social identity theory

 Henri Tajfel (1979) proposed that groups which people belonged to
were an important source of pride and self esteem.

In order to increase our self image we enhance the status of the group we belong to and make any other group seem inferior through discrimination or prejudice.

There are three mental processes involved in evaluating others as "us" and "them"

1) Categorization - We categorize things to understand them. We do the same with people. They can be useful in identification such as a police officer.

2) Identification - we adopt the identify of the group we categorized ourselves into. Meaning we do things they do and stick to their social norms

3) Comparison - we then compare our group with other groups. To maintain our self esteem our group must be the best against the
others

Some popular social identities 


MODS

 

A subculture that began in the UK in the 1960's, famed for their use of Vespa scooters, smart dressing, amphetamines and 'The Who'. They had extremely famous rivalry with a subculture known as 'rockers'. Mods rejected the class system and did not care for specific gender roles. They also believed a woman did not have to be attached to a man, a minority view at the time. 

 

 

ROCKERS

Their development was credited to the 1950's teddy boy style. Rockers wore heavily-decorated leather motorcycle jackets, often adorned with metal studs, patches and pin badges with levis and t-shirts. They were not widely welcomed into bars due to their style of clothing. They 'damaged the UK'S look on motorcycling' because they dropped out of mainstream society.


There is an extremely famous rivalry between the Mods and the Rockers with numerous brawls in seaside towns.. Newspapers at the time described the mod and rocker clashes as being of "disastrous proportions", and labelled mods and rockers as "vermin" and "louts".Newspaper editorials fanned the flames of hysteria, such as a Birmingham Post editorial in May 1964, which warned that mods and rockers were "internal enemies" in the UK who would "bring about disintegration of a nation's character". The magazine Police Review argued that "the mods and rockers' purported lack of respect for law and order could cause violence to "surge and flame like a forest fire". When newspapers ran out of fights to report,writers  began to associate mods and rockers with various social issues, such as teen pregnancy, contraceptives, amphetamines, and violence.

Skinheads

 



 

Skinheads had two waves, originally in the 1960s and then again in the 1980's. Some wore button-up shirts or polo shirts by brands such as Ben Sherman or Fred Perry, sweatshirts or V-neck sweaters, T-shirts ( usually plain or with designs related to skinheads ). They're often shown as a violent and racist subculture, mainly to do with media portrayal. Ironically, skinheads originally were into black and Ska music.

 

 

 

In the 21st Century it would be easy to see that strong adversity to people of other groups has deteriorated and the rules of each group have been significantly blurred. Now just by looking around its easy to see that there is very little hostility to other groups but there's also the decline of social groups in general, there are very little rules to how you must dress or be to belong to a social group, which may be accredited to the mainstream view of acceptance amongst all different groups of people. However the media still try to box people into categories even with the blurring of these culturally lines and society itself still has issues with the way in which someone's appearance affects there ability to work hard or be a good person. For example, there is a large stigma around the professionalism of tattoos and piercings and for people with these to be violent and scary people.