System Justification - Theoretical Influences - Social Identity Theory

Social Identity Theory

Within social identity theory, when people are presented with intergroup conflict that threatens their social group identities, people will justify behaviors like stereotyping and discrimination against outgroups in order to maintain their positive group image. This is known as ingroup favoritism. System justification theorists argue this framework has not sufficiently addressed instances of outgroup favoritism in disadvantaged groups, and that this might be in part due to the scope of the theory. Therefore system justification theory builds off social identity theory to help account for instances of outgroup favoritism observed in some disadvantaged group members. That is, people with outgroup favoritism will hold more positive images of other groups (outgroups) than the groups they belong to (ingroups).

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