The Digital Difference by W. Russell Neuman

Author:W. Russell Neuman [Neuman, W. Russell]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Political Science, Public Policy, Communication Policy, Social Science, Sociology, General, Media Studies, Technology & Engineering, Social Aspects
ISBN: 9780674504936
Google: OO6vDAAAQBAJ
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Published: 2016-06-06T05:33:07+00:00

The Psychology of Social Identification

There is a seminal study in the psychology of identification that still inspires attention and evokes thought. In 1954, Muzafer and Carolyn Sherif designed a field study to explore the dynamics of identification and conflict in social groups. They organized a summer camp in Robbers Cave State Park in Oklahoma for research purposes and recruited twenty-two twelve-year-old boys of similar backgrounds. They were picked up separately in two buses; each bus carried half the campers. Neither group knew of the other’s existence. The boys were assigned to two camping areas at sufficient distance that each group remained unaware of the other for the first stage of the experiment to permit in-group bonding and group identification, which happened spontaneously in the first few days, including hierarchies within each group. One group decided to name themselves “The Rattlers” and the other “The Eagles.” At this point the researchers brought the groups into a common area of the campground for a series of sports competitions and contests between the two newly formed social groups. The Rattlers’ response to the competition was to proclaim confidence that they would emerge the victors and spend a day in preparation talking about the forthcoming events and proposed to put a “Keep Off” sign on the playing field. They decided to put their Rattlers flag on the field instead and threatened revenge if anybody touched their flag. When it was arranged for the two groups to eat in the same mess hall there was spontaneous name-calling and singing of mutually disparaging songs. The flags of each social groups became increasingly salient symbols as each group raided the other’s cabins and threatened to burn the other’s newly created symbolic identity. The competitions were intense, the children almost came to blows, and there was much name-calling and demonstrable holding of noses in the presence of the other group. It is safe to say that the Sherifs, although they carefully documented this nearly instantaneous bonding and out-group derogation, became concerned that their exercise turned out to be a little too successful, so they confiscated pocketknives and other potential weapons and quickly moved to a series of cooperative activities to get the groups working together and did so with some success (Sherif et al. 1961). A great deal of research on social identity and out-group derogation has been undertaken since the Sherifs, but the melodrama of their summer exercise still resonates and motivates this research effort (for overviews of this research tradition, see Tajfel and Turner 1986; Dovidio, Glick, and Rudman 2005; Trepte 2006; Kinder and Kam 2009).

It is amusing to note that when the Sherifs and their staff realized how quickly and powerfully they had succeeded in creating team social identity and energetic competition between the teams they became concerned about incipient violence and proceeded to commandeer potential weapons and tone down the competition. The cooperative activities did succeed in keeping the competition healthy and in appropriate bounds. The impulse toward polarization is a given, but structure of social interaction matters.

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