Latest / Stuff You Should Know / Social Identity Theory: Your Group Rules, Others Drool

Transcript

Social Identity Theory: Your Group Rules, Others Drool · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.
• 0:11
  Speaker 2: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's Chuck,
• 0:14
  Speaker 2: and Jerry's here, too. And we're just a super cool
• 0:17
  Speaker 2: in-group looking down on your out-group here on Stuff You
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: Should Know.
• 0:22
  Speaker 3: That's right. Did you hear that thunder? Can you hear that?
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: No. It was a little too delicate, the sound was.
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 0:31
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it just started raining and it's thundering pretty good.
• 0:33
  Speaker 3: So maybe people can hear that. It might add a
• 0:35
  Speaker 3: little mood.
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: That's nice. Because, yeah, I think we could use a
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: little mood on this one. This is a very rigid
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: look at what I think is a very interesting social
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: psychology theory.
• 0:49
  Speaker 3: Oh, yeah?
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Do you not find it very interesting?
• 0:53
  Speaker 3: I didn't find this one super interesting. You know, like
• 0:56
  Speaker 3: a lot of social psychology, this one I filed under, like, yeah.
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:01
  Speaker 3: I guess you're, you know, you're observing something that happens.
• 1:05
  Speaker 3: That's about where it ended for me.
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: I get it. I get it. To me. Yeah. I mean,
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: I sense what you're talking about. Like there's just something.
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: I feel like we're talking people out of listening to this.
• 1:17
  Speaker 3: Episode right now.
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: Okay. Well, we'll just clue everybody in and you can
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: make up your own mind how you feel about this, guys. Well,
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: what we're talking about is social identity theory, which you
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: probably gleaned from the title. And. In a nutshell, social
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: identity theory basically says that we get a sense of
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: self and belonging and, well, we help develop our identity
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: from the groups we belong to. And that is very
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: different from the idea that we just develop as individuals
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: through normal developmental psychology. In fact, the guys who came
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: up with social identity theory basically say it's the group
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: that's the thing, not the individual. Like, that's where we
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: really develop Most of our identity is from interacting with
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: other people. Yeah.
• 2:03
  Speaker 3: You know, I think I don't think anyone will be
• 2:06
  Speaker 3: talked in or out of liking or thinking this is
• 2:09
  Speaker 3: interesting because I think it'll be whether or not you're
• 2:13
  Speaker 3: into social psychology generally as a whole or not. I bet.
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 2:18
  Speaker 3: Because for a lot of social psychology for me, I'm
• 2:20
  Speaker 3: like sort of like I was saying, I was like,
• 2:23
  Speaker 3: a lot of this stuff to me is like, well, yeah, duh.
• 2:25
  Speaker 3: But like, what's the point? Sure. Sure.
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: Well, here's the point. This is the point as far
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: as I can tell. The part I just said is
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: definitely duh.
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: But the reason they came up with social identity theory
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: is to explain stuff that heretofore, and still some people
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: are like, I don't know about social identity theory, although
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: it's the dominant framework for explaining this stuff. Yeah. Explaining
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: things that are tough to explain. Like, why do normal
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: people become fascists, get swept up in fascist movements? Yeah.
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: Why do sports fans get in fights with sports fans
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: from rival teams?
• 3:05
  Speaker 3: Alcohol.
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: Like, these things, sure. I mean, yeah, you can't really
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: deny that. Yeah. But they're, like, they don't quite make
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: sense when you step back and look at things. And
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: so social identity theory says, All of this can be
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: explained with this theory. And I think that's where it
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: gets interesting for me, especially the idea that this is
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: so ingrained in our evolutionary history that we basically can't
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: do anything about it. Like even being aware of this
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: can only help to such a degree. Like you're still
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: innately attracted to being a member of a group.
• 3:41
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that's my deal. And I promise I'm
• 3:43
  Speaker 3: not going to say, duh, like a hundred times. Because
• 3:47
  Speaker 3: I do think some of the social psychology stuff is
• 3:49
  Speaker 3: fairly interesting. I'm just more of a person who's like,
• 3:53
  Speaker 3: sort of a what, like, where does that get us
• 3:56
  Speaker 3: in the end? You know what I mean?
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: Yes, I totally get that. We should also give our caveat,
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: because we make fun of social psychology and the studies
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: involved so frequently, it would be It would be pretty
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: rich to just be like, yeah, this is super cool
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: and proven. A lot of the studies, just like any
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: other social psychology field or sub-discipline, is there are like
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: 30 people who are grad students or undergrad students that
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: were getting extra credit. That's what the study found or
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: that's what the study used. And then whatever they found,
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: that's now just universally applied to everybody. Yeah. in a
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: lot of cases it's, that's just not correct, but this
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: one is so, like you said, duh, that it seems like, yes,
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: this is very true.
• 4:48
  Speaker 3: Yeah, for sure. Uh, and I guess we should start with, um, uh,
• 4:54
  Speaker 3: conflict intergroup conflict, uh, which is not intra group conflict.
• 4:59
  Speaker 3: So in this case, we're talking about conflict between, uh,
• 5:02
  Speaker 3: two different groups. Um, It's sort of like if you
• 5:05
  Speaker 3: just think of like us versus them for a lot
• 5:07
  Speaker 3: of this, you're along the right track. And in this case, it's,
• 5:11
  Speaker 3: you know, if you develop an intergroup conflict, it's developing
• 5:15
  Speaker 3: some sort of prejudice or bias maybe against another group. Like,
• 5:19
  Speaker 3: let's say you're the in-group. Everyone thinks you're the in-group,
• 5:22
  Speaker 3: but an in-group versus an out-group. And for a long
• 5:25
  Speaker 3: time before these two, Henri Tajfel and John Turner came
• 5:31
  Speaker 3: along in the 70s, There were people, other social psychologists
• 5:35
  Speaker 3: explaining it and in a different way and mainly in
• 5:40
  Speaker 3: a couple of different ways, starting with 1950 with Theodore
• 5:44
  Speaker 3: Adorno and his publishing, along with his colleagues of the
• 5:48
  Speaker 3: authoritarian personality and trying to trying to sort of describe like, hey,
• 5:53
  Speaker 3: what's the deal with Nazis and like the aftermath of
• 5:56
  Speaker 3: Nazis and like what kind of person is going to
• 5:59
  Speaker 3: get swept up in that kind of thing?
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: Right. So Adorno basically said that it's the people who
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: are getting swept up that are essentially causing the sweeping
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: in the first place. That if you put a bunch
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: of what he called authoritarian personalities who aren't, that doesn't
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: describe somebody who aspires to become an authoritarian leader. Those
• 6:21
  Speaker 2: are people who feel most secure when submitting to an
• 6:25
  Speaker 2: authoritarian leader. So you put a bunch of those people together,
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: say in a Nazi party, um, that fascism is just
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: going to take off, um, and attract more like-minded people.
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: It makes sense, but it's, I don't think anybody was like,
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: that's it. That explains fascism.
• 6:43
  Speaker 3: Yeah, for sure. Uh, and so the other one that
• 6:46
  Speaker 3: I mentioned, um, you know, before the other two guys
• 6:49
  Speaker 3: in the seventies that we're going to get to was, uh,
• 6:51
  Speaker 3: in the 1960s, there was a social psychologist named, uh,
• 6:55
  Speaker 3: Muzaffer Sharif, who, um, He again, these little like small experiments.
