Psychologists are debating and trying to figure out whether the social identity theory, a theory developed by Tajfel Turner (1979) for the examination of intergroup relations, is a robust way of explaining behaviour. There has been many research studies in the past that proves that it is a robust way of explaining behaviour. Social identity theory explains human behaviours such as in-group favouritism, and ethnocentrism. Ethnocentrism is the act of believing that one’s social group is centrally important, and that all other groups are below them on the social pyramid. In this case, one will judge other groups on their ethnic group, language, religion and behaviour.
Tajfel (1979) considered “a group” as a cognitive component, an evaluative component and an emotional component. Thus, he suggested four main basics of social identity theory which are social categorization, social identification, social comparison, and self-esteem achievement (Trepte, 2006). 2.1.1 Social categorization Tajfel (1979) claims that one can only facilitate the process of decoding and encoding messages by defining information into schemes and categories, and it is the same with the other entities in our environment, we divide people into groups to build and comprehend a social interaction (Trepte, 2006). Tajfel and Turner state that social categorizations are conceived here as cognitive tools that segment, classify, and order the social environment, and thus enable the individual to undertake many forms of social action; these tools create and define individual’s place in society (Tajfel & Turner, 1979: 40). 2.1.2 Social
Cognition In psychology cognition is the process through the formation of the concept, perception, judgment and other mental activities or imagined to get knowledge, which is the mental function of individual to process information. For each person, the social environment in which he or she embedded provide the symbolic meaning of his or her representation and language expression. The society will be the newborns’ socialize and cognitive development environment. Through education, youngsters can develop cognition, in order to enhance their social competence. In the Social information processing model (Crick, N. R., & Dodge, K. A., 1994), it shows that people with higher social cognition level can easier to encode message and clarify goals adopted to social schemas and social knowledge.
The Social Identity Theory shows that many individuals will remain a member of any group as long as it shows different positive characteristics of either person self-esteem. They will achieve positive social identity through academic and professional attainment, with the help of social change, other deaf people will be allowed to assume the cultural identity (Yael). Deaf people need the help though a social change in order for them to identify themselves
Various aspects of Social Identity Theory do exist; the interpersonal-intergroup scope. Social identity theory posits that an individuals’ social behavior is derived from both interpersonal and intergroup behavior. A distinct interpersonal behavior is reflected by a person’s characteristics and the relationships that exist between him and another person. The same applies to a distinct intergroup behavior which is the behavior exhibited by a given social group. Chances are that these distinct behaviors don’t exist.
Such a community is the first step in developing collective identity. There are several different definitions of collective identity in literature. According to Ashmore, “collective identity is one that is shared with a group of others who have (or believe to have) some characteristics in common” (Ashmore 81). Social identity is sometimes used synonymously to collective identity but the term collective identity as a term is preferable because all identity is social in some way since identity is always constructed and negotiated through interaction with others (cf. Ashmore 81).
As Cialdini et al. and Henri Tajfel demonstrated, the roles of social categorization in group behaviors and the differences between social categorization and social comparison, can be used to justify how we construct individual identities and group identities concerning “in” and “out” groups through the social identity theory. It can also express why prejudice exists in all human
Sociology involves different aspects concerns and values of a group which make up some of the key components in the field of sociology. The concepts of an ideal society often represent how people should live. Ideally the good of society embeds things people favor to be important. However real society is based upon valid experiences. People base their needs on the model of “Maslow’s Hierarchy,” which results in fulfillment, although not everyone acquires them.
It is the process of gaining knowledge and understanding through experience, thought and the senses. You can say cognition is the product of the process of thinking and reasoning. In order to understand human cognition we have to apply Cognitive Psychology. This is because Cognitive Psychology is concerned with how we think. It is the study of human mental process and their function in thinking, feeling and human behaviour.
Just to understand the fundamental processes that caused the behavior to happen, cognitive psychologists still take behavior into account rather than the behavior itself because cognitive psychology is the study of mental process only. Cognitive psychology as being the study of mental process includes attention, memory, language development, problem solving, and decision-making. Information processing approach and the connectionist approach are the two main branches of thought in cognitive psychology. Information processing looks at the brain like a machine that both encodes and stores data for retrieval at a later time. This approach has been popular since the 1950s.