Social identity theory reframed intergroup conflict as arising from categorization and comparison

Evidence

Although authoritarian personality theory (e.g., Adorno et al., 1950; Brown, 1965; Fromm, 1941) and realistic conflict theory (e.g., Campbell, 1965; Sherif et al., 1961) dominated the study of intergroup conflict in the middle of the 20th century, these perspectives were challenged by the emergence of social identity theory in the 1970s (e.g., Tajfel, 1978, 1981). The most cogent and compact description of this approach was published by the late Henri Tajfel and John Turner in 1986, and it is the first reading in this section. Tajfel and Turner argue that intergroup conflict arises from psychological processes of perceptual categorization, social comparison, and identity enhancement. — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 2622

Categorization

• DEFINE: Gives the core claim of social identity theory: conflict arises from perceptual categorization, social comparison, and identity enhancement — a compact definition worth pinning.
• XREF: Segues into the other two major frameworks named in [2620] — system justification theory and social dominance theory — and connects to the reader’s existing interest in how group identity drives political conflict. — connects to: Antagonism is an ever-present possibility inherent to collective identity formation — Chantal Mouffe, The Democratic Paradox, 65; the MOC “The Wound of the Label: When Knowing Someone Becomes a Way of Erasing Them”; the MOC “The Enemy-Making Machine: Ours, True, and the Identity That Defends Both”