Henri Tajfel

Who they are

Tajfel is a social psychologist whose published experiments on social categorization and intergroup behaviour are the starting point for the minimal group research on this site. This page is limited to his published work cited in the article on in-group bias; a fuller biography has not been added.

Key papers

• Tajfel, Billig, Bundy and Flament (1971), Social categorization and intergroup behaviour, European Journal of Social Psychology 1(2), 149-178. Participants in groups formed on a trivial basis divided rewards and penalties between members of the groups and favoured their own group. The clearest effect was a pull towards the largest possible difference between the groups in favour of their own, even where that meant giving up other gains.
• Billig and Tajfel (1973), Social categorization and similarity in intergroup behaviour, European Journal of Social Psychology 3(1), 27-52. People were assigned to random categories. Once the idea of a group was introduced they favoured their own category, and the favouring was stronger than when categories were built from similarities between individuals.

Key ideas

The 1971 and 1973 papers propose that categorization into groups, on its own, can be enough to start own-group favouring. The 1971 paper discusses its results in terms of social norms and expectations, and the 1973 paper in relation to a social-cognitive theory of intergroup behaviour.

---