Henri Tajfel and colleagues sorted participants into two groups on a deliberately trivial basis, such as a stated preference between two painters' work, then had each participant privately allocate points or money between anonymous members of the two groups identified only by a code number and their group label. Even though the groups meant nothing beyond the assignment itself and members never met or worked with anyone, participants reliably gave more to their own group's members than to the other group's, sometimes even when that meant a smaller total for their own side. The result showed that the mere act of being categorized into a group is enough to trigger in-group favoritism.
Facts
Key FindingCategory membership alone, with no history, competition or self-interest attached to it, is sufficient to produce favoritism toward one's own group and discrimination against the other, the founding evidence for social identity theory. 1 Cross-Tradition Connections
Associated With
This experiment is the founding empirical demonstration behind social identity theory.
Conducted By
In Branch
Sources
1. Wikipedia: Henri Tajfel
Wikimedia FoundationDevelopment section, Minimal Group ParadigmQuote, Development section, Minimal Group Paradigm
The surprising finding was that, even in the most minimal group conditions, responses favoring the in-group occurred.
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