember which expedition, but a lost British Navy expedition in the Arctic. Okay. It was like based on that, but also had like all sorts of fiction. Okay.

So seasons one and three. Yes. Just do not watch season two. All right. So the third way you can do that is change what out group you're comparing yourself

with.

“The D&D group is, say, like, well, if we may be D&D nerds, but have you seen the Chess Club?”

Right. Wow. Do you're just on fire today, man? 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. There you go. Got to be anti somebody, right?

That's the whole In group out group basis. Oh, man. I'm just getting myself in trouble to all our teen listeners. 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 jokes are still, you know, at the top of the school. But things have changed. There's something has changed, right? Social mobility is like the group has changed because you've left and maybe the hierarchy has changed because you're joining this higher group or whatever, but social creativity

does not actually change any part of the larger structure, say, of society. Yeah. 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 in the nerds. 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 that's staying, that's it right there, taking it on. That's right. So one of the things these two guys, Toshvils and Turner, Toshvils, Toshvils 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, and you might align with a new group identity or try and redefine that group in a more positive light, like the things we're talking about. Yeah. But there's no difference in 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 D&D group to wear. 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. Let's do it. [Music]

That's us.

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I'm on a mission to reclaim the word Solita, trading the pity for possibility. Every time I try to be alone, I kept meaning people and they were like, "You smiled it, that's not a lot of people smile around here." It's when you're alone that you're most receptive to the world as it is and not the lies you're sold about it.

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Change your mind or wake up to a new version of yourself. So whether you're a solo travel veteran or you're too nervous to book your first trip, I hope you listen to Solita. On the I-Hart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Bartown is small taters by most standards, right?

But to the people who grew up here, it's everything. What happens when a quiet Tennessee town becomes the front line in a battle over the future of America? The developers with right wing ties have purchased hundreds of acres of land in the area.

The first thing you see when it pops up is pioneers in Appalachia.

But they weren't just planning houses. We need cities on a shining hill that exemplify and embody the Christian way of life. Stop right there. Is that normal? A podcast about what happens when a small town becomes the site of a social experiment.

God need men to rule! And decides to fight back. To not use my hard work to sell your bullsh*t. They're not just opposing what's being planned for here. Our hometown is not a test too.

They feel like they're standing in opposition to an entire administration.

“Guess you didn't move in on a bunch of dumb hillbillies now, did you?”

Listen to our town on the I-Hart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. We should compare social identity theory with the two big ones that we talked about before. Adorno's and what was the other guy I can't remember. That's right. Should we?

Oh, you want me to do that? Yeah. Well, the big one between Adorno's authoritarian personality theory and social identity theory

is that Adorno's basically saying it's a bunch of individuals messed up issues coming together

to create fascism, or to create, you know, combat of in-group out-group behavior. It's these individuals who have problems, and 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.

There are positives and negatives to the whole thing. Like, for example, some of the benefits, just a sense of belonging, which people make a case that we have developed that evolutionarily to keep us in groups, that deep sense of well-being, that we get from feeling like we belong. Yeah, for sure.

That's a huge, huge benefit of being in a group. A sense of purpose. Yeah. You know, groups typically have missions. I know that you fountains fans like to go on weekend retreats at camps.

Very often in the off-season to talk about the fountains in their prospects for the next season. Yeah. That's a purpose. Yeah. And then self-worth, just having a sense of self-esteem from belonging to a group

like the Falcons fans, that you can't buy that kind of self-esteem that the Falcons give you. 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 has feels worse about themselves. It's funny, the other one was the realistic group conflict theory, so social identity,

identity theory, is probably a little closer to that one than Adorno's authoritarian

intergroup conflict.

“I think maybe one of the differences is that RCT, realistic group conflict theory, sort of”

frames it as the resource scarcity that we're talking about.

Right. And Tajfel, again, in Turner, they say that scarcity isn't necessarily have to be a part of that or a precursor, at least to that. Yeah. And there's a lot of different nuances that are different between the two.

I think social identity theory really spreads out much further. But that's the main difference between them. Yeah. I agree. 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. We just, somebody did like a study once, and everybody says, well, now it's proven. That's, maybe. So there's this thing that they used to test social identity theory called the minimal

group paradigm. And originally, I thought minimal referred to like the fewest number of people. I think group. Which would be think of the special people club from welcome to the dollhouse. Oh, yeah, with Dawn Weeter and the kid.

Yeah, was it just like two people? Yes. Yeah. But they mean minimal as far as the minimum circumstances that the people in the group have in common.

Like, what, what does 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.

And I actually paned social identity theory out basically every time.

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 that they just sexy it up these titles for sure. But again, they, they wanted to see like, what, what if we just sort of arbitrarily

grouped individuals together and then test 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,

pick out which one you like the best and that'll be your group or whatever. And that they ended up in four separate groups, the triangle group, the circle group, the dichromatic group and the polychromatic group.

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?

“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. So that whole triangle circle, dichromatic polychromatic, it was just a fool. Oh, yeah, I'm 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. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I got you.

All right. So then they grouped them like this and then they said, fill out these forums 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 even when like one of the things they observed that was that even when they had a chance for both groups to make 11 bucks, they would choose to make $10 for themselves at the other group made five. So essentially, they wanted, they all chose to have a disparity between the group.

