Project SherlockEst. Knowledge

Paper

1970

Experiments in Intergroup Discrimination

Henri Tajfel

Finds that dividing strangers into groups by a trivial, meaningless criterion is enough to make them favour their own group's members over the other's, locating the root of intergroup bias in mere categorisation itself.

Before you start

FreeEntrylink checked 17 Sept 2026

Read these first

Not a difficulty warning — a route. These are in the library too.

The Nature of PrejudiceGordon W. Allport, 1954Argues prejudice is an overgeneralised, resistant attitude rooted in normal cognitive categorisation rather than pathology, and lays out the contact conditions under which intergroup exposure reduces rather than hardens it.

Groundwork for

Works in the library that name this one as a prerequisite.

An Integrative Theory of Intergroup ConflictHenri Tajfel & John C. Turner, 1979Argues people derive part of their self-concept from group membership and are motivated to see their own group as favourably distinct from others, the theoretical statement built on the minimal-group findings.

Filed under Social Psychology in Psychology.