i have assignment and quiz based on readings and short videos

Temple University - Fox School | STHM_0857_-_Social_Identitiy_Theory-SD

AUBREY KENT: Hi. I'm Aubrey Kent and today we're going to be talking about Social Identity Theory. We're

going to talk about what it is, but more particularly how it explains and helps us understand the

phenomenon of American sport.

For the longest time, sports psychologists have been trying to figure out why people

participate in sport. They've looked at everything from health benefits, to the pure

entertainment and fun, to skill development angles. But, likewise, sports sociologists have

looked at the phenomenon know as sport in terms of why do we watch them?

Playing is a little bit easier to figure out than watching. Why do we watch? Well, the same sorts

of ideas have come forward. The idea that it's entertaining and it's fun to watch. It looks good.

These are athletes at the peak of their fitness and skill level and so they're fun to watch.

There's another group of theories that looks at the spectator themselves, in such, suggests

the sport is a great outlet for our natural aggression, our competitiveness, and we can use it

as an outlet either to generate that or to displace it from our everyday lives.

There's a third group of theories that are for me particularly interesting. And these are known

as the Achievement Seeking Theories and they're based in the idea that there's this vicarious

achievement that we can get by watching sports and cheering for teams.

Psychologists would suggest that these help to fulfill a need for belonging and identity. If you

go back to your Psych 101, Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, it talks about the middle of the

pyramid is all about belonging and identity and social motivations.

Social Identity Theory itself is what is thought of as great sociologist, Henry Tajfel, greatest

contribution. It really talks about a person's sense of who they are in terms of how they define

themselves and for membership. So all people when they're born are members of a group or

they have a category. You're male or female, you're a certain nationality, your certain hair

color, you're categorized from birth. But then as we live and grow, we start to choose

categories for ourselves.

These might be religious. These might be what school you go to. But, likewise, a powerful one

might be which sport team you root for. And so these chosen groups can end up being a more

powerful identifier for an individual. They give us this sense of belonging and it helps us to

identify ourselves in terms of the greater world.

What we typically see in Social Identity Theory is this idea that we are going to identify with

things that are positive and reinforcing. So we like to say things, if we're American, we'll say

things like America is the best or for Eagles fans, we'll say the Eagles are the best.

Have you ever caught yourself in this phenomenon when you're rooting for your favorite

team? You'll say, we won after they win? And if they lose, you'll say what? You'll say they lost.

Right? This is a psychological mechanism that we use to associate we with positive outcomes

and disassociate by saying they with negative outcomes.

Studying sports fans, a guy named Cialdini, has coined this BIRGing and CORFing. What that

stands for is basking in reflected glory and cutting off reflected failure. This phenomenon of

saying we won and they lost is something that goes to deeper meaning in terms of Social

Identity Theory in that we're always categorizing ourselves in terms of making ourselves seem

better and reinforcing our choices.

Within this theory we go through three processes. We categorize ourself first. We choose our

categories an identifier that go with it. So for example, you might categorize yourself as a

student and, therefore, you're going to go to the next phase and talk about identifying with

what students do and how students act. And then you're going to compare yourself to what

are known as out groups, non-student groups.

Within sport, the same sorts of things happen. I identify myself as an Eagles fan and so I'm

going to hang out with eagles fans, do things Eagles fans do, and I'm going to compare myself

to others, Cowboys fans, Giants fans, for example, and I'll compare myself more favorably in

that case.

Identity really matters and for people who work in sport they understand this idea of identity

being strong. And so what did they do? They try to foster this identification by allowing you to

wear apparel, by allowing you to get inside the game with radio and television broadcast, by

introducing players to you, by reinforcing the team's history. All of these things are done to

reinforce your sense of identity so that when you're talking about a sport franchise, you're

saying we instead of the they because then the outcomes really start to matter to you.

It's a phenomenon that's been studied in a lot of different contexts and one of the most

interesting studies that was designed was on college campuses where, after a win, it was

found that significant increase among the student population wearing the apparel. So as I tape

this video, Temple football is five and 0, I see a lot more Temple football gear around the

campus than I would if they were 0 in five.

So with this quick video, we've talked about Social Identify Theory from a definition standpoint

and we've talked about how it explains the phenomenon of American sport.