• 7:01
  Speaker 3: This is at a Boy Scout camp. He'd separated two
• 7:03
  Speaker 3: groups at Boy Scouts at camp. And he said, all right,
• 7:07
  Speaker 3: you know, you're just in two groups. Get to know
• 7:09
  Speaker 3: one another. Get to know each other. And everything was
• 7:13
  Speaker 3: going pretty good. And nothing was unusual until all of
• 7:16
  Speaker 3: a sudden he introduced the idea of competition for prizes. Yeah.
• 7:21
  Speaker 3: And that's when it became Lord of the Flies.
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure. He was like, one group gets blue ribbons,
• 7:27
  Speaker 2: the other gets participant ribbons. And it was on from
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: that point, you know? So he came up with something
• 7:33
  Speaker 2: called realistic group conflict theory, because once the prizes were introduced,
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: there was all sorts of conflict that came out of it, right? Now,
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: all of a sudden, group A was discriminating against group B,
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: and maybe they would get into like little fights or
• 7:48
  Speaker 2: something like that stuff that was completely outside of the competition.
• 7:52
  Speaker 2: And He basically said, OK, that stands in for resources.
• 7:57
  Speaker 2: Like if you switched out, you know, first prize with
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: access to dwindling water, now you have a true general
• 8:07
  Speaker 2: universal explanation for why groups get in conflict. It's over
• 8:10
  Speaker 2: material scarcity.
• 8:13
  Speaker 3: I'm not going to say duh. I promise.
• 8:16
  Speaker 2: But even that one, realistic group conflict theory, people are like, yeah,
• 8:20
  Speaker 2: that sounds kind of good, but. Still, it just doesn't
• 8:24
  Speaker 2: smack of like, it doesn't smack of duh, as Chuck
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: will eventually put it. And that's when Tajfell and Turner
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: came around.
• 8:31
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so Henri Tajfell, he was the first part of
• 8:35
  Speaker 3: this twosome. He was a social psychologist at the University
• 8:38
  Speaker 3: of Bristol. He was born to a Jewish family in
• 8:42
  Speaker 3: Poland and immigrated to France in the 1930s and lost
• 8:47
  Speaker 3: most of his family to the Holocaust and World War II.
• 8:50
  Speaker 3: And so he changed over from chemistry to, to social psychology,
• 8:56
  Speaker 3: I guess the inference there is in maybe some bid
• 8:59
  Speaker 3: to try and understand what the heck happened.
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah, which was, I mean, he wasn't the only one. Like,
• 9:04
  Speaker 2: that's where Adorno and Sharif were. Like, Nazi Germany just
• 9:09
  Speaker 2: came out of nowhere.
• 9:10
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 9:11
  Speaker 2: And then, yeah, the idea that his family had perished
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: at the hands of the Nazis, I could see that's
• 9:17
  Speaker 2: what the reason was.
• 9:19
  Speaker 3: Yeah. So he hooked up with John Turner and, They
• 9:22
  Speaker 3: met at University of Bristol. He was a PhD student.
• 9:25
  Speaker 3: And as an undergrad, as far as his interest in
• 9:28
  Speaker 3: this kind of thing, he dropped out of college a
• 9:29
  Speaker 3: few times, ended up working just sort of, you know,
• 9:32
  Speaker 3: regular old blue collar jobs. And through those jobs, had
• 9:36
  Speaker 3: dealings with unions and things. And I guess just became
• 9:39
  Speaker 3: kind of fascinated about the social dynamic and group dynamics
• 9:43
  Speaker 3: within a union. So when he met Tajvel, I guess
• 9:47
  Speaker 3: love was in the air and they said, hey, let's
• 9:49
  Speaker 3: get together and work on this stuff together.
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 9:51
  Speaker 3: And ended up writing sort of the watershed paper or
• 9:54
  Speaker 3: the initial one, at least on this from them. An
• 9:58
  Speaker 3: integrative theory of integration. conflict, which is like basically their
• 10:04
  Speaker 3: statement to the world of like, here's what we think
• 10:06
  Speaker 3: about all this.
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah. This is where social identity theory came from. This
• 10:10
  Speaker 2: is the paper it was proposed in. And Should we
• 10:14
  Speaker 2: take a break now or dive into the nuts and bolts?
• 10:18
  Speaker 3: No, no, no. I think it's a good break time.
• 10:20
  Speaker 2: Okay, everybody. You're going to have to wait for the
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: nuts and bolts after these messages.
• 10:36
  Speaker 3: Word up, Jerry. All right, Chuck.
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: So where we left off, we're about to dive into
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: this seminal paper from 1979 by Tosh, Fell, and Turner,
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: an integrative theory of intergroup conflict. And it sounds dry
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: and boring, but it basically changed.
• 10:46
  Speaker 2: How psychology, but also people outside of academia see the world,
• 11:10
  Speaker 2: you know? I wonder if one of the reasons why
• 11:14
  Speaker 2: it seems so duh is because this paper was persuasive
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: and became pervasive that now that we're living today in 2026,
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: it just seems of course to us, but at the
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: time it didn't necessarily. I wonder about that. You were
• 11:30
  Speaker 2: eight years old. Do you remember if people were walking
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: around already thinking this was duh?
• 11:35
  Speaker 3: I didn't know it ate. By the way, that's the
• 11:37
  Speaker 3: most Snoop Dogg way you've ever described something in your life.
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: What did I say?
• 11:42
  Speaker 3: Pervasive and persuasive.
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: Or shizzle.
• 11:48
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't remember that, of course. But in that paper,
• 11:50
  Speaker 3: they proposed a few different basically processes that they think
• 11:56
  Speaker 3: explain how people form into groups and group behavior. And
• 12:01
  Speaker 3: then get into conflict with others and have prejudice against others.
• 12:05
  Speaker 3: And they started that with social categorization, which is basically
• 12:10
  Speaker 3: you have to form into a group to begin with
• 12:13
  Speaker 3: if you're going to have conflict with another group or
• 12:16
  Speaker 3: compare yourself to another group.
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And then so within categorization, so what Tashfel and
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: Turner seem to have done is they took some other
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: existing ideas in social psychology that hadn't necessarily been applied
• 12:31
  Speaker 2: to groups or whatever and put them together to kind
• 12:35
  Speaker 2: of form social identity theory and apply it to groups.
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: But categorization had already been around. There's something that had
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: been identified as the category accentuation effect. And it is
• 12:48
  Speaker 2: basically like once we start identifying ourselves as members of
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: groups and other people as members of other groups, in
• 12:56
  Speaker 2: groups and out groups, we get busy categorizing. And when
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: we get busy categorizing, what we're doing is using a
• 13:04
  Speaker 2: very ancient technique. process, which is heuristics, right? Like our
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: brain loves to take shortcuts. So it's, it does away
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: with all the nuance and details and just basically does
• 13:16
  Speaker 2: this big lumpy thing that's good enough. And when we
• 13:20
  Speaker 2: categorize people into groups, it goes through that process. So
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: we start seeing them differently.
• 13:25
  Speaker 3: Yeah, for sure. And the reason we've formed groups to
• 13:27
  Speaker 3: begin with is kind of twofold is one, they think
• 13:31
  Speaker 3: evolutionary is that We've always wanted to just sort of
• 13:34
  Speaker 3: classify the world around us by seeking patterns and things.
• 13:39
  Speaker 3: And then the sort of the obvious thing, which is
• 13:42
  Speaker 3: that it's a benefit, especially early on when people were evolving,
• 13:46
  Speaker 3: is to form a group for pulling resources and to
• 13:49
  Speaker 3: divide up the hunting and gathering and co-parenting and protecting
• 13:54
  Speaker 3: one another from either predators or other what would end
• 13:58
  Speaker 3: up being, you know, competitive groups outside your tribe or whatever.
