It’s All Quite Personal

Final Paper

Javon Scarlett 4/27/18 Life-Span Development

It’s All Quite Personal

The goal of every psychological scholar has always been to study the complexities of the

mind, to offer explanations as to why humans, and many other organisms, commit to the

behaviors in which they often express. To this end, countless master psychologists, and their

multitudes of new generational pupils; whom derive lessons from their time-honored works,

have devised a plethora of psychological concepts that work to express these findings. Two

theoretical concepts that stand out as being of the most relevance in expressing my own

thoughts and behaviors are, Henri Tajfel’s Social Identity Theory and Albert Bandura’s Social

Cognitive Theory.

Henri Tajfel was a renowned Polish Social Psychologist whose work was predicated on

the cognitive aspects of prejudice and social identity. His theory essentially states that people

must categorize the elements of the world in which they operate to conceptualize life and

understand what goes on around them. To this effect groups are created as people categorize

elements such as those whom teach others as being educators, those whom take part in sports

are perceived as athletes, and those whom learn from others as being students. These are just a

few examples of the grouping that occur as categorizations are made.

Following categorization comes the aspect of social identification. Social identification is

when individuals identify with a group to which they have categorized themselves as being a

part of. I am personally a part of many groups, many of them athletic, some of them not. I am a

member of the Track and Field team, the Rugby team, a member of the Residence Life staff, a

Nichols College student, a Psychology major, Athlete, and a Gamer. Social identification is

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essential for a host of reasons. It enabled one to develop a sense of self through the

relationships that they build. These groups also enable individuals to develop and maintain a

healthy self-concept; an idea of who they are based on their beliefs and the responses of

others, as well as an adequate level of self-esteem. Being a member of these groups, I take

pride in not only myself, but those around me. Every day that I spend with the individuals of my

group, the more I see the demanding work that they put in, and they too see the work that I

contribute. It is this mutual understanding, that builds upon the group cohesiveness.

Essentially, the way that I look at it is that, those that suffer together and understand each

other’s struggles are more likely to develop a closer bond and stay together.

What comes after social identification is social comparison. Social comparison is when

individuals orient to looking at their own groups not only favorably, but to also look at those

other groups, or even individuals absent a group, unfavorably. This phenomenon is referred to

as, in-group bias; a pattern of favoring members of one’s own group over members of another

group. There are many advantages and disadvantages to favoring one’s own group over

another. A few advantages are the heightened level of competition that is created as a result of

wanting to be better than the opposition as what occurs in sports, and another is the self-

esteem boost that comes from proving that one’s own group truly is better than another. When

it comes to Rugby, thought I am by no means an aggressive or angry person, I must put myself

in a place that gives me enough motivation to utilize enough force to bring my team to victory

over another. During the spring of 2018, the Nichols College Men’s Rugby team; my team,

entered a league that enabled us to enter tournaments against other College teams. During our

first tournament at Salem State University, we went in believing that we would be the

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underdogs. This fueled us to enter our matches and take on every team that we faced with our

collective best efforts. Our first game was against Holy Cross, we swiftly defeated them. Our

second game was against the hosts themselves; Salem State, we swiftly defeated them too.

When it came to our third match however against Colby College, we lost. We were in disbelief

at how well their team coordinated and took advantage of every opportunity created. I believe

that to justify that fact that we lost to a better team, we still looked for another reason than

just admitting that they were better than we were. There were members of our team that said

that they were injured, members that eluded to the fact that Colby’s coach was an international

Rugby Player, and a host of other excuses. As the tournament was double elimination, we did

have more games to play. The fourth game that we played was against Keene State University,

we won, by a lot. After that however, we discovered that the only two teams that remained in

the tournament were ourselves; Nichols College with one out of two losses, and Colby College

with no losses. Naturally instead of having to play a powerhouse like Colby twice and risk having

our egos and fragile self-esteem destroyed, our team decided to ‘throw the game’. This leads to

the disadvantages of ingroup bias. If the out-group is in fact better than the ingroup, then self-

esteem will be negatively impacted. This could cause friction within the group, causing

members to then become disinterested in remaining as part of said group. It is unfortunate to

say, but a group to which members often become so disinterested that they leave, would be

this very institution; Nichols College. Over the course of the years, from my freshman to

current; junior, I have witnessed many people leave for a host of reasons. The most prominent

reason that people have left this institution is in pursuit of an institution that allows for the

parties that one would see occurring on shows such as Blue Mountain State. If drinking and

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partying is the motivation of the individual and the group does not hold that as high in its realm

of values, then the individual will be faced with making one of two choices. They can either stay

and conform to the ethics of the group or leave for a group that better fits them. The leading

motivation for the selection of one of these choices is another concept known as cognitive

dissonance; a state of having inconsistent thoughts, beliefs, or attitudes, especially as it relates

to behavioral decisions and attitude change.

