What the Russia World Cup 2018 can teach us about Social Identity.
If one thing there is no doubt about after England’s performance in the World Cup, is that Gareth Southgate has conjured up a positive sense of identity that has engaged even the most avoidant of the game of football to cheer on the England team. Maybe it is the never-ending heat waves or Southgate’s waistcoat, but the positivity and pride surrounding the England team in the World Cup tournament is an excellent real-life example of the development of Social Identity.
The set-up of the World Cup itself automatically lends itself to making national identities salient; national teams competing to be the best Football team in the world. What this means is by supporting your national team, we see traits and characteristics relating to nationality and this becomes more prominent. Our national identity can be one example of our in-group – a group we belong to, where everyone in the group shares the same identity or common characteristics.
In line with Tajfel’s Social identity theory, we begin to categories ourselves in many ways; national teams, Football fans, team fans, player fans. This is known as social categorisation where a group is chosen. In the case of the World Cup, we tend to choose our team based on our national identity. The media has reported that even the most reluctant Football fans have been tuning into watch England play (-) out of the support for southgate and his men due to the pride associated with our country.
– What follows is the way in which we identify with our group. Through flags hanging from bedroom windows, to tweets associated with #garethsouthgatewould, this is our opportunity to demonstrate which group we belong to as well as become close to others who share the same social group. Social identification is important as it helps us to make sense of the world around us if we know who belongs to which group.
– Next comes an aspect of social comparison. Here we focus on the positive attributes of our in-group which helps to unify and boost the self-esteem of the group. We attribute successes to dispositional (internal) characteristics such as ability, intelligence or personality. In contrast, we attribute failures to situational (external) factors. Ever seen a Football fan blame losing a game on the referee? Sound familiar? But when the same team wins, the referee is unlikely to be mentioned, but rather the talent of the players! Here a group can feel positive about themselves, their performance and others who belong in the group or it’s leaders. This aspect is what has occured with the positive spirit to get behind Gareth Southgate as a figure who represents the English national identity.
Social comparison also serves as an opportunity for our in-group to indicate why they are better than the out-group; here we might hear chants towards an opposing team. But despite – different national identities, in the World Cup, cooperation can still be an outcome due to a collective identity of appreciating Football as a sport. One of which we can see many successes in the Russia World Cup that has brought many nations together on common ground.
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