• 14:02
  Speaker 3: And so for defense purposes, that kind of thing. Yeah.
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: And I mean, it's no fun to watch knots landing
• 14:08
  Speaker 2: by yourself. It's much better with a group.
• 14:10
  Speaker 3: That's a very good point.
• 14:11
  Speaker 2: So because of the heuristics that our brains just innately
• 14:16
  Speaker 2: use to kind of take these shortcuts and use less energy,
• 14:20
  Speaker 2: when we start categorizing people and ourselves, the variability within
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: our own group, the in-group, starts to go away. So
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: we start seeing other people say other Falcons fans, right?
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: It's similar to us, right? Like we're all Falcons fans
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: and everything else that makes us different just kind of
• 14:40
  Speaker 2: vanishes because we're Falcons fans. And that's what we identify as.
• 14:45
  Speaker 2: At the same time, it does the same thing in
• 14:48
  Speaker 2: the out group, but in a much less positive way.
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: Those are Steelers fans. They all suck. They're terrible people.
• 14:55
  Speaker 2: And then the differences between the in group and the
• 14:57
  Speaker 2: out group is are boosted as well. So all these
• 15:02
  Speaker 2: things just basically go through this very distorted lens when
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: we start categorizing people into groups. And that's where trouble
• 15:09
  Speaker 2: starts to come. And that's just one point of social
• 15:11
  Speaker 2: identity theory.
• 15:13
  Speaker 3: For sure. And by the way, we don't mean that
• 15:15
  Speaker 3: against Steelers fans, because I have a strong feeling that
• 15:18
  Speaker 3: Josh has no idea that the very first game of
• 15:21
  Speaker 3: the season is Falcons versus Steelers this year.
• 15:23
  Speaker 2: Of course I knew that. Who doesn't know that?
• 15:27
  Speaker 3: No, we don't. If you were, you certainly weren't trying
• 15:31
  Speaker 3: to say Steelers fans are bad people because you would
• 15:32
  Speaker 3: have said Eagles fans or Patriots fans probably.
• 15:35
  Speaker 2: I think all three. It applies to all three.
• 15:38
  Speaker 3: Oh, wow. Okay. Standing by it. I love it.
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: You always get so much guff for talking about any
• 15:46
  Speaker 2: Philadelphia fans.
• 15:47
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I know.
• 15:48
  Speaker 2: It's funny because people get really mad at you.
• 15:52
  Speaker 3: I know. It's because they're bad people.
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: That always reminds me of that Onion teacher that said,
• 15:58
  Speaker 2: my local sports team is better than your local sports team.
• 16:01
  Speaker 3: Oh, that's funny. I love fans of all stripes, people
• 16:05
  Speaker 3: of Philly. No, I'm just kidding around. I love the
• 16:08
  Speaker 3: city of Philadelphia. I love to visit there. Don't have
• 16:11
  Speaker 3: the best time when our teams play each other. And
• 16:13
  Speaker 3: that's not my fault. I'll just leave it at that.
• 16:16
  Speaker 2: But look, you just did something that I think is
• 16:18
  Speaker 2: worth pointing out. You went from being a Falcons fan,
• 16:22
  Speaker 2: which you remained. which is your in-group and then Phillies
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: or Eagles fans are an out-group to you. But then
• 16:30
  Speaker 2: you kind of rose up, your altitude increased and you
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: went to like the 10,000 foot level and you included
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: Eagles fans in the in-group with yourself as just fans
• 16:42
  Speaker 2: in general.
• 16:43
  Speaker 3: Yeah, because if it was up to me, all rivalry
• 16:46
  Speaker 3: like that would be just very good-natured and fun and like, hey,
• 16:49
  Speaker 3: let's just go have a good time at the game
• 16:51
  Speaker 3: and maybe rib each other. So, It's it's when like
• 16:54
  Speaker 3: people take it seriously and curse in front of children
• 16:57
  Speaker 3: and throw beers. And that's that's when it gets to
• 17:01
  Speaker 3: the point where I'm like, well, that's no fun.
• 17:04
  Speaker 2: Well, that brings up the the next point or the
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: next nut or bolt, I guess, depending on your view
• 17:10
  Speaker 2: of social identity theory, which is social identification. I think
• 17:13
  Speaker 2: that kind of explains what you just described.
• 17:15
  Speaker 3: I think you're right. That's when you start to identify
• 17:19
  Speaker 3: with with my group, let's say Falcons fans. Uh, and
• 17:23
  Speaker 3: then that becomes part of my sense of self, but
• 17:28
  Speaker 3: you know, we're influenced by the values and, you know,
• 17:31
  Speaker 3: when it comes to sports, maybe it's values and stuff
• 17:34
  Speaker 3: don't come as into play, but, but the opinions and
• 17:37
  Speaker 3: values and maybe behaviors of the larger group behavior for sure.
• 17:40
  Speaker 2: For sure.
• 17:41
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: And I mean, everybody I'm sure has met somebody who's like, wow,
• 17:44
  Speaker 2: your whole identity is tied up in being a Falcons fan.
• 17:47
  Speaker 2: Like this is your life, right?
• 17:49
  Speaker 3: Well, not me, but yeah.
• 17:51
  Speaker 2: No, not you. But there are people out there. I'm
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: sure you've met them just from being a Falcons fan.
• 17:55
  Speaker 2: You can't help but rub elbows with people who you're like, wow,
• 17:58
  Speaker 2: this is really important to you. Like you can tell
• 18:02
  Speaker 2: that this person identifies throughout life as a Falcons fan,
• 18:06
  Speaker 2: I think.
• 18:07
  Speaker 3: That's true. But, you know, the problem with Falcons fans
• 18:09
  Speaker 3: is that we're not as like that as much as
• 18:11
  Speaker 3: a lot of cities.
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: Well, that's Atlanta for you. Exactly. No support for anybody.
• 18:17
  Speaker 3: Yeah, for sure.
• 18:18
  Speaker 2: I do feel like we should at least acknowledge and
• 18:21
  Speaker 2: give a hat tip. to Anna, who helped us with this.
• 18:25
  Speaker 2: Every single example she used was the Mets. She's very
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: clearly a Mets fan. She tried very hard to get
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: the Mets in there. So go Mets.
• 18:35
  Speaker 3: That's pretty funny. And then the final of the third
• 18:39
  Speaker 3: would be social comparison. And that's when, and we've kind
• 18:42
  Speaker 3: of been doing this a little bit with our joking
• 18:43
  Speaker 3: around about sports, is comparing our group or whatever, what
• 18:47
  Speaker 3: we think is our in-group to the out-groups and other
• 18:50
  Speaker 3: groups And, you know, it can be a lot of
• 18:53
  Speaker 3: different things because we've just been doing just that. Like
• 18:55
  Speaker 3: you said, sometimes it's a favorable opinion. Sometimes it's unfavorable.
• 18:59
  Speaker 3: Sometimes it's neutral. But like we're incentivized in a way
• 19:05
  Speaker 3: to make obviously favorable comparisons between our in group and
• 19:10
  Speaker 3: the out group, because that helps your own self-esteem and
• 19:13
  Speaker 3: the self-esteem of a group overall and what they called
• 19:18
  Speaker 3: positive distinctiveness.
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah, like we're different from the out group in the
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: best possible way. And, you know, best possible way can
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: mean all sorts of things depending on the context of
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: the group.
• 19:28
  Speaker 3: Which is what I was just doing. Like we don't
• 19:30
  Speaker 3: curse out in front of kids and throw beers and stuff.
