Social Identity Theory: Your Group Rules, Others Drool

0:00This is an I Heart Podcast. Guaranteed Human. Hey, this is Hayes Davenport. And Sean Clements. We host the podcast, Hollywood Handbook. Each week we talk to someone in show business and try to help them with their careers and see what they have to offer us. Everyone has a good time and no one gets mad at their publicists for letting them do our show. We've had a lot of great guests like Sarah Sherman, Adam Scott, Danny McBride, Ben Stillert, and a lot of other big shots that wouldn't be where they are without us. Listen to Hollywood Handbook on the I Heart Radio app Apple Podcast or wherever you get your podcasts. If you're a bookshelf and you're a for you page are equally important to your personality, welcome home. Pro Society is a weekly podcast that's part book club, part group chat for anyone who thinks pride and prejudice and love island deserve the same level of discourse. Each week we're connecting the dots between books, the internet, and pop culture. With your favorite writers, book talk creators, and plenty of overthought opinions. I'm obsessed. I'm obsessed. Listen to pro society on the I Heart Radio app Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your

1:03podcasts. On the new podcast, Solita, we share the messy reality of traveling alone as a woman. I can wait four hours for the next bus or this random dude is offering the ride on his motorcycle. I choose option B. I'm Julie Pinero and I travel by myself because it's a rare space where I can say yes without asking anyone else first. I'm on a mission to reclaim the word Solita, trading the pity for possibility. Listen to Solita on the I Heart Radio app Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of I Heart Radio. Hey and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh and there's Chuck and Jerry's here too. And we're just a super cool in group looking down on your out group. You're on Stuff You Should Know. That's right.

2:04Did you hear that thunder? Can you hear that? No. There's a little too delicate the sound was. Uh, yeah, it just started raining and it's thundering pretty good so maybe people can hear that and might add a little mood. That's nice. Yeah, I think we could use a little mood on this one. This is a very rigid look at what I think is a very interesting social psychology theory. Oh yeah. Yeah. Do you not find it very interesting? I didn't find this one super interesting. This, you know, like a lot of social psychology. This one I filed under like, yeah, I guess you're, you know, you're observing something that happens. That's about where it ended for me. I get it. I get it. Um, to me, yeah, I mean, I sense what you're talking about. Like there's just something. I feel like we're talking people out of listening to this episode right now. Okay. Well, we'll just clear everybody in and you can make up your own mind how you feel about this guys.

3:04What we're talking about is social identity theory, which you probably gleaned from the title. And in nutshell, social identity theory basically says that we get a sense of self and belonging and well, we help develop our identity from the groups we belong to. And that is very different from the idea that we just develop as individuals through normal developmental psychology. In fact, the guys who came up with social identity theory basically say it's the group. That's the thing, not the individual. Like that's where we really develop most of our identities from interacting with other people. Yeah. I think I don't think anyone will be talked in or out of liking or thinking this is interesting because I think it'll be whether or not you're into social psychology generally as a whole or not. I bet. Yeah. Because for a lot of social psychology for me, I'm like sort of like I was saying, I was like, a lot of this stuff to me is like, well, yeah, duh.

4:06But like, what's the point? Sure. Well, here's the point. This is, this is the point as far as I can tell. Like the point, the part I just said is definitely duh. Yeah. But the reason they came up with social identity theory is to explain stuff that here to four and still some people are like, I don't know about social identity theory, although it's the dominant framework for explaining this stuff. Yeah. Explaining things that are tough to explain. Like why do normal people become fascists get swept up in fascist movements? Why do sports fans get in fights with sports fans from rival teams? Alcohol. Like these things, sure. I mean, yeah, you can't really deny that. Yeah. But they're like, they don't quite make sense. Sure. When you step back and look at things. And so social identity theory says all of this can be explained with this theory. And I think that's where it gets interesting for me, especially the idea that this is so

5:07ingrained in our evolutionary history that we basically can't do anything about it. Like even being aware of this can only help to such a degree. Like you're still innately attracted to being a member of a group. Yeah. I think that's my deal. And I promise I'm not going to say like 100 times because I do think some of the social psychology stuff is fairly interesting. I'm just more a person who's like sort of a what like where does that get us in the end. You know what I mean? Yes. I totally get that. We should also give our caveat because we make fun of social psychology and the studies involved so frequently, it would be it would be pretty rich to just be like, yeah, this is super cool and proven. Yeah. A lot of the studies, just like any other social psychology field or sub-divisive discipline is there like 30 people who are grad students or undergrad students that

6:08were getting extra credit. That's what the study found or that's what the study used. Yeah. And whatever they found, that's now just universally applied to everybody. Yeah. And in a lot of cases, that's just not correct. But this one is so like you said, duh, that it seems like yes, this is very true. Yeah. For sure. And I guess we should start with conflict, intergroup conflict, which is not intragroup conflict. So in this case, we're talking about conflict between two different groups. It's sort of like if you just think of like us versus them for a lot of this, you're along the right track. And in this case, it's, you know, if you develop an intergroup conflict that's developing some sort of prejudice or bias maybe against another group like in, you know, like let's say you're the in group, everyone thinks they're the in group, but an in group versus an out group. And for a long time before these two Henri, Tushfell and John Turner came along in the

