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The minimal group paradigm in action
>> YOUR LINK HERE: ___ http://youtube.com/watch?v=5xZztqKngIM
The minimal group paradigm was developed by Tajfel and colleagues (1971) in order to study the influence of group membership on human behavior. Importantly, the element of interest is the effect of ‘pure’ group membership itself, irrespective of values, opinions or experiences typically shared with members of groups one forms a part of in real life. For this reason 'minimal' groups are created based on arbitrary and meaningless criteria, in order to isolate the effect of ‘pure’ group membership from other variables. • In one study, for example, participants had to estimate the number of dots presented to them on a screen. They were then told by the experimenter that people usually either over- or underestimate the number, and that they belonged to one of those two respective groups. Importantly, this information was not based on participants’ actual estimation, but instead it was randomly determined, whether participants were told that they belonged to the over- or under-estimators. • Participants were then seated in individual rooms without direct contact to one another. Subsequently they assigned points, substitutable for actual money, to pairs of their fellow participants, about whom they only knew their group membership and a number (e.g. over-estimator 6 and under-estimator 9). • As the statistical analyses revealed, participants consistently favoured members of their own group (ingroup) over members of the outgroup. • Consider the meaning of this for a moment. If something as trivial as one's performance on an estimation task can suffice to influence human behaviour because of perceived group membership, than any other differentiating characteristic that carries some meaning can produce this effect as well in everyday life. • Original Article: • Tajfel, Billig, Bundy Flament (1971): Social categorization and intergroup behaviour. European Journal of Social Psychology, 1, 149-177. • Link to the full video of the conversation between Dave Rubin, Christina Hoff Sommers and Peter Boghossian at Portland State University: • https://www.youtube.com/results?searc...
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