A. L. Wilkes

Who they are

The work of A. L. Wilkes reaches this site through the paper listed below. On this site the name is tied to Categorisation Accentuation, Social Identity Theory.

Key papers

Tajfel, H., & Wilkes, A. L. (1963). Classification and quantitative judgement. British Journal of Psychology, 54(2), 101-114. What it reports: When classification followed a physical scale, stimuli in different classes were judged further apart than in an unclassified series, while classification unrelated to the scale had no such effect.

Key ideas

Categorisation Accentuation: The tendency for items sorted into classes to look more alike within a class and further apart between classes when the classes follow a real dimension.

Social Identity Theory: The account that people sort themselves and others into social categories, take part of their self-description from their groups, and compare their own group with others.

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