7:1270s, there were people, other social psychologists explaining it in a different way. And mainly in a couple of different ways, starting with 1950 with theodore Adorno and his publishing along with his colleagues of the authoritarian personality and trying to trying to sort of describe like, hey, what's the deal with Nazis and like the aftermath of Nazis? And like what kind of person is going to get swept up in that kind of thing? Right. So, Adorno basically said that it's the people who are getting swept up that are essentially causing the sweeping in the first place. That if you put a bunch of what he called authoritarian personalities, who aren't, that doesn't describe somebody who aspires to become an authoritarian leader, those are people who feel most secure when submitting to an authoritarian leader. So you put a bunch of those people together, say in a Nazi party, that fascism is just

8:13going to take off and attract more like-minded people. It makes sense, but I don't think anybody was like, that's it. That explains fascism. Yeah, for sure. And so the other one that I mentioned before the other two guys in the 70s that we're going to get to was in the 1960s, there was a social psychologist named Moussa Fer Shareef, who he, again, these little like small experiments. This is at a Boy Scout camp. He separated two groups at Boy Scouts at camp and he said, all right, you know, you're just in two groups, get to know one another, get to know each other. And everything was going pretty good and nothing was unusual until all of a sudden he introduced the idea of competition for prizes. Yeah. And that's when it became Lord of the Flies. Yeah, for sure. He was like, one group gets blue ribbons, the other gets participant ribbons and it was on from that point, you know. So he came up with something called realistic group conflict theory because once the prizes

9:17were introduced, there was all sorts of conflict that came out of it, right? Now all of a sudden group A was discriminating against group B and maybe they would get into like little fights or something like that. If that was completely outside of the competition and he basically said, okay, that stands in for resources. Like if you switched out, you know, first prize with access to dwindling water, now you have a true general universal explanation for why groups get in conflict. It's over material scarcity. I'm not going to say duh. I promise. But even that one realistic group conflict theory, people are like, yeah, that sounds kind of good, but still it just doesn't smack of like, it doesn't smack of duh as Chuck will eventually put it. And that's when Taj fel and Turner came around. Yeah. So Henri Taj fel, he was the first part of this, this to some, he was a social psychologist

10:18at the University of Bristol. He was born to a Jewish family in Poland and immigrated to France in the 1930s. And lost most of his family to the Holocaust in World War II. And so he changed over from chemistry to social psychology. I guess the inference there is in maybe some bid to try and understand what the heck happened. Yeah, which was, I mean, he wasn't the only one. Like that's where Adorno and Sharif were like Nazi Germany just came out of nowhere. Yeah. The idea that his family had perished at the hands of the Nazis. I could see that's what the reason was. Yeah. So he hooked up with John Turner. They met at University of Bristol. He was a PhD student. And as an undergrad, as far as his interest in this kind of thing, he dropped out of college a few times, ended up working just sort of, you know, regular old blue collar jobs. And through those jobs had dealings with unions and things.

11:18And I guess just became kind of fascinated about this social dynamic and group dynamics within a union. Yeah. So when you met Taj Vell, I guess love was in the air. And they said, Hey, let's get together and work on this stuff together. Yeah. And ended up writing sort of the watershed paper or the initial one at least on this from them. An integrative theory of intergroup conflict, which is like basically their statement to the world of like, here's what we think about all this. Yeah. And this is where social identity theory came from. This is the paper it was proposed in. And should we take a break now or dive into the nuts and bolts? No, no, I think it's a good, a good break time. Okay, everybody. You're going to have to wait for the nuts and bolts after these messages. Hey, this is Dave and Sean Clemmons. We host the podcast, Hollywood Handbook on the big money players network.

12:22Our show is extremely accessible to first time listeners. Each week we talk to someone in show business, aka the biz and try to help them with their careers and see what they have to offer us. Everyone has a good time and no one gets mad at their publicists for letting them do our show. We've had a lot of great guests like Sarah Sherman. Not that great. I actually can you help me can you help me shape this? Yeah. How about we flip it on his head? No. Okay. What is the surprise one then? Actually, you think it's the straight man is actually the one who's acting weird. Adam Scott. Love this entire time. You've been expecting Adam Sandler to come to visit the show. I would never let go of that. I have. I would never set expectations for something like that. It sounds like if the universe allows for something like that to happen. I am open to it. I'm always going to accept. You know, Danny McBride. Fine. Yeah. It's all this fragile masculinity exuding. I could smell it walking on the hallway to be honest with you.

13:25I was like, I smell that exactly. I was like, exactly. Nope. It's fragile masculinity. Ben stiller. No. I think there's a lot of times out of context, people don't get it or even know what a circle is. You know what I mean? Like, you're like, oh, it's so stupid. Everyone's so dumb. I'm scared of you. Right, fake and also not interested or just like, oh, I've got my life. I don't care about your life. And a lot of other big shots that wouldn't be where they are without us. Oh, and by the way, Will Ferrell told us personally he loves the show and he wants to be a guest on every episode. But he's just so busy. Listen to Hollywood Handbook on the I Heart Radio app Apple Podcast or wherever you get your podcasts. If you're bookshelf and you're for you page are equally important to your personality, welcome home. This is Pro's Society, the weekly podcast that's part book club, part group chat for thought daughters, pop culture obsessives and anyone who thinks pride and prejudice and love island deserve the same level of discourse. I'm Eli Rallo and every week we're connecting the dots between books, the internet and the

14:26conversations everyone can't stop having. I'm going to have to look up this story. I'm obsessed. I'm obsessed. From bestselling authors and your favorite book talk creators to the latest pop culture moments, nothing is off the table. Like if you can hide some real messages inside compelling characters and that is a Trojan horse, whether you're looking for literary deep dives, smart pop culture conversations or a community of readers who love to think a little too much, you're in the right place. Listen to Pro's Society on the I Heart Radio app Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. See you between the pages. On the new podcast, Solita, we share the messy reality of traveling alone as a way to a woman. I can wait four hours for the next bus or this random dude is offering me a ride on his motorcycle. I choose option B. I'm Julie Beniero and I travel by myself because it's a rare space where I can say yes without asking anyone else first. I'm on a mission to reclaim the word Solita, trading the pity for possibility.