• 19:33
  Speaker 2: Exactly. Falcons fans don't do that. That seems to have
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: kind of adopted a pre-existing theory called social comparison theory
• 19:43
  Speaker 2: from 1954 by psychologist Leon Fetzinger. Yeah. And Fetzinger was
• 19:49
  Speaker 2: applied this to individuals basically saying that our self-worth is
• 19:53
  Speaker 2: very commonly determined by or Generated by comparison to others
• 19:59
  Speaker 2: it can be you know Comparing ourselves to somebody we
• 20:02
  Speaker 2: think is above us and then maybe that motivates us
• 20:04
  Speaker 2: to do better more often than not we compare ourselves
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: to people who who are, say, below us. I made
• 20:11
  Speaker 2: scare quotes just now. And that that generates attitudes of, like, superiority, prejudice, bias,
• 20:17
  Speaker 2: all that stuff. So what Tosh, Phil, and Turner did
• 20:20
  Speaker 2: was they seemed to have taken social comparison theory and
• 20:24
  Speaker 2: made it a component of social identity theory and applied
• 20:27
  Speaker 2: it to groups rather than just individuals.
• 20:30
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and, you know, comparison, that can be tricky because
• 20:33
  Speaker 3: when you're talking about comparing sports fans, it's not that
• 20:35
  Speaker 3: big of a deal, but... if you're talking about comparing
• 20:39
  Speaker 3: like a, you know, an ethnic group that you're in
• 20:42
  Speaker 3: or a social socioeconomic group that you're in.
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 20:47
  Speaker 3: That's when it gets really kind of sticky and gross.
• 20:50
  Speaker 3: And that's when or why you hear, I think, famous
• 20:53
  Speaker 3: sayings like comparison is the thief of joy from Roosevelt
• 20:58
  Speaker 3: or Twain's comparison is the death of joy, because that's when,
• 21:02
  Speaker 3: you know, if you're really sitting around comparing yourself to
• 21:06
  Speaker 3: people of a of like a higher financial class or
• 21:09
  Speaker 3: something like that, that is truly the death of joy. Um,
• 21:14
  Speaker 3: because it can consume you, I would imagine. Yeah.
• 21:16
  Speaker 2: I mean, that's what makes Instagram in particular. So toxic,
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: but pretty much all social media is it, it engenders comparison.
• 21:23
  Speaker 2: Like that's the, that you can't help, but do that.
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 21:27
  Speaker 2: You know? So yeah, it's a, it is the death
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: of joy.
• 21:29
  Speaker 3: Uh, here's the thing about a Taj fell and Turner though, is, um, it,
• 21:37
  Speaker 3: and this is kind of an important point. Like they
• 21:38
  Speaker 3: don't think that, um, like in the case I was
• 21:41
  Speaker 3: just talking about with what, like your socioeconomic status, that's
• 21:44
  Speaker 3: obviously something that has a, like a material basis at
• 21:46
  Speaker 3: its root, but it doesn't have to have that. And
• 21:49
  Speaker 3: that's what they posit. And I agree that conflict doesn't
• 21:52
  Speaker 3: need a material basis. Um, it can be, you know,
• 21:56
  Speaker 3: there can be a situation like back in the days
• 21:59
  Speaker 3: of Tuk Tuk where they're very, very limited resources and, um,
• 22:04
  Speaker 3: incompatible group goals, maybe within a group. And, It doesn't
• 22:08
  Speaker 3: necessarily have to do with the material thing.
• 22:11
  Speaker 2: So I disagree with that. I think that if you
• 22:14
  Speaker 2: look deep enough or if you expand your definition of
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: resources widely enough, there always is one. So dominance is
• 22:24
  Speaker 2: probably a pretty common one. One group wants to dominate
• 22:27
  Speaker 2: the rest and have say over where the society that
• 22:31
  Speaker 2: all the groups form goes. That's a big one.
• 22:34
  Speaker 3: Good point.
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: You could say winning is a resource. Like there's really
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: only one group that can win unless you're playing soccer
• 22:40
  Speaker 2: and then everybody wins. So, yeah, if you start to
• 22:44
  Speaker 2: get more, you know, less tangible and more esoteric or ethereal,
• 22:49
  Speaker 2: one of those ethereal, I think, then then to me,
• 22:54
  Speaker 2: there's always some sort of resource at stake.
• 22:56
  Speaker 3: OK, so you disagree because there are ideas that prejudice
• 22:59
  Speaker 3: doesn't require material inequality and you feel like it does.
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah, depending on your definition of material, I think.
• 23:07
  Speaker 3: All right. Well, that makes sense. So Taj, Feld, and
• 23:10
  Speaker 3: Turner were on to something, they felt. And so they
• 23:12
  Speaker 3: were like, all right, what if we dig down a
• 23:14
  Speaker 3: little bit deeper? And we started kind of poking, or
• 23:17
  Speaker 3: not poking holes, but asking questions about groups and a
• 23:20
  Speaker 3: person's place within a group. And one question they came
• 23:23
  Speaker 3: up with is like, what if you don't feel good
• 23:25
  Speaker 3: about the group that you're in?
• 23:27
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 23:27
  Speaker 3: And that could be a group that you're born into.
• 23:29
  Speaker 3: It could be an ethnic group that you're born into
• 23:32
  Speaker 3: or a financial group. strata that you're born into and
• 23:36
  Speaker 3: they said all right there's a few different strategies that
• 23:39
  Speaker 3: you can employ if you aren't so happy and the
• 23:42
  Speaker 3: first one was individual mobility which is this idea of
• 23:46
  Speaker 3: like let's say it's a high school click and you're
• 23:48
  Speaker 3: in the dungeons and dragons club yeah and you're starting
• 23:52
  Speaker 3: to not feel so great about that so what you
• 23:55
  Speaker 3: think the move to do is is to um To,
• 24:00
  Speaker 3: you know, to climb to what you perceive as a
• 24:01
  Speaker 3: higher social status and and become friends with like the
• 24:04
  Speaker 3: popular kids or the jocks or whatever. And this is
• 24:07
  Speaker 3: only the key here is this is only a thing
• 24:10
  Speaker 3: if if that's something that's possible to do. Like you
• 24:14
  Speaker 3: can't change your race, in other words, but you may
• 24:17
  Speaker 3: be able to elevate from the D & D group
• 24:19
  Speaker 3: to the whatever perceived more popular crowd is.
• 24:22
  Speaker 2: It depends if that if that high school hierarchy is
• 24:24
  Speaker 2: so rigid that the jocks are like nerds need not apply,
• 24:27
  Speaker 2: even former nerds. Then maybe, you know, you're now you're
• 24:31
  Speaker 2: an outcast from both groups. You're just in the middle
• 24:34
  Speaker 2: and you're you're up the creek. They make teen movies
• 24:37
  Speaker 2: about this very thing.
• 24:38
  Speaker 3: Oh, I mean, yeah. Every John Hughes movie almost is
• 24:41
  Speaker 3: sort of has this as a basis.
• 24:43
  Speaker 2: Right. And then the lesson that's learned is that that
• 24:46
  Speaker 2: group that you originally felt superior to or thought were
• 24:49
  Speaker 2: losers or whatever, that they are the ones that truly
• 24:52
  Speaker 2: care about you. The jocks don't care about you guys.
• 24:54
  Speaker 2: Let's let's just face it. Yeah.
• 24:56
  Speaker 3: And in the movies, though, it's almost always possible to
• 24:59
  Speaker 3: make that leap. Or if you don't make that leap
• 25:02
  Speaker 3: to for someone from that upper group to peel away
• 25:04
  Speaker 3: from them to recognize you anyway. Yes. You know what
• 25:08
  Speaker 3: I'm saying?