One more disadvantage that comes from ingroup bias, is the prejudice that can come

from it regarding another group. In today’s mainstream media it has become all too common a

trend to generalize the actions of individuals as being that of a collective group. To use the

recent police shootings as an example, those individual officers that violate the bounds of their

authority using excessive or otherwise deadly force, literally give others of the same profession

a bad image. In this instance the categorized groups are the police as they are being viewed and

evaluated by the viewers of the media (everybody else). The bad is what comes of this

evaluation by those not apart of the group or those that are not able to perceive the actions of

those individuals as not part of the group. This is when innocent officers are killed by civilians

whom believe that they are doing the world a service by eliminating members of the charged

group. This does not relate to me on an intimate level, but it does frustrate me to no end, as I

constantly evaluate myself and others and remain objective while others are unable to do the

same.

The next theoretical psychological concept is that of Social Cognitive Theory as research

by Albert Bandura. Bandura’s Social Cognitive Theory; formerly known as the Social Learning

Theory, is based on children learning how to perform behaviors through the observation and

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imitation of others. The process of this theory occurs in four parts. These parts are as followed,

Attention; the extent to which we notice the behavior, Retention; how well the behavior is

remembered, Reproduction; the ability to reproduce the behavior, and motivation; the reason

for performing the behavior.

The entirety of this psychological concept can be used to explain most of my Track and

Field successes. During my junior year of high school, my friend McKayla introduced me to

throwing discus just before the spring outdoor season began. She first demonstrated how to

throw the weighted plate, and I closely observed, committing everything I was seeing to

memory. She then had me step into the throwing circle, and I attempted to reproduce what I

saw. What I did surprised myself and her, I was successful in reproducing what she had done,

and I threw far. Through that little bit of success, I was then motivated to continue throwing

discus into that spring season of Track and Field. McKayla was my teammate and my coach as

we did not have an individual coach for every event as some schools like Nashoba did. I learned

most of my discus throwing skills from watching other throwers on YouTube and in

competition. It was the continued successes in furthering my distances that motivated me to

continue throwing discus. Even now I still learn something new every other day that improves

my distance a little bit more every practice.

While Bandura’s theory was designed more for the explanation of why it is that children

develop various behaviors, I find that it is a perfect explanation of how people learn how to

perform specific skills as well. The most significant event in my discus throwing career came

when I attended a Track and Field meet at Bryant University. At this meet, there were teams

from every division. Before this I had only attended all division 3 and division 2 meets. The

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significance of being around division 1 athletes, that had not dawned on me, came to my

attention during this meet at Bryant. Before attending this Track and Field meet, I had been

throwing around a consistent 35-36meters; for the past two years. When I observed the

division 1 athletes throw, something just clicked, I was not even sure what it was that I

changed, but I ended up throwing 3meters further than I had ever thrown before. Since then, I

have been able to throw better than previous my seasons, but not as well as that occurrence.

Being able to perform in such a manner after observing others leads me to believe whole

heartedly in an innate capacity for social learning.

The concepts of social identity and the cognitive learning theory are exceptional

explanation of psychological phenomena on their own, but when placed together, they create

an element that demonstrates the capacity for social bonding through social learning. I not only

learned from the competitors that I faced at Track and Field meets, but also from my

teammates. We learn from one another, we developed a mutual understanding for each

other’s strengths and weaknesses. Social learning not only enables an individual to learn how to

perform tasks that they are unfamiliar with, but also allows them to increase their sense of

belonging to a group. This is especially true if membership in the group is contingent upon

being able to perform a specific task. As I have learned through my relationships and

interactions with others, there are always sub-groups that form within groups. I am a member

of the Track and Field team, but within that group I am apart of another sub-group known as

the Throwers. We can perform specific actions that none of the non-throwing members of the

team can reproduce to any significant degree. Because of this we have developed another

internal identity based on the skills that we have developed through social learning. We often

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observe and critique one another which allows use to gradually improve every time we

practice.

Sources:

1. McLeod, S. A. (2016). Bandura - social learning theory. Retrieved from

www.simplypsychology.org/bandura.html

2. McLeod, S. A. (2008). Social identity theory. Retrieved from

www.simplypsychology.org/social-identity-theory.html

*Did not take any direct quotes or phrases from the sources above, but these

sources are the articles by which some of the information of this work was

derived*

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