Social Identity Theory is seen in almost every workplace in the world, it comes from the theory made famous by Henri Tajfel. It refers to the way people approach one’s self concepts that’s based on their status in socializing groups such as the workplace, at home, other team events. It’s the sense of who we are in the group membership, that the place we see ourselves in these things give us pride or help with our self-esteem
My personal experience with social identity theory is pretty great, it’s something I relied on when I was a lot younger when I would play in a competitive soccer team. I remember people calling my parents if I was showing up late or if I needed a ride or all kinds of other things because they wanted to make sure that I would be there for the game. I remember it would make me feel special knowing that I was really needed for the success of our team and that really put my self-esteem through the roof.
Though I noticed this at an early age that I was valuable in some things, I also noticed this in a negative way as well, I remember the feeling of being nervous or anxious because I knew I had a lot to give in terms of expectations by others, and that in itself made me nervous. I remember learning about social identity theory in my community college and there being a huge portion of our lessons on it because of how much we see this on an everyday basis that the teacher wanted to emphasis that this theory was seen every day and in almost every circumstance in our living life.
I remember thinking about how almost everything we do we perceive ourselves in some kind of magnitude in our society, it’s not in just soccer teams, school, and the workplace. It’s all over, even in our own community we have our own identity of our importance and although some of us are aware of it there is those who aren’t and don’t realize these things until they learn about it. To conclude I really liked how this article I references said that “it is a real, true and vital part of the person” We identify ourselves in groups and we may also discriminate against others we don’t want to be identified with.
Reference :
McLeod, S. A. (2019, October 24). Social identity theory. Simply Psychology. https://www.simplypsychology.org/social-identity-theory.html