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 25:09
  Speaker 2: What was the one with him? He was like the
• 25:12
  Speaker 2: hot guy on Grey's Anatomy at first.
• 25:16
  Speaker 3: McDreamy.
• 25:17
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 25:18
  Speaker 3: Can't buy me love.
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: Yes. I don't think it's ever been done better than
• 25:22
  Speaker 2: that one.
• 25:23
  Speaker 3: I love that movie. And we're kind of that one's
• 25:25
  Speaker 3: a little too far along for Ruby. But we did
• 25:28
  Speaker 3: have recently watched some kind of wonderful and pretty and pink,
• 25:31
  Speaker 3: which also have sort of this nice idea. But but yeah,
• 25:35
  Speaker 3: Can't Buy Me Love really nails it. I love all
• 25:38
  Speaker 3: three of those movies.
• 25:39
  Speaker 2: I like I have forever like it's just in my
• 25:42
  Speaker 2: head that scene where he goes to the Italian pizza
• 25:45
  Speaker 2: guy who's like this kind of like Don Juan. And
• 25:50
  Speaker 2: he's like, what have you done before? Like if your
• 25:54
  Speaker 2: girlfriend's husband found out about you, he's like, I take
• 25:57
  Speaker 2: a knife and I stab him a bunch of times.
• 25:59
  Speaker 2: He don't bother me no more.
• 26:01
  Speaker 3: Oh, the 80s movies.
• 26:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah, they're great. All right.
• 26:08
  Speaker 3: So individual mobility is one. Social creativity is the next one.
• 26:12
  Speaker 3: If you don't feel great about how your group as
• 26:15
  Speaker 3: a whole is perceived, you can maybe just start sort
• 26:19
  Speaker 3: of changing the language about how you're comparing your group
• 26:22
  Speaker 3: to other people. So the first subgroup of that is
• 26:25
  Speaker 3: comparing your in-group to the out-group in a different way.
• 26:29
  Speaker 3: So like, you know, the D & D group, like
• 26:32
  Speaker 3: we may not be as cool of the jocks, but
• 26:34
  Speaker 3: like we're a lot smarter than them.
• 26:37
  Speaker 2: Precisely. That's an excellent example.
• 26:39
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: Another one is you can basically change what attributes are
• 26:45
  Speaker 2: focused on about your group. Right. So I guess going
• 26:50
  Speaker 2: to the D & D one, say, I don't know,
• 26:53
  Speaker 2: I can't figure out how to use that one. You
• 26:55
  Speaker 2: got something for that?
• 26:57
  Speaker 3: Well, it's sort of about changing how others perceive your group.
• 27:01
  Speaker 3: So maybe the D & D group may not be
• 27:03
  Speaker 3: looked at as cool, but we have the best homemade shirts.
• 27:12
  Speaker 2: I guess so. That seems similar to the first one.
• 27:15
  Speaker 3: It sort of does a little bit. but it's in,
• 27:17
  Speaker 3: it's in how, like, I think in the, in the
• 27:20
  Speaker 3: first one, it's like how they perceive themselves. Like we're,
• 27:23
  Speaker 3: we're smarter than they are and they'll just never know it.
• 27:25
  Speaker 3: And the other one is, is we've got like these
• 27:27
  Speaker 3: cool uniforms that we wear and everyone thinks they're awesome.
• 27:31
  Speaker 2: Gotcha. Great, great example. I'll bet D and D uniforms
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: are awesome.
• 27:35
  Speaker 3: Well, I was thinking of the, in stranger things, the
• 27:38
  Speaker 3: hellfire club and the cool t-shirts.
• 27:40
  Speaker 2: Oh, okay. I only saw the first season. Yeah.
• 27:43
  Speaker 3: You know, I liked it all, but it, it, it,
• 27:46
  Speaker 3: First season was great.
• 27:47
  Speaker 2: Have you seen The Devil in Silver? It's the third
• 27:50
  Speaker 2: installation of the Terror series.
• 27:52
  Speaker 3: I don't know about any of those things.
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: Oh, well, just start watching The Terror.
• 27:58
  Speaker 3: Well, yeah, you've told us about that. I remember that now.
• 28:00
  Speaker 2: Skip over season two and then just go to season three.
• 28:02
  Speaker 2: It was pretty good.
• 28:03
  Speaker 3: Okay. Wasn't season one like sailboats and frigates and stuff?
• 28:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 28:09
  Speaker 3: Pirates or something?
• 28:10
  Speaker 2: It was based on, I can't remember which expedition, but
• 28:12
  Speaker 2: a lost ship. British Navy expedition in the Arctic. And
• 28:17
  Speaker 2: it was like based on that, but also had like
• 28:20
  Speaker 2: all sorts of fiction. Okay.
• 28:22
  Speaker 3: So seasons one and three?
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: Yes. Just do not watch season two. All right.
• 28:27
  Speaker 3: So the third way you can do that is change
• 28:30
  Speaker 3: what out group you're comparing yourself with. So the D &
• 28:33
  Speaker 3: D group would say like, well, we may be D &
• 28:36
  Speaker 3: D nerds, but have you seen the chess club?
• 28:39
  Speaker 2: Right. Wow. You're just on fire today, man.
• 28:43
  Speaker 3: And I love chess club. I love chess. I love
• 28:45
  Speaker 3: D & D. I'm not slagging any of these. If anything,
• 28:48
  Speaker 3: I'm anti-jock.
• 28:50
  Speaker 2: There you go. Got to be anti-somebody, right? That's the
• 28:53
  Speaker 2: whole in-group, out-group basis.
• 28:55
  Speaker 3: Oh, man. I'm just getting myself in trouble with all
• 28:57
  Speaker 3: our teen listeners.
• 28:59
  Speaker 2: One of the things about the social creativity, too, is
• 29:02
  Speaker 2: all three of those, they don't actually change anything in
• 29:06
  Speaker 2: the way of the hierarchy. The jocks are still at
• 29:10
  Speaker 2: the top.
• 29:10
  Speaker 3: They rule the school.
• 29:11
  Speaker 2: But things have changed. Something has changed, right? Social mobility
• 29:16
  Speaker 2: is like the group has changed because you've left and
• 29:21
  Speaker 2: maybe the hierarchy has changed because you joined this higher
• 29:24
  Speaker 2: group or whatever. But social creativity does not actually change
• 29:28
  Speaker 2: any part of the larger structure, say, of society.
• 29:31
  Speaker 3: Yeah, for sure. So those were the first two. The
• 29:33
  Speaker 3: last one is very easy. It's social competition. And that's
• 29:37
  Speaker 3: when you choose to take on the group that you
• 29:39
  Speaker 3: perceive ahead of you like head on. So that's Revenge
• 29:42
  Speaker 3: of the Nerds.
• 29:43
  Speaker 2: Yes, it is. That or any, like if there was
• 29:49
  Speaker 2: some greedy developer who's trying to shut something down, that's
• 29:53
  Speaker 2: the basis of it. Whether it's a ski resort or
• 29:57
  Speaker 2: a car wash or a hot dog stand. That's it
• 30:00
  Speaker 2: right there. Taking it on.