So in other words, to make their group like get more money than the other one. Even if there was an option to get paid equally, and it was more money. Yeah. So actually their own detriment, they wanted to, but essentially the way that they explained it was that those, the people choosing that were trying to enhance the status

of their group. They were trying to maximize their money, they're trying to maximize their group status by making twice as much as another group. 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 taking care of versus like screw that guy, I want the most for my health. Right. These are teenagers. It's a little distressing.

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

while they were doing this.

But the thing that really 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 stines, full beer stines, right?”

And you were watching somebody give it a shot, and then you try it yourself. 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, 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. Yeah, that's fascinating to me. It is.

It's like super fascinating, and it really kind of jobs 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 pick this and apply it into the real world at higher stakes, like say, expressing prejudice or bias against another group publicly, and then potentially have being ostracized

or ashamed or whatever in response, like, are people still going to carry out these behaviors, like does it hold up in the real world? Yeah, for sure. And also this idea that, like, I kind of what you were talking about earlier is sometimes with these studies that feel like there's a lack of nuance.

And so this idea that personal, the difference between personal identity and group identity isn't just so cut and dried as Taj Spell and Turner, think of it or propose that it is. Right.

And there have been other social psychologists, one in particular, in a 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, 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 all over the world. It is, it is, and I saw someone say, like, it is universal, people discriminating against out groups in favor of their in-group, 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 Korea, South Korea and Japan. Yeah. Like, it does exist in one form or another. I think that's probably what Taj Spell and Turner would point to if they were both still

alive. Yeah. It could be pointing from their graves right now. We wouldn't know, though. That's right.

So back to the study with the kids choosing to pay the other groups less, again, very distressed about that. I 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 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 to their own detriment. 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. Yeah.

“So, I think Taj Fell and Turner would be, like, hey, we're still pointing.”

Let's talk about some of this stuff in real world. Like, you want some real world proof? How about some anecdotal proof, everybody? Yeah. And one great example that came up with, where a group, a particular group used social creativity

to achieve, like, a positive, distinctiveness that they were talking about, which can be attained was the black as 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 you're a centric. And, you know, blonde hair and blue eyes, it's 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, a, that was a huge, like, cultural change in the 1960s. Yeah.

And that was a great example of social creativity, right? Yeah. And then another example of social creativity is poor white racism, where a group, in this

they are capable of feeling superior to the other group, rather than comparing themselves

to wealthy white Americans. Yeah. And then, uh, kind of fast 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 as, like, bad people, as dumb, as not having any idea what you're supposed to do with the country, that kind of stuff. Yeah, for sure. There are people that argue that, uh, in order to, like, radicalize somebody into, uh,

maybe an extremist group, uh, it really helps when you appeal to them, uh, with a real distinctive identity for, for the end group that they're trying to get you in. Yes. Um, another one is that products, like, um, domestic versus, um, foreign, made products. Yeah.

Yeah.

That in group out group predicts that, uh, your sense of, uh, ethno, ethno centricism

or nationalism. Sure. And then musical preference. There was a study done by a guy named Daniel Shepherd, um, 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, that reminded me of disco demolition night from 1939, you remember that?”

Yeah, for sure. Well, those rockers, like, what rioted because they hated disco so much? Yeah. 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 and you're all of your awesome examples. Well, I really did, I really enjoyed that study of the kids, like, choosing to pay the other kids less. So it was fascinating.

And I think, I think a lot of this stuff is fairly fascinating at the end of the day. So I think you, I think it won't be over a bit. Good. I'm glad. Well, since Chuck's been one over, you know everybody, that automatically triggers

listening and mail. Uh, I'm going to do the shorter one to round this one. So hey, guys, in the Judy Bloom episode, uh, you guys were talking about, we must, we must increase our bust. That actually wasn't invented by Bloom.

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 are counting on us." Uh, Judy Bloom and Beverly Cleary shaped generations of young mine guys. That is from Margo and New York City and we had a few different people right in and tell

us that. I tried to find online like the origination of that and almost everything says Judy Bloom until you dig into reddit and then somebody has a pretty exhaustive list of like, you know, 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.

Good old reddit. Get old reddit. That was from Margo. That was Margo and New York City. 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 [email protected]. Stuff you should know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts, my heart radio, visit the iHeartRadio app. Apple podcasts are wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

I'm Mungisha, together and I'm back with a new season of my podcast Skyline Drive. This time I talked to scientists, biopunks, commudions, blues owners, super seniors, and go as top cryotherapy lab to try to understand this obsession with living forever. And what it means for all of us. And I get into a bit of trouble along the way.

I'd say probably start bone smashing. That doesn't work. Make it look more defined. They say it works. I don't know.

Listen to Skyline Drive. How to live forever on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

“If you're a bookshelf and you're for you page or equally important to your personality,”

welcome home. Rose Society is a weekly podcast that's part book club, park group chat for anyone who thinks pride and prejudice and love island deserve the same level of discourse. Each week, we're connecting the dots between books, the internet, and pop culture. With your favorite writers, booktop creators and plenty of overthought opinions.

Yes, I'm Mungisha. So, I'm Mungisha. Listen to Pro Society on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Okay, this is Hayes Davenport, and Shawn Clements. We host the podcast Hollywood Handbook.

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