Henri Tajfel

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Henri Tajfel

Henri Tajfel (born June 22, 1919 in Włocławek , Poland , † May 3, 1982 in Oxford ; maiden name Hersz Mordche Tajfel ) was a British Jewish social psychologist of Polish origin.

biography

Henri Tajfel was the son of a Jewish businessman. After it was hardly possible for Jews to go to university, he studied chemistry at the University of Toulouse and at the Paris Sorbonne from 1937 to 1939 . He became a French soldier in World War II and was taken prisoner by Germany from 1940 to 1945. There he hid his identity as a Polish Jew at risk of death, which he later reflected on with his theory of social identity . None of his immediate relatives survived the Holocaust . After the war, Tajfel first worked for international aid organizations and then studied psychology in Paris and Brussels .

He then moved to Great Britain with his wife and two sons and took British citizenship in 1957. His research at Oxford University was in various areas of social psychology (including prejudice , nationalism and social influence ). After two research stays in the USA, he received a professorship in Bristol in 1967 .

Henri Tajfel died of cancer at the age of 62.

power

Tajfels “minimal group” experiments, which were based on Muzaffer Serif's holiday camp experiment, became known . Test subjects were divided into two groups at random (for example by flipping a coin) or based on trivial properties (preference for two painters). Although the test subjects did not know each other beforehand and had no contact during the experiment, they nevertheless began to identify with their group and to prefer members of their group ( ingroup ) to members of the other group ( outgroup ). The “own people” were rated as more personable, their work as better, they received more money and other rewards. “The others” were treated unfairly, hostile and ruthlessly.

In his paradigmatic first experiment (1971) he showed English schoolboys blackboards with dots, the number of which they were asked to estimate. He then arbitrarily divided the boys into two groups, pretending that some valued too high and the others too low. Then each boy worked on another task; his performance was judged by the others. The ingroup was given higher marks throughout; the outgroup was mercilessly booed.

Prejudices , stereotypes and discrimination therefore require neither biological (gender, age, ethnicity, sexuality) nor historical (nationality, culture, religion) characteristics.

From this Tajfel and John C. Turner developed their theory of social identity .

The European Association of Social Psychology (EASP) presented the Henri Tajfel Award until 2019. Tajfel was dropped as the namesake for the award after he was accused of inappropriate and unacceptable behavior towards female employees.

criticism

Jacy Young and Peter Hegarty claimed in 2019 that Tajfel created an atmosphere of sexual harassment and harassment in his work unit from which his employees suffered and which also negatively influenced his research and ideas.

Works

  • Differentiation between social groups. Studies in the social psychology of intergroup relations , 1978 ( ISBN 0-12-682550-5 )
  • Human groups and social categories , 1981 (German edition: Group conflict and prejudice , 1982 ( ISBN 3-456-81219-1 )
  • Social identity and intergroup relations . Cambridge University Press 1982
  • (with John C. Turner): An integrative theory of social conflict . in: W. Austin and S. Worchel (eds.): The social psychology of intergroup relations , 1979, ISBN 0-8185-0278-9 , pp. 33-47 ( online )

literature

  • Rupert Brown: Henri Tajfel: Explorer of Identity and Difference , London: Taylor & Francis 2019, ISBN 9781138589803 .
  • G. Jahoda, Henri Tajfel , in: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography ( ISBN 0-19-861411-X ), Volume 53, 2004
  • Amélie Mummendey : Behavior between social groups: the theory of social identity by Henri Tajfel , Bielefelder Papers on Social Psychology No. 113
  • Peter Robinson (Ed.): Social Groups and Identities. Developing the Legacy of Henri Tajfel . Butterworth-Heinemann, Oxford, 1996.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ John Turner: Henri Tajfel: An introduction . In: Peter Robinson (Ed.): Social Groups and Identities. Developing the Legacy of Henri Tajfel . Butterworth-Heinemann, Oxford 1996.
  2. ^ E. Aronson , TD Wilson, RM Akert: Social Psychology . Pearson study. 6th edition 2008. ISBN 978-3-8273-7359-5 , pp. 431 f.
  3. ↑ Tajfel, Billig, Bundy, Flament: Social categorization and intergroup behavior , in: European Journal of Social Psychology 1, 1971 pp. 149–178
  4. ↑ C. Travis, E. Aronson : I'm right, even if I'm wrong . Riemann-Verlag 2010. ISBN 978-3-570-50116-0 , p. 91
  5. ↑ Tina Keil: Renaming the Tajfel Award. August 1, 2019, accessed October 30, 2019 .
  6. ^ Jacy L Young, Peter Hegarty: Reasonable men: Sexual harassment and norms of conduct in social psychology . In: Feminism & Psychology . tape 29 , no. 4 , November 2019, ISSN  0959-3535 , p. 453-474 , doi : 10.1177 / 0959353519855746 ( sagepub.com [accessed October 30, 2019]).

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Tajfel, Henri
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Tajfel, Mordche Hersz
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British social psychologist
DATE OF BIRTH June 22, 1919
PLACE OF BIRTH Włocławek , Poland
DATE OF DEATH May 3, 1982
Place of death Oxford