• 30:02
  Speaker 3: That's right. So one of the things these two guys,
• 30:05
  Speaker 3: Toshvel and Turner, Toshvel and Turner, wanted to point out
• 30:10
  Speaker 3: was that like resource or material inequality or scarcity, they
• 30:17
  Speaker 3: don't always have to lead to social conflict. So sometimes
• 30:21
  Speaker 3: if you're like a low status individual or something. You
• 30:26
  Speaker 3: might align with a new group identity or try and
• 30:29
  Speaker 3: redefine that group in a more positive light, like the
• 30:32
  Speaker 3: things kind of we were just talking about. Yeah. But
• 30:34
  Speaker 3: there's no difference in like your access to resources. Like
• 30:39
  Speaker 3: it might just happen within the group and how you're
• 30:41
  Speaker 3: perceiving yourself or having others perceive you. It's not like
• 30:45
  Speaker 3: you went out and got like cooler clothes for the
• 30:48
  Speaker 3: D & D group to wear.
• 30:49
  Speaker 2: Right. That's a much better way of what I was
• 30:51
  Speaker 2: trying to say. Okay. Chuck, I say we take our
• 30:54
  Speaker 2: second break now and then come back and talk more
• 30:56
  Speaker 2: about social identity theory.
• 30:59
  Speaker 3: Let's do it.
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: So I guess we should compare social identity theory with
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: the two big ones that we talked about before. Adornos
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: and what was the other guy? I can't remember.
• 31:17
  Speaker 3: That's right.
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: Sharif. Oh, you want me to do that?
• 31:42
  Speaker 2: Well, the big one between Adorno's authoritarian personality theory and
• 31:48
  Speaker 2: social identity theory is that Adorno is basically saying it's
• 31:51
  Speaker 2: a bunch of individuals, messed up issues coming together to
• 31:55
  Speaker 2: create fascism or to create combative in-group, out-group behavior. It's
• 32:02
  Speaker 2: these individuals who have problems. And that just is– it's
• 32:07
  Speaker 2: not the opposite, but it really does not– it's not
• 32:10
  Speaker 2: compatible with social identity theory because to social identity theory,
• 32:14
  Speaker 2: people coming together as a group, that group is what
• 32:17
  Speaker 2: generates just the fact that people are together generates those issues.
• 32:22
  Speaker 2: There are positives and negatives to the whole thing.
• 32:26
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 32:26
  Speaker 2: Like for example, some of the benefits, just a sense
• 32:28
  Speaker 2: of belonging, which people make a case of that. We
• 32:33
  Speaker 2: have developed that evolutionarily to keep us in groups and,
• 32:37
  Speaker 2: That deep sense of well-being that we get from feeling
• 32:40
  Speaker 2: like we belong.
• 32:41
  Speaker 3: Yeah, for sure.
• 32:42
  Speaker 2: That's a huge, huge benefit of being in a group.
• 32:45
  Speaker 2: A sense of purpose. You know, groups typically have missions.
• 32:48
  Speaker 2: I know that you Falcons fans like to go on
• 32:51
  Speaker 2: weekend retreats at camps very often in the off season
• 32:55
  Speaker 2: to talk about the Falcons and their prospects for the
• 32:57
  Speaker 2: next season.
• 32:58
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 32:59
  Speaker 2: That's a purpose.
• 33:00
  Speaker 3: Yeah, totally.
• 33:01
  Speaker 2: And then self-worth, just having a sense of self-esteem from
• 33:05
  Speaker 2: belonging to a group like the Falcons fans. Right. You
• 33:11
  Speaker 2: can't buy that kind of self-esteem that the Falcons give you.
• 33:16
  Speaker 3: Boy, it's so funny that we're using the Falcons because
• 33:18
  Speaker 3: I don't know if there's a collective group of humans
• 33:20
  Speaker 3: on planet Earth that feels worse about themselves. That's funny.
• 33:27
  Speaker 3: The other one was the realistic group conflict theory. So
• 33:31
  Speaker 3: social identity theory is probably a little closer to that
• 33:34
  Speaker 3: one than Adorno's authoritarian personality theory or trait theory, because
• 33:42
  Speaker 3: it frames prejudice as a byproduct of an intergroup conflict.
• 33:48
  Speaker 3: I think maybe one of the differences is that RCT,
• 33:53
  Speaker 3: realistic group conflict theory, sort of frames it as like
• 33:56
  Speaker 3: the resource scarcity that we're talking about. And Tajfell, again,
• 34:00
  Speaker 3: and Turner, they say that scarcity doesn't necessarily have to
• 34:04
  Speaker 3: be a part of that or a precursor, at least
• 34:05
  Speaker 3: to that.
• 34:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And like, there's a lot of different nuances that
• 34:08
  Speaker 2: are different between the two. I think social identity theory
• 34:11
  Speaker 2: like really spreads out much further. But that's the main
• 34:15
  Speaker 2: difference between them.
• 34:17
  Speaker 3: Yeah, agreed.
• 34:18
  Speaker 2: So there's a lot of people who are like, yeah, duh,
• 34:20
  Speaker 2: including you, Chuck. But there's also a lot of people
• 34:23
  Speaker 2: who are like, have you guys proven this? Like we're
• 34:25
  Speaker 2: talking social psychology here. Are we just, somebody did like
• 34:28
  Speaker 2: a study once and everybody says, well, now it's proven.
• 34:32
  Speaker 2: That's maybe. So there's this, this thing that they use
• 34:38
  Speaker 2: to test social identity theory called the minimal group paradigm.
• 34:42
  Speaker 2: And originally I thought minimal referred to like the fewest
• 34:45
  Speaker 2: number of people in a group, which made me think
• 34:48
  Speaker 2: of the special people club from welcome to the dollhouse.
• 34:52
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 34:53
  Speaker 2: With Don Wiener and the kid. Yeah.
• 34:55
  Speaker 3: Was it just like two people?
• 34:56
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 34:57
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 34:58
  Speaker 2: But they mean minimal as far as like the minimum
• 35:02
  Speaker 2: circumstances that the people in the group have in common.
• 35:06
  Speaker 2: Like what is the least amount of stuff that those
• 35:09
  Speaker 2: people can have in common and still belong to a
• 35:11
  Speaker 2: group together that where this behavior will develop? And using
• 35:16
  Speaker 2: that as a test paradigm, I guess. That actually pans
• 35:20
  Speaker 2: social identity theory out basically every time.
• 35:23
  Speaker 3: Yeah, this is where I thought it got like a
• 35:25
  Speaker 3: little more interesting for me and that they in 1979,
• 35:29
  Speaker 3: they got together with another social psychologist named Rupert Brown
• 35:32
  Speaker 3: for a study called Social Comparison in Group Interest and
• 35:35
  Speaker 3: in Group Favoritism. Part of it would help is if
• 35:38
  Speaker 3: they just sexied up these titles for sure. But again,
• 35:43
  Speaker 3: they wanted to see like what what if we just
• 35:46
  Speaker 3: sort of arbitrarily grouped individuals together? And then task them
• 35:50
  Speaker 3: with some questions about something, which we'll see in a minute,
• 35:54
  Speaker 3: and see what happens. And so in this case, it
• 35:56
  Speaker 3: was 62 14- and 15-year-old students. And to group them arbitrarily,
• 36:02
  Speaker 3: they just gave them a series of abstract paintings and said,
• 36:04
  Speaker 3: pick out which one you like the best, and that'll
• 36:07
  Speaker 3: be your group or whatever. And they ended up in
• 36:09
  Speaker 3: four separate groups, the triangle group, the circle group, the
• 36:12
  Speaker 3: dichromatic group, and the polychromatic group.
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: Mm-hmm.
• 36:17
  Speaker 3: So here's what I don't understand is that she said, really,
• 36:20
  Speaker 3: they were just all put in the triangle group. What
• 36:22
  Speaker 3: does that mean?
