Forming Impressions

Central and Peripheral Traits

Primacy and Recency Effects

Implicit Personality Theories (Including personal constructs, the halo effect, and the effect of names)

Stereotyping

Social Categorisation

Pros/Cons Of Stereotyping

Narcissistic Personality Disorder

Henri Tajfel (1971)

Tajfel proposed that stereotyping is simply part of the normal cognitive process to group things together.In doing so, we tend to exaggerate the differences between groups, and to judge things in the same group as more alike than they really are.

According to Tajfel, we see people the same way. We have an ingroup- people similiar to ourselves, and we have outgroups, composed of people we perceive as different to ourselves. The ingroup tends to be perceived as more different to any other group than it really is, whilst the outgroups tend to be considered more similar to each other than they really are.

In one experiment, designed by Tajfel to show how easily people will discriminate against each other, a selection o 14-15 year old boys who already knew each other were invited to be participants in a study. Before the study, they were split into two groups the the toss of a coin. Neither group ever saw each other, or had definitive proof the other group existed. They were, however, told the truth about the existance of the other group, and how it was selected.

During part of the study, these boys in each group were given a list of paired numberd (ie 7-1, 19-25, etc) and told that they could select numbers from the list, and choose how to award these pairs of points. In addition, these points could be exchanged for money at the end of the experiment. (In each paired number, the group selecting would receive the first number in points, and the other group the second number in points.)

To get the most points for themselves, the boys would have to give even more points to the other team. The results, however, showed that they would choose the pairs of points that would result in the highest favourable difference between groups. (I.e. they would choose to get 7 points themselves, so that the other group would only get 1 point, as compared to having 19 points themselves, but letting the other group have more)

These results support Tajfel's prediction, that people will discriminate against members of an outgroup even when there is no prior prejudice or even proof that the other group exists.