Social Identity

  • It is that aspect of our self-concept which is based on our group membership.
  • Social identity places us, i.e. tells us what and where we are in the larger social context, and thus helps us to locate ourselves in society.
  • Social identity provides members with a shared set of values, beliefs and goals about themselves and about their social world, which helps to coordinate and regulate their attitudes and behaviour.
  • When we develop a strong identity with our own group, the categorisation as ingroup and outgroup becomes salient. The group with which we identify ourselves becomes the ingroup and others become the outgroup.

The negative aspect of this own group and outgroup categorisation is that we start showing favouritism towards our ingroup by rating it more favourably in comparison to the outgroup, and begin devaluating the outgroup. This devaluation of the outgroup is the basis of a number of intergroup conflicts