• 36:23
  Speaker 2: I think that so I didn't get that either. I
• 36:26
  Speaker 2: went and looked. Essentially, they were arbitrarily put into two
• 36:31
  Speaker 2: groups that had nothing to do with what the kids
• 36:33
  Speaker 2: involved thought they were a group member of.
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: So.
• 36:36
  Speaker 2: That whole triangle, circle, dichromatic, polychromatic. It was just to
• 36:40
  Speaker 2: fool the kids into thinking they were a member of
• 36:42
  Speaker 2: a group when really they were just arbitrarily assigned to
• 36:46
  Speaker 2: one of two groups. One was the control group and
• 36:49
  Speaker 2: one was the experimental group, essentially. But those kids didn't
• 36:52
  Speaker 2: think in those terms. They thought, I'm team triangle or
• 36:55
  Speaker 2: I'm team dichromatic.
• 36:56
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I got you.
• 36:57
  Speaker 2: All right.
• 36:58
  Speaker 3: So then they grouped them like this and then they said,
• 37:01
  Speaker 3: fill out these forms and we're going to determine how
• 37:03
  Speaker 3: much each group is going to get paid for the study.
• 37:06
  Speaker 3: And they had like the forms were side by side
• 37:10
  Speaker 3: with like a proposal for a dollar amount for each group.
• 37:14
  Speaker 3: Some of them are equal. Some are not equal. And
• 37:17
  Speaker 3: what they observed was, I think, fairly interesting is that
• 37:22
  Speaker 3: even when like like one of the things they observed
• 37:25
  Speaker 3: was that even when they had a chance for both
• 37:28
  Speaker 3: groups to make 11 bucks, they would choose to make
• 37:32
  Speaker 3: 10 dollars for themselves if the other group made five. So. Essentially,
• 37:37
  Speaker 3: they all chose to have a disparity between the groups.
• 37:42
  Speaker 3: So in other words, to make their group get more
• 37:45
  Speaker 3: money than the other one, even if there was an
• 37:46
  Speaker 3: option to get paid equally and it was more money.
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 37:50
  Speaker 2: So to their own detriment, they wanted to. But essentially,
• 37:53
  Speaker 2: the way that they explained it was that the people
• 37:56
  Speaker 2: choosing that were trying to enhance the status of their group.
• 37:59
  Speaker 2: They weren't trying to maximize their money. They're trying to
• 38:01
  Speaker 2: maximize their group status by making twice as much as
• 38:05
  Speaker 2: another group.
• 38:06
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I think this is fascinating when you
• 38:09
  Speaker 3: look at it in the terms of like the idea
• 38:12
  Speaker 3: of like socialism versus capitalism and making sure everyone's taken
• 38:16
  Speaker 3: care of versus like, screw that guy. I want the
• 38:19
  Speaker 3: most for myself.
• 38:20
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 38:21
  Speaker 3: These are teenagers. It's a little distressing.
• 38:23
  Speaker 2: For sure. There's another one that we turned up in
• 38:27
  Speaker 2: the Journal of Neuroscience from 2021, and it used a
• 38:30
  Speaker 2: brain scan study. This was 34 people. I don't know
• 38:34
  Speaker 2: how many were involved in the other one you just mentioned,
• 38:36
  Speaker 2: but these people had their brain scanned. So they were
• 38:40
  Speaker 2: figuring out what part of their brain they were using
• 38:42
  Speaker 2: while they were doing this. But the thing that really
• 38:44
  Speaker 2: has to do with social identity theory is that they
• 38:47
  Speaker 2: showed people like a video of somebody doing something. This
• 38:52
  Speaker 2: wasn't it, but say carrying a tray full of beer steins,
• 38:56
  Speaker 2: full beer steins, right?
• 38:57
  Speaker 3: Okay.
• 38:58
  Speaker 2: And you were watching somebody give it a shot and
• 39:02
  Speaker 2: then you tried it yourself, right? And if you saw somebody, say,
• 39:06
  Speaker 2: like lifting it with both hands and they were successful
• 39:10
  Speaker 2: or trying to lift it from the bottom and it
• 39:12
  Speaker 2: fell over, if you thought that person was a member
• 39:16
  Speaker 2: of a rival out group, in this case, Democrats or Republicans,
• 39:20
  Speaker 2: you would not learn from their mistake or their successful
• 39:23
  Speaker 2: way of doing it when you tried it. It's like
• 39:26
  Speaker 2: you would refuse to learn from the enemy or this
• 39:29
  Speaker 2: out group. even if it would help you.
• 39:33
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's fascinating to me.
• 39:35
  Speaker 2: It is like super fascinating and it really kind of
• 39:38
  Speaker 2: jibes and makes sense. But a lot of people are like,
• 39:41
  Speaker 2: there's some real criticisms we can level against this. And
• 39:45
  Speaker 2: one of them is, okay, you guys are scanning 34
• 39:47
  Speaker 2: people's brains. You're studying like 16 Boy Scouts, you know,
• 39:51
  Speaker 2: like the stakes are really low here. If you take
• 39:55
  Speaker 2: this and apply it into the real world at higher stakes,
• 39:59
  Speaker 2: like say expressing prejudice or bias against another group publicly,
• 40:04
  Speaker 2: and then potentially have being ostracized or shamed or whatever
• 40:08
  Speaker 2: in response, like are people still going to carry out
• 40:11
  Speaker 2: these behaviors? Like, does it hold up in the real world?
• 40:14
  Speaker 3: Yeah, for sure. And also this idea that like, kind
• 40:18
  Speaker 3: of what you were talking about earlier is sometimes with
• 40:20
  Speaker 3: these studies, I feel like there's a lack of nuance.
• 40:23
  Speaker 3: And so this idea that personal, that like the difference
• 40:27
  Speaker 3: between personal identity and group identity isn't just so cut
• 40:30
  Speaker 3: and dried as Tosh Bell and Turner think of it
• 40:33
  Speaker 3: or propose that it is. And there have been other
• 40:37
  Speaker 3: social psychologists, one in particular named Masaki Yuki, who says that,
• 40:42
  Speaker 3: or at least he argues that you know what, the
• 40:45
  Speaker 3: social identity theory has its limits. If the society is
• 40:49
  Speaker 3: a little more collectivist, like in East Asia was his example.
• 40:54
  Speaker 3: And I think that makes sense because, you know, again,
• 40:57
  Speaker 3: if you're taking these like small groups of like 60
• 41:00
  Speaker 3: teenagers or these Boy Scouts, it's hard to extrapolate that
• 41:03
  Speaker 3: to like, and this is true.
• 41:05
  Speaker 2: All over the world. It is.
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: It is.
• 41:07
  Speaker 2: And I saw someone say like it is universal people
• 41:10
  Speaker 2: discriminating against outgroups in favor of their in-groups. And you
• 41:15
  Speaker 2: can make a case like there's a lot of rivalries
• 41:17
  Speaker 2: between Japanese baseball teams in Japan. Oh, sure. You know,
• 41:21
  Speaker 2: there's rivalries between China and Japan and South Korea and Japan. Yeah.
• 41:26
  Speaker 2: Like it does exist in one form or another. I
• 41:29
  Speaker 2: think that's probably what Tajfell and Turner would point to
• 41:32
  Speaker 2: if they were both still alive. They could be pointing
• 41:35
  Speaker 2: from their graves right now. We wouldn't know, though.