15:31Every time I tried to be alone, I kept meeting people and they were like, you smiled at us, not a lot of people smile around here. It's when you're alone that you're most receptive to the world as it is and not the lies you're sold about it. It can be a time where you push your limits, change your mind, or wake up to a new version of yourself. So whether you're a solo travel veteran or you're too nervous to book your first trip, I hope you listen to Solita on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. All right, Chuck. So where we left off, we were about to dive into the seminal paper from 1979 by Tosh Phil Enterner, an integrative theory of intergroup conflict. And it sounds dry and boring. And it basically changed how psychology, but also people outside of academia see the

16:37world, you know? I wonder if one of the reasons why it seems so dull is because this paper was persuasive and became pervasive, that now that we're living today in 2026, it just seems of course to us. But at the time, it didn't necessarily. I wonder about that. You were eight years old. Do you remember if people were walking around already think this was, uh, uh, didn't know it eight. By the way, that's the most snoop dog way you've ever described something in your life. What what what is it pervasive and persuasive? For shizzle. Uh, yeah, I don't remember that of course. But in that paper, they proposed a few different, um, basically processes that they think explain how people form into groups and group behavior. Yeah. And then get into conflict with others and have prejudice against others. And they started that with, um, social categorization, which is, uh, basically you have to

17:39form into a group to begin with if you're going to have conflict with another group or compare yourself to another group. Yeah. And then so within categorization, so what Taj fell and, uh, Turner seemed to have done is they took some other existing ideas and social psychology that hadn't necessarily been applied to groups or whatever, um, and put them together to kind of form social identity theory and apply it to groups. But categorization, um, had already been around. There's something that had been identified as the category accentuation effect. And it is basically like once we start identifying ourselves as members of groups and other people as members of other groups in groups and out groups, uh, we start, we go, we get busy categorizing. And when we get busy categorizing, what we're doing is using a very ancient process, which is heuristics, right? Like our brain loves to take shortcuts. So it's, it does away with all the nuance and details and just basically does this big

18:45lumpy thing that's good enough. And when we categorize people into groups, it goes through that process. So we start seeing them differently. Yeah, for sure. And the reason we've formed groups to begin with, um, is kind of twofold is one, they think evolutionary is that we've always wanted to just sort of classify the world around us by seeking patterns and things. And then the sort of the obvious thing, which is that it's a benefit, uh, especially early on when, uh, people were evolving is to form a group for pulling resources and to divide up the hunting and gathering and co-parenting and protecting one another from either predators or other, uh, what would end up being, you know, competitive, uh, groups outside your tribe or whatever. And so for like defense purposes, that kind of thing. Yeah. And I mean, it's no fun to watch not slanting by yourself. It's much better with the group. That's a very good point. So because of that, the heuristics that our brains just innately use to, to kind of

19:45take these shortcuts and use less, less energy, um, when we start categorizing people and ourselves, the variability within our own group, the in group starts to go away. So we start seeing other people, um, say other, um, Falcons fans, right? It's similar to us, right? Like we're all Falcons fans and everything else that makes us different, just kind of vanishes because we're Falcons fans. And that's what we identify as. At the same time, it, um, does the same thing in the out group, but in a much less positive way, those are Steelers fans. They all suck. They're terrible people. And then the differences between the in group and the out group are, um, boosted as well. So all these things just basically go through this very distorted lens when we start categorizing people into groups. And that's, that's where trouble starts to come. And that's just one point of social identity theory. For sure. And by the way, we don't mean that again, Steelers fans, because I have a strong feeling

20:46that Josh has no idea that the very first game of the season is Falcons versus Steelers this year. Of course I knew that. Who doesn't know that? No, we don't, if you were, um, you were certainly weren't trying to say Steelers fans are bad people because you would have said Eagles fans or Patriots fans probably. Um, I think all three, it applies all three. Oh, wow. Okay. Standing by it. Do you always get so much guff for, um, talking about, um, any Philadelphia fans? Yeah. I know. It's funny because people get really mad at you. I know. It's because they're bad people. That always reminds me of that onion teacher that said, uh, my local sports team is better than your local sports team. Oh, that's funny. Yeah. Uh, I love fans of all stripes. People affiliated. No one, um, just kidding around. I love the city of Philadelphia. I love to visit there. Um, don't have the best time when our teams play each other. And that's not my fault. I'll just say, I'll just leave it at that. But look what you just did something that I think is worth pointing out, right?

