Brown, Rupert (2019) The social identity approach: appraising the Tajfellian legacy. British Journal of Social Psychology. pp. 1-21. ISSN 0144-6665

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Abstract

Since its original formulation, Tajfel’s Social Identity Theory (SIT) has broadened considerably from its original focus on intergroup relations and is now applied to a wide range of phenomena. Indeed, the ‘social identity approach’ has become one of the most widely used perspectives in contemporary social psychology. In this article, I examine the popularity of Tajfel’s writings on social identity and intergroup relations, especially over the last thirty years when they started to become more generally used. I offer a critical appraisal of the original SIT, both as a theory of intergroup relations and as a theory of identity, concluding that its real value lies in its success in offering an over‐arching perspective on the importance of groups in social life and its ability to stimulate new areas of research. I then widen the discussion to consider how the social identity perspective has been used in a number of other fields of enquiry.

Item Type:	Article
Schools and Departments:	School of Psychology > Psychology
Depositing User:	Sanjeedah Choudhury
Date Deposited:	01 Nov 2019 08:20
Last Modified:	07 Nov 2020 02:00
URI:	http://sro.sussex.ac.uk/id/eprint/87721

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