• 41:37
  Speaker 3: That's right. So back to the study with the kids
• 41:42
  Speaker 3: choosing to pay the other groups less. Again, very distressed
• 41:47
  Speaker 3: about that. They thought like, hey, we nailed that study, everybody,
• 41:51
  Speaker 3: because that really bolsters this idea that bias can occur
• 41:55
  Speaker 3: in the absence of conflict. Like there was no reason
• 41:59
  Speaker 3: for these groups to like not want the other group
• 42:02
  Speaker 3: to have as much money. Yet they still did. And
• 42:05
  Speaker 3: this idea of the desire for positive social identity. can
• 42:10
  Speaker 3: lead to bias because the students chose those financial options
• 42:15
  Speaker 3: that made them different from the other group, even, even
• 42:18
  Speaker 3: to their own detriment.
• 42:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And just to restate again, these kids had nothing
• 42:22
  Speaker 2: in common. They weren't even in the groups that they
• 42:25
  Speaker 2: thought they were in. And yet that immediate sense of
• 42:28
  Speaker 2: group membership made them discriminate against people who they thought
• 42:32
  Speaker 2: were in other groups.
• 42:34
  Speaker 3: Yeah, for sure.
• 42:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah. So, um, I think Taj fell and Turner would
• 42:40
  Speaker 2: be like, Hey, we're still pointing. Let's talk about some
• 42:42
  Speaker 2: of this, this stuff in, in real world. Like you
• 42:45
  Speaker 2: want some real world proof. How about some anecdotal proof? Everybody. Yeah.
• 42:50
  Speaker 3: And one great example, they came up with, uh, where
• 42:53
  Speaker 3: a group particular group used social creativity to achieve like
• 42:57
  Speaker 3: a positive distinctiveness that they were talking about, which can
• 43:00
  Speaker 3: be attained was the black is beautiful movement in the
• 43:04
  Speaker 3: 1960s when black Americans were like, you know what, we're
• 43:07
  Speaker 3: sort of tired of hearing about how this idea of
• 43:09
  Speaker 3: beauty is so Eurocentric and, you know, blonde hair and
• 43:12
  Speaker 3: blue eyes is all that. Like, no, no, black is beautiful.
• 43:16
  Speaker 3: Our skin color is beautiful. Our hair and our culture
• 43:19
  Speaker 3: is all beautiful. And just the black aesthetic was like
• 43:24
  Speaker 3: fully embraced and touted as a movement. And that did a,
• 43:27
  Speaker 3: I think that was a huge like cultural change in
• 43:30
  Speaker 3: the 1960s.
• 43:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And that was a great example of social creativity, right?
• 43:34
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 43:35
  Speaker 2: And then another example of social creativity is poor white racism,
• 43:41
  Speaker 2: where a group, in this case, poor white Americans... choose
• 43:47
  Speaker 2: to discriminate against poor black Americans because they are capable
• 43:51
  Speaker 2: of feeling superior of the other group rather than comparing
• 43:54
  Speaker 2: themselves to wealthy white Americans. And then kind of fast
• 44:01
  Speaker 2: forwarding to today, there's also a lot. I mean, it's
• 44:04
  Speaker 2: still very much going on. Like in the United States,
• 44:07
  Speaker 2: the more you identify with not just your political party,
• 44:11
  Speaker 2: but like what your political party stands for, The more
• 44:15
  Speaker 2: you take that on yourself as part of your identity,
• 44:19
  Speaker 2: the more likely you are to view the opposing party
• 44:23
  Speaker 2: as bad people, as dumb, as not having any idea
• 44:28
  Speaker 2: what you're supposed to do with the country, that kind
• 44:30
  Speaker 2: of stuff.
• 44:31
  Speaker 3: Yeah, for sure. There are people that argue that in
• 44:34
  Speaker 3: order to radicalize somebody into maybe an extremist group, it
• 44:39
  Speaker 3: really helps when you appeal to them. with a real
• 44:43
  Speaker 3: distinctive identity for the in-group that they're trying to get
• 44:47
  Speaker 3: you in. Yes.
• 44:49
  Speaker 2: Another one is that products, like domestic versus foreign-made products.
• 44:55
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah.
• 44:56
  Speaker 2: That in-group, out-group predicts that, your sense of ethnocentrism or nationalism. Sure.
• 45:03
  Speaker 2: And then musical preference. There was a study done by
• 45:05
  Speaker 2: a guy named Daniel Shepard who found that the more
• 45:10
  Speaker 2: strongly you identify with your musical preference, the more likely
• 45:14
  Speaker 2: you were to say, say other musical preferences suck. And, um,
• 45:18
  Speaker 2: that reminded me of disco demolition night from 1979. You
• 45:21
  Speaker 2: remember that?
• 45:22
  Speaker 3: Yeah, for sure.
• 45:23
  Speaker 2: Where all those rockers like rioted because they hated disco
• 45:26
  Speaker 2: so much.
• 45:27
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 45:29
  Speaker 2: Um, and I guess that's about it. Like, yeah, duh,
• 45:32
  Speaker 2: definitely sums it up. But to me, it was like
• 45:35
  Speaker 2: the nuts and bolts of the whole thing that were so, uh,
• 45:38
  Speaker 2: interesting that in your, all of your awesome examples.
• 45:41
  Speaker 3: Well, I really enjoyed that study of the kids choosing
• 45:46
  Speaker 3: to pay the other kids less. I thought that was fascinating.
• 45:48
  Speaker 3: And I think a lot of this stuff is fairly
• 45:49
  Speaker 3: fascinating at the end of the day. Good. I think
• 45:53
  Speaker 3: it won me over a bit.
• 45:54
  Speaker 2: Good. I'm glad. Well, since Chuck's been won over, you
• 45:57
  Speaker 2: know everybody. That automatically triggers listener mail.
• 46:05
  Speaker 3: I'm going to do the shorter one around this one. So, hey, guys.
• 46:09
  Speaker 3: In the Judy Blume episode, you guys were talking about
• 46:11
  Speaker 3: we must, we must, we must increase our bust. That
• 46:14
  Speaker 3: actually wasn't invented by Blume. She's the same generation as
• 46:18
  Speaker 3: my mother, and they did that in junior high school.
• 46:21
  Speaker 3: The rest of the rhyme, according to my mom, goes,
• 46:24
  Speaker 3: the bigger the better, the tighter the sweater, the boys
• 46:27
  Speaker 3: are counting on us. Judy Blume and Beverly Cleary shaped
• 46:31
  Speaker 3: generations of young mind guys. That is from Margo in
• 46:34
  Speaker 3: New York City, and we had a few different people
• 46:37
  Speaker 3: write in and tell us that, and I I tried
• 46:38
  Speaker 3: to find online like the origination of that and almost
• 46:43
  Speaker 3: everything says Judy Blume until you dig into Reddit and
• 46:45
  Speaker 3: then somebody has a pretty exhaustive list of like, you know,
• 46:49
  Speaker 3: in the 1950s it was used in this thing and
• 46:51
  Speaker 3: it was used in this thing. But I don't think
• 46:53
  Speaker 3: anyone ever nailed like the first person to say it.
• 46:55
  Speaker 2: Good old Reddit.
• 46:57
  Speaker 3: Good old Reddit.
• 46:58
  Speaker 2: That was from Margo?
• 47:00
  Speaker 3: That was Margo in New York City.
• 47:01
  Speaker 2: Awesome. Thanks a lot, Margo. That was wonderful. And if
• 47:04
  Speaker 2: you want to be like Margo and make us laugh
• 47:06
  Speaker 2: and delight us, you can send us an email too.
• 47:09
  Speaker 2: Send it off to stuffpodcast at iheartradio.com.
• 47:16
  Speaker 1: Stuff You Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.