Context:- Hours after Argentina beat India in the women’s hock | Psyche-Simplified- One stop solution for Psychology Optional

Context:- Hours after Argentina beat India in the women’s hockey semis at the Tokyo Olympics on Wednesday, two upper caste men in Haridwar stood outside star striker Vandana Katariya’s home at Roshnabad village and started hurling casteist abuses.

Connect to the basics:-

SOCIAL IDENTITY THEORY:-Refer Smarak Swain

ENRICHMENT:-
Cognitive processes related to social identity
Social Identity Theory describes three mental processes that people go through when they classify their in- or out-group. The three processes are explained below.

Process 1: Social Categorization
The first mental process that occurs is categorization. Categorization is the process people use to organize themselves into social groups. They do this to enable themselves to understand the social world.

That understanding of the social world includes themselves, and is defined based on the groups that someone is in. In general, people tend to define themselves based on their social categories more often than on personal and individual characteristics.

Social categorization often leads to emphasizing the similarities between people in the same group and the differences between people in separate groups. People can belong to different social categories, but one or more categories will be more or less important. This depends on a person’s social circumstances. For example, person X can describe himself as a businessman, sports fan, and devoted father, but these identities only emerge when they are relevant to the social situation.

Process 2: Social Identification
The second process is social identification. This is the process of identification as a group member. By socially identifying with a particular group, people begin to behave as they believe members of that particular group should behave.

For example, a person may describe themselves as an environmental activist and live up to this by monitoring water use, recycling, and participating in climate change awareness events. These types of processes make people emotionally invested in their group membership. One consequence of this phenomenon is that their self-esteem is also influenced by the status of their group.

Social identification can lead to people showing pro-social behavior towards others. Examples include adopting a particular diet, or even adopting shared purchasing patterns such as motorcyclists. Consumers may therefore have several sub-identities that have nestled themselves in a larger identity.

Process 3: Social Comparison
The third mental process is social comparison. This is the process by which people start to compare their own group with other groups in terms of prestige and social status.

To maintain self-esteem, a person must regard their in-group as having a higher social status than an out-group. For example, a movie star sees himself in a higher social class than a classically trained Shakespearean actor. Still, a member of a group is not likely to compare himself or herself to an out-group member. The comparison must be relevant to the situation.

There are a number of things that come up when comparing an in-group to an out-of-group. Members comparing their own group to other groups tend to:

Prefer their own in-group over the out-group.
Maximize the differences between the two groups.
Minimize the perception of differences between group members. This increases cohesion within the group as a whole.
Remember more positive information about their own group and more negative information about the out-group.

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