Abstract
Abstract The present study is one of a series exploring the role of social categorization in intergroup behaviour. It has been found in our previous studies that in ‚minimal' situations, in which the subjects were categorized into groups on the basis of visual judgments they had made or of their esthetic preferences, they clearly discriminated against members of an outgroup although this gave them no personal advantage. However, in these previous studies division into groups was still made on the basis of certain criteria of ‚real' similarity between subjects who were assigned to the same category. Therefore, the present study established social categories on an explicitly random basis without any reference to any such real similarity. It was found that, as soon as the notion of ‚group' was introduced into the situation, the subjects still discriminated against those assigned to another random category. This discrimination was considerably more marked than the one based on a division of subjects in terms of interindividual similarities in which the notion of ‚group' was never explicitly introduced. In addition, it was found that fairness was also a determinant of the subjects' decisions. The results are discussed from the point of view of their relevance to a social‐cognitive theory of intergroup behaviour.
Keywords
CategorizationPsychologySimilarity (geometry)Social psychologyOutgroupRelevance (law)Ingroups and outgroupsSocial groupSocial categorySocial cognitionCognitionCognitive psychologyLinguisticsArtificial intelligence
Affiliated Institutions
Related Publications
11C PiB and structural MRI provide complementary information in imaging of Alzheimer's disease and amnestic mild cognitive impairment
To date, most diagnostic imaging comparisons between amyloid labelling ligands and other imaging modalities have been between the use of amyloid labelling ligand (11)C Pittsburg...
The weirdest people in the world?
Abstract Behavioral scientists routinely publish broad claims about human psychology and behavior in the world's top journals based on samples drawn entirely from Western, Educa...
Social dominance orientation: A personality variable predicting social and political attitudes.
Social dominance orientation (SDO), one's degree of preference for inequality among social groups, is introduced. On the basis of social dominance theory, it is shown that (a) m...
Affective factors and learning behaviour in secondary school mathematics and English lessons for average and low attainers
This study had two broad aims; firstly, to investigate the predictive relationships between i) overall subject affective factors (attitude and subjective norm), ii) specific les...
College sophomores in the laboratory: Influences of a narrow data base on social psychology's view of human nature.
For the 2 decades prior to 1960, published research in social psychology was based on a wide variety of subjects and research sites. Content analyses show that since then such r...
Publication Info
- Year
- 1973
- Type
- article
- Volume
- 3
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 27-52
- Citations
- 1236
- Access
- Closed
External Links
Social Impact
Altmetric
PlumX Metrics
Social media, news, blog, policy document mentions
Citation Metrics
1236
OpenAlex
29
Influential
795
CrossRef
Cite This
Michael Billig,
Henri Tajfel
(1973).
Social categorization and similarity in intergroup behaviour.
European Journal of Social Psychology
, 3
(1)
, 27-52.
https://doi.org/10.1002/ejsp.2420030103
Identifiers
- DOI
- 10.1002/ejsp.2420030103