21:48Okay. You went from being a Falcons fan, which you remained, um, which is your in group and then fillies of Eagles fans are an out group to you. But then you kind of rose up your altitude increased and you went to like the 10,000 foot level and you included Eagles fans in the in group with yourself as just fans in general. Yeah. Cause if it was up to me, all rivalry like that would be just very good nature and fun. And like, Hey, let's just go have a good time at the game and maybe rib each other. So it's, it's when like people take it seriously and curse in front of children and throw beers and like that's, that's when it gets to the point where I'm like, well, that's no fun. Well, that brings up the, uh, the next point or the next nut or bolt, I guess, depending on your view of social identity theory, which is social identification. I think that kind of explains what you just described. I think you're right. That's when you start to identify with, um, with my group, let's say Falcons fans, uh,

22:51and then that becomes part of my sense of self. But, you know, we're influenced by the values and, you know, when it comes to sports, maybe it's values and stuff don't come as into play. But, but the opinions and values and maybe behaviors of the larger group, behavior for sure. For sure. Yeah. And I mean, everybody, I'm sure has met somebody who's like, wow, your whole identity is tied up in being a Falcons fan. Like this is your life, right? Uh, well, not me, but yeah, no, not you, but there are people out there. I'm sure you've met them just from being a Falcons fan. You can't help but Rob Elbows with people who are, you're like, wow, this is really important to you. Like you can tell that this person identifies it throughout life as a Falcons fan, I think. That's true. But you know, the problem with Falcons fans is that we're not as like that as much as a lot of cities. Well, that's, that's Atlanta for you. No, exactly for anybody. Yeah. For sure. Um, I do feel like we should at least acknowledge and give a hat tip to Anna, who

23:51helps us with this. Yeah. Every single, um, example she used was the Matt's. Matt's very clearly a Mets fan. She tried very hard to get the Mets in there. So yeah, go Mets. That's pretty funny. Uh, and then the final, um, of the third would be social comparison. And that's when, and we've kind of been doing this a little bit with our joking around about sports is comparing our group or whatever, you know, what we think is our in group to the out groups and other groups. Uh, and you know, it can be a lot of different things because we've just been doing just that. Like you said, uh, sometimes it's a favorable opinion, sometimes it's unfavorable. Sometimes it's neutral. Uh, but like we're incentivized in a way to make obviously configurable comparisons between our in group and the out group because that helps your own self esteem and the self esteem was a group overall. And what they call, uh, positive distinctiveness. Yeah. Like we're different from the out group, but in the best possible way, and, you

24:53know, best possible way can mean all sorts of things depending on the context of the group, which is what I was just doing. Like we don't curse out in front of kids and throw beers and stuff. Exactly. Falcon's fans don't do that. Um, that seems to have kind of adopted a pre existing theory called social comparison theory from 1954 by psychologist Leon Fetsinger. Yeah. And, um, Fetsinger was was applying this to individuals, basically saying that our self worth is very commonly determined by or, or generated by comparison to others. It can be, you know, comparing ourselves to somebody we think is above us. And then maybe that motivates us to do better. More often than not, we compare ourselves to people who are say below us. I made scare quotes just now. And that that generates attitudes of like superiority, prejudice, bias, all that stuff. So what, um, Taj fel and Turner did was they seemed to have taken social comparison theory and made it a component of social identity theory and applied

25:55to groups rather than just individuals. Yeah. And, you know, comparison that can be tricky because when you're talking about comparing sports fans, it's not that big of a deal. But if you're talking about comparing like a, you know, an ethnic group that you're in or a social, uh, socio economic group that you're in, right? That's when it gets really kind of sticky and gross. And that's when or why you hear, I think, um, famous sayings, like comparison is the thief of joy from Roosevelt or Twain's comparison is the death of joy because that's when it, you know, if you're really sitting around comparing yourself to people of a, of like a higher financial class or something, like that, that is truly the, the death of joy, um, because it can consume you. I would imagine. Yeah. I mean, that's what makes Instagram in particular. So toxic, but pretty much all social media is it engenders comparison. Like that's the, that you can't help but do that. Yeah. You know, so yeah, it's a, it is the death of joy.

26:58Uh, here's the thing about a Taj fell and Turner though is, um, and this is kind of an important point. Like they don't think that, um, like in the case I was just talking about with what like your socio economic status, that's obviously something that has a, like a material basis that it's root. Yeah. But it doesn't have to have that. And that's what they pause it. And I agree that conflict doesn't need a material basis. Um, it can be, you know, there can be a situation like back in the days of took took where they're very, very limited resources and, um, incompatible group goals maybe within a group and, uh, it, like it doesn't necessarily have to do with the material thing. So I disagree with that. I, I think that if you look deep enough or if you expand your definition of, um, resources widely enough, yeah, maybe they're always as one. So dominance is, is probably a pretty common one. One group wants to dominate the rest and have say over what, you know, where the society that all the groups form goes.

