Psychology 212 Social Psychology Topic 1

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Making sense of Steve Biko’s psychological Black Consciousness movement by referring to the Social Identity Theory of Henri Tajfel Making sense of Steve Biko’s psychological Black Consciousness movement by referring to the Social Identity Theory of Henri Tajfel Psychology 212 Social Psychology Topic 1 Psychology 212 Social Psychology Topic 1 During 1948 to 1994 South Africa endured a strong structure of racial segregation enforced by the ruling party at the time, the National Party. Non-white citizens experienced oppressed rights and living conditions while