28:01That's a big one. Good point. You could say winning is a resource like there's really only one group that can win, unless you're playing soccer and then everybody wins. Uh, um, so yeah, if you start to get more, you know, less tangible and more esoteric or ethereal, one of those, um, ethereal, I think, then, then, to me, there's always some sort of resource at stake. Okay. So you disagree and because there are ideas that prejudice doesn't require material inequality and you feel like it does. Yeah. Depending on your definition of material, I think. All right. Well, that makes sense. Um, so Tajfeld and Turner were onto something they felt and so they were like, all right, what if we dig down a little bit deeper and we started kind of poking or not poking holes, but asking questions about groups and a person's place within a group. Um, and one question they came up with is like, what if you don't feel good about the group that you're in, right? And that could be a group that you're born into. It could be an ethnic group that you're born into or a financial

29:02strata that you're born into. And they said, all right, there's a few different strategies that you can employ if you aren't so happy. And the first one was individual mobility, which is this idea of like, let's say it's a high school click and you're in the Dungeons and Dragons club. Yeah. And you're starting to not feel so great about that. So what you think the move to do is is to, um, uh, to, to, you know, to climb to what you perceive as a higher social status and, and become friends with like the popular kids or the jocks or whatever. And this is only the key here is this is only a thing if, if that's something that's possible to do. Like you can't change your race in other words. But you may be able to elevate from the D and D group to the whatever perceived a more popular crowd is. It depends if that, if that high school hierarchy is so rigid that the jocks are like nerds need not apply, even former nerds. Then maybe, you know, you're, now you're an outcast from both groups. You're just in the middle and you're, you're up the creek.

30:04They make teen movies about this very thing. Oh, wait. I mean, yeah, every John Hughes movie almost is sort of has this at the, as, a basis. Right. And then the lesson that's learned is that that group that you originally felt superior to or thought were losers or whatever, that they are the ones that truly care about you. The jocks don't care about you guys. Let's, let's just face it. Yeah. And in the movies though, it's almost always possible to make that leap. Or if you don't make that leap to for someone from that upper group to peel away from them to recognize you anyway. Yes. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. What was the one with him? He was like the hot guy on Grey's Anatomy at first. Mick Dreamy. Yes. What was the hot guy? Can't buy me love. Yes. I don't think it's ever been done better than that one. I love that movie. And we're kind of, that one's a little too far along for Ruby, but we did have recently watched some kind of wonderful and pretty and pink, which also have sort of this idea. But, but yeah, can't buy me love really nails it.

31:05I love all three of those movies. I like, I have forever like it's just in my head that scene where he goes to the Italian pizza guy who's like this kind of like Don Juan. And he's like, what are you, what have you done before like if your, you know, girlfriend's husband found out about you? He's like, I take a knife and I stab him a bunch of times. He don't bother me and no more. Oh, the 80s movies. Yeah, they're great. All right. So individual mobility is one. Social creativity is the next one. If you don't feel about like great about how your group as a whole is perceived, you can maybe just start sort of changing the language about how you're comparing your group to other people. So the first subgroup of that is comparing your in group to the out group in a different way. So like, you know, the D&D group like we may not be as cool of the jocks, but like we're a lot smarter than them.

32:05Precisely. That's an excellent example. Yeah. Another one is you can basically change what attributes are focused on about your group, right? So I guess go into the D&D one, say, I don't know. I can't figure out how to use that one. You got something for that. Well, it's sort of about how, how changing how others perceive your group. So like maybe the D&D group may not be looked at as, as cool, but like we have the best like homemade, like shirts. I guess so. That seems similar to the first one. It sort of does a little bit. But it's in, it's in how like I think in the, in the first one, it's like how they perceive themselves like we're smarter than they are and they'll just never know it. And the other one is, is we've got like these cool uniforms that we wear and everyone thinks they're awesome. Gotcha. Great. Great example. How about D&D uniforms are awesome. Well, I was thinking of the, in stranger things, the Hellfire Club and the cool T-shirts.

33:09Oh, okay. I only saw the first season. Yeah. You know, I liked it all, but it, it, it's first season was great. Have you seen the devil in silver? It's the third installation of the terror series. I don't know about any of those things. Oh, well, just start watching the terror. Well, yeah, you've told this about that. I remember that now. Skip over season two and then just go to season three. It was pretty good. Okay. One season one like sailboats and frigates and stuff. Yeah. Pirates or something. It was based on, I can't remember which expedition, but a lost British Navy expedition in the Arctic and it was like based on that, but also had like all sorts of fiction. Okay. So seasons one and three. Yes. Just do not watch season two. All right. So the third way you can do that is change what out group you're comparing yourself with. So the D&D group would say like, well, we may be D&D nerds, but have you seen the chess club? Right. Wow.

34:09You're just on fire today, man. And I love chess club. I love chess. I love D&D. I'm not slacking any of these. If anything, I'm anti, anti-jock. There you go. Got to be anti somebody, right? That's the whole in group out group basis. Oh, man. I'm just getting myself in trouble to all our teen listeners. One of the things about the social creativity too is. All three of those, they don't actually change anything in the way of like the hierarchy. The jocks are still, you know, at the top, they wrote the school, but things have changed. There's something has changed, right? Social mobility is like, like the group has changed because you've left. And maybe the hierarchy has changed because you joined this higher group or whatever, but social creativity does not actually change any, any part of like the larger structure, say of society. Yeah. For sure. So those were the first two. The last one is very easy at social competition. And that's when you choose to take on the group that you perceive ahead of you, like head on. So that's revenge in the nerds.

35:11Yes. It is that or any like if there was some greedy developer who's trying to shut something down, mm hmm. That's the basis of it. Whether it's a ski resort or car wash or a hot dog. It's thin. That's that's it right there. Taking it on. That's right. So one of the things these two guys, Tosh Bells and Turner, Tosh Bells, Tosh Bell and Turner wanted to point out was that, like resource or material inequality or scarcity, they don't always have to lead to social conflict. So sometimes if you're like a low status individual or something, and you might align with a new group identity or or try and redefine that group into more positive light, like the things kind of we were just talking about. Yeah. But there's no difference in like your access to resources, like it might just happen within the group and how you're perceiving yourself or having others perceive you.

36:12It's not like you went out and got like a cooler clothes for the D&D group to wear. Right. That's a much better way of what I was trying to say. Okay. Chuck, I say we take our second break now and then come back and talk more about social identity theory. Let's do it. Yeah. Yeah. Stop it. No. If you're bookshelf and you're for you page are equally important to your personality, welcome home. This is pros society, the weekly podcast that's part book club, part group chat for thought daughters, pop culture obsessives and anyone who thinks pride and prejudice and love island deserve the same level of discourse. I'm Eli Rallo and every week we're connecting the dots between books, the internet and the conversations everyone can't stop having. I'm going to have to look up this story. I'm obsessed. From bestselling authors and your favorite book talk creators to the latest pop culture moments,

37:12nothing is off the table. It's like if you can hide some real messages inside compelling characters and that is the Trojan horse, whether you're looking for literary deep dives, smart pop culture conversations, or a community of readers who love to think a little too much, you're in the right place. Listen to pros society on the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. See you between the pages. On the new podcast, Solita, we share the messy reality of traveling alone as a woman. I can wait four hours for the next bus or this random dude is offering me a ride on his motorcycle. I chose option B. I'm Julie Piniero and I travel by myself because it's a rare space where I can say yes without asking anyone else first. I'm on a mission to reclaim the word solita, trading the pity for possibility. Every time I tried to be alone, I kept meeting people and they were like, you smiled at us. Not a lot of people smile around here.

38:13It's when you're alone that you're most receptive to the world as it is and not the lies you're sold about it. It can be a time where you push your limits, change your mind or wake up to a new version of yourself. So whether you're a solo travel veteran or you're too nervous to book your first trip, I hope you listen to Solita on the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, this is a staff important and Sean Clements. We host the podcast Hollywood handbook on the big money players network. Our show is extremely accessible to first time listeners. Each week we talk to someone in show business, aka the biz and try to help them with their careers and see what they have to offer us. Everyone has a good time and no one gets mad at their publicists for letting them do our show. We've had a lot of great guests like Sarah Sherman. Not that great. Actually, can you help me pick? Can you help me shape this? Yeah. How about we flip it on his head? No. How about we flip this around? Okay. What is the surprise one, man? Well, actually you think is the straight man is actually the one who's acting weird.

39:17Adam Scott. This entire time you've been expecting Adam Sandler to come to visit the show. I would never let go of that. I have. I would never set expectations for something like that. It seems like if the universe allows for something like that to happen, I am open to. I'm always going to accept. You know, Danny McBride. Fine. Yeah. It's all this fragile masculinity exuding. I could smell it walking on the hallway to be honest with you. As I was out smelling. I was exactly. Nope. It's fragile masculinity. Yeah. Ben stiller. No. Because a lot of times out of context, people don't get it or even know what a circle is. You know what I mean? Like, girl, I go work to save it. Everyone's so dumb. And fake. Right. Fake and also not interested or just like, oh, I've got my life. I don't care about your life. And a lot of other big shots that wouldn't be where they are without us. Oh, and by the way, Will Ferrell told us personally he loves the show and he wants to be a guest on every episode.

40:20But he's just so busy. Listen to Hollywood Handbook on the I Heart Radio app Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcasts. Don't explain everything to your brain. Explosive shot. And that's something we should know. Word up, Jerry. So I guess we should compare social identity theory with the two big ones that we talked about before. Adornos and what was the other guy? I can't remember. That's right. Sharif. Oh, you want me to do that? Yeah. Well, the big one between Adornos, authoritarian personality theory and social identity, is that Adornos basically saying it's a bunch of individuals messed up issues coming together to create fascism or to create, you know, combative in group out group behavior. That it's these individuals who have problems.

41:20And that just is it's not the opposite, but it really does not come. It's not compatible with social identity theory because to social identity theory, people coming together as a group, that group is what generates just the fact that people are together generates those issues. There are positives and negatives to the whole thing. Yeah. Like, for example, some of the benefits, just a sense of belonging, which people make a case that we have developed that evolutionarily to keep us in groups, that deep sense of well-being that we get from feeling like we belong. Yeah, for sure. That's a huge, huge benefit of being in a group. A sense of purpose, you know, groups typically have missions. I know that you falcons fans like to go on weekend retreats at camps, very often in the off season to talk about the falcons and their prospects for the next season. Yeah. That's a purpose. Yeah, totally. And then self-worth, just having a sense of self-esteem from belonging to a group like the falcons fans,

42:24right? That, like, you can't buy that kind of self-esteem that the falcons give you. Boy, it's so funny that we're using the falcons because I don't know if there's a collective group of humans on planet earth that has feels worse about themselves. That's funny. The other one was the realistic group conflict theory. So social identity theory is probably a little closer to that one. Yeah. Than adornos, authoritarian personality theory or trait theory, because it frames prejudice is a byproduct of an intergroup conflict. I think maybe one of the differences is is that RCT, realistic group conflict theory sort of frames it is that like the resource scarcity that we're talking about. Right. And Tajfel, again, in turn, they say that scarcity isn't necessarily have to be a part of that or a precursor at least to that. Yeah. And like, there's a lot of different nuances that are different between the two.

43:25I think social identity theory really spreads out much further. But that's the main difference between them. Yeah. Agreed. So there's a lot of people who are like, yeah, duh, including you, Chuck. But there's also a lot of people who are like, have you guys proven this? Like, we're talking social psychology here. We just somebody did like a study once and everybody says, well, now it's proven that's maybe. So there's this thing that they used to test social identity theory called the minimal group paradigm. And originally I thought minimal referred to like the fewest number of people. I did too. Which made me think of the special people club from welcome to the dollhouse. Yeah. With Don Weeder and the kid. Yeah. Was it just like two people? Yes. Yeah. But they mean minimal as far as like the minimum circumstances that the people in the group have in common. Like what what is the least amount of stuff that those people can have in common and still belong to a group together?

44:28That where this this behavior will develop. And using that as a test paradigm, I guess that actually pans social identity theory out. Basically every time. Yeah. This is where I thought it got like a little more interesting for me and that they in 1979 they got together with another social psychologist named Rupert Brown for a study called social comparison in group interest in group favoritism. Part of it would help is if they just sexyed up these titles. For sure. But again, they they wanted to see like what what what if we just sort of arbitrarily grouped individuals together and then task them with some questions about something which we'll see in a minute and see what happens. And so in this case, it was 62 14 and 15 year old students. And to group them arbitrarily, they just gave them a series of abstract paintings and said, pick out which one you like the best. And that'll be your group or whatever. And that they ended up in four separate groups, the triangle group, the circle group, the dichromatic group and the polychromatic group.

45:32Here's what I don't understand is that she said really they were just all put in the triangle group. What does that mean? I think that so I didn't get that either. I went and looked essentially they were arbitrarily put into two groups that had nothing to do with what the kids involved thought they were a group member of. So that whole triangle circle dichromatic polychromatic, it was just a fool. Oh yeah, yeah. I think they were a member of a group when really they were just arbitrarily assigned to one of two groups. One was the control group and one was the experimental group essentially, but those kids didn't think in those terms. They thought, I'm team triangle or I'm team dichromatic. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I gotcha. All right. So then they they grouped them like this and then they said, fill out these forms and we're going to determine how much each group is going to get paid for the study. And they had like the forms were side by side with like a proposal for a dollar amount for each group. Some of them are equal somewhere or not equal.

46:33And what they observed was I think fairly interesting is that even when like one of the things they observed was that even when they had a chance for both groups to make 11 bucks, they would choose to make $10 for themselves at the other group made five. So essentially they wanted they all chose to have a disparity between the group. So in other words, to make their their group like get more money than the other one, even if there was an option to get paid equally and it was more money. Yeah. So it's their own detriment. They wanted to essentially the way that they explained it was that those the people choosing that were trying to enhance the status of their group. They were trying to maximize their money. They're trying to maximize their group status by making twice as much as another group. Yeah. I mean, I think this is fascinating when you look at it in the terms of like the idea of like socialism versus capitalism and making sure everyone's taking care of versus like screw that guy.

47:34I want the most for myself. Right. These are teenagers. It's a little distressing for sure. There's another one that we turned up in the Journal of Neuroscience from 2021 and it used a brain scan study. This was 34 people. I don't know how many were involved in the other one you just mentioned, but these people had their brain scan. So they were figuring out what part of their brain they were using while they were doing this. But the thing that really has to do with social identity theory is that they showed people like a video of somebody doing something. This wasn't it, but say carrying a tray full of beer stones, full beer stones, right? Okay. And you were watching somebody give it a shot and then you tried it yourself. And if you saw somebody say like lifting it with both hands and they were successful or trying to lift it from the bottom and it fell over, if you thought that person was a member of a rival out group, in this case, Democrats or Republicans, you would not learn from their mistake or their successful way of doing it when you tried it.

48:41It's like you would refuse to learn from the enemy or this out group, even if it would help you. Yeah. That's fascinating to me. It is. It's super fascinating and it really kind of jobs and makes sense. But a lot of people are like, there's some real criticisms we can level against this. And one of them is, okay, you guys are scanning 34 people's brains. You're studying like 16 boy scouts, you know, like the stakes are really low here. If you take this and apply it into the real world at higher stakes, like say expressing prejudice or bias against another group, publicly, and then potentially have being ostracized or shamed or whatever in response. Like are people still going to carry out these behaviors? Like does it hold up in the real world? Yeah, for sure. And also this idea that like, I kind of what you were talking about earlier is sometimes with these studies, I feel like there's a lack of nuance. And so this idea that personal that like the difference between personal identity and group identity, isn't just so cut and dried as a touch fell and turner, think it or proposed that it is.

49:51Right. And there have been other social psychologists one in particular named Masaki Yuki, who says that or at least he argues that, you know what, the social identity theory has its limits. If the society is a little more collectivist, like in East Asia, was his example. And I think that makes sense because you know, again, if you're taking these like small groups of like 60 teenagers or these boy scouts, it's hard to extrapolate that to like. And this is true all over the world. It is, it is. And I saw someone say like it is universal people discriminating against out groups in favor of their in group. And you can make a case like there's a lot of rivalries between Japanese baseball teams in Japan. Oh, sure. You know, there's rivalries between China and Japan and Korea South Korea and Japan. Yeah, like it does exist in one form or another. I think that's probably what Taj fell and turner would point to if they were both still alive. It could be pointing from their grades right now.

50:52We wouldn't know though. That's right. So back to the study with the kids choosing to pay the other groups less. Again, very distressed about that. They thought like, hey, we nailed that study everybody because that really bolsters this idea that bias can occur in the absence of conflict. Like there was no reason for these groups to like not want the other group to have as much money. Yet they still did. And this this idea of the desire for positive social identity can lead to bias because the students chose those financial options that made them different from the other group even even to their own detriment. Yeah. And just to restate again, these kids had nothing in common. They weren't even in the groups that they thought they were in. And yet that immediate sense of group membership made them discriminate against people who they thought were in other groups. Yeah, for sure.

51:52So I think Taj fell and turner would be like, hey, we're still pointing. Let's talk about some of this stuff in real world. Like you want some real world proof? How about some anecdotal proof everybody? Yeah. And one great example they came up with that where a group, particular group used social creativity to achieve like a positive distinctiveness that they were talking about, which can be attained was the black is beautiful movement. In the 1960s when black Americans were like, you know what, we're sort of tired of hearing about how this idea of beauty is so Eurocentric. And you know, blonde hair and blue eyes is all that like, no, no, black is beautiful. Our skin color is beautiful. Our hair and our culture is all beautiful. And just the black aesthetic was in like fully embraced and touted as a movement. And that did a, I think that was a huge like cultural change in the 1960s. Yeah. And that was a great example of social creativity, right? Yeah. And then another example of social creativity is poor white racism,

52:56where a group in this case, poor white Americans choose to discriminate against poor black Americans because they are capable of feeling superior of the other group, rather than comparing themselves to wealthy white Americans. Yeah. And then kind of fast forwarding to today, there's also a lot, I mean, it's still very much going on like in the United States, the more you identify with not just your political party, but like what your political party stands for, the more you take that on yourself as part of your identity, the more likely you are to view the opposing party as like bad people as dumb as not having any idea what you're supposed to do with the country, that kind of stuff. Yeah, for sure. There are people that argue that in order to like radicalize somebody into maybe an extremist group, it really helps when you appeal to them with a real distinctive identity for the end group that they're trying to get you in.

54:03Yes. Another one is that products like domestic versus foreign made products. Yeah, yeah. That in group out group predicts that your sense of ethno ethnocentrism or nationalism. Sure. And the musical preference, there was a study done by a guy named Daniel Shepherd, who found that the more strongly you identify with your musical preference, the more likely you were to say, say other musical preferences suck. And that reminded me of disco demolition night from 1989. You remember that? Yeah, for sure. Well, those rockers like rioted because they hated disco so much. Yeah. I guess that's about it. Like yeah, duh. Definitely sums it up. But to me, it was like the nuts and bolts of the whole thing that were so interesting that and you're all of your awesome examples. Well, I really, I really enjoyed that study of the kids like choosing to pay the other kids less. I thought that was fascinating.

55:04And I think I think a lot of this stuff is fairly fascinating at the end of the day. So I think you I think it won't be over a bit. Good. I'm glad. Well, since Chuck's been won over, you know everybody that automatically triggers listening or male. I'm going to do the shorter one to round this one. So hey, guys, in the Judy Bloom episode, you guys were talking about we must, we must, we must increase our bust. That actually wasn't invented by Bloom. She's the same generation as my mother and they did that in junior high school. The rest of the rhyme according to my mom goes, the bigger the better, the tighter the sweater, the boys are counting on us. Judy Bloom and Beverly Cleary shaped generations of young mine guys. That is from Margo in New York City. And we had a few different people right in and tell us that. And I tried to find online like the origination of that. And almost everything says Judy Bloom until you dig into Reddit. And then somebody has a pretty exhaustive list of like, you know, in the 1950s,

56:06it was used in this thing and it was used in this thing. But I don't think anyone ever nailed like the first person to say it. Good old Reddit. Good old Reddit. That was from Margo. That was Margo in New York City. Awesome. Thanks a lot, Margo. That was wonderful. And if you want to be like Margo and make us laugh and delight us, you can send us an email to send it off to stuff podcast at iHeartRadio.com. Stuff you should know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts, my heart radio, visit the iHeartRadio app. Apple podcasts are wherever you listen to your favorite shows. If you're a bookshelf and you're a for you page are equally important to your personality, welcome home. Pro society is a weekly podcast that's part book club, part group chat for anyone who thinks pride and prejudice and love island deserve the same level of discourse. Each week we're connecting the dots between books, the internet and pop culture with your favorite writers, book talk creators and plenty of over thought opinions.

57:10Yeah, I'm obsessed. Listen to pro society on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. On the new podcast, Solita, we share the messy reality of traveling alone as a woman. I can wait four hours for the next bus or this random dude is offering the ride on his motorcycle. I choose option B. I'm Julie Pinero and I travel by myself because it's a rare space where I can say yes without asking anyone else first. I'm on a mission to reclaim the word solita trading the pity for possibility. Listen to solita on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, this is Hayes Davenport and Sean Clements. We host the podcast Hollywood Handbook each week. We talk to someone in show business and try to help them with their careers and see what they have to offer us. Everyone has a good time and no one gets mad at their publicists for letting them do our show.

58:10We've had a lot of great guests like Sarah Sherman, Adam Scott, Danny McBride, Ben Stillert, and a lot of other big shots that wouldn't be where they are without us. Listen to Hollywood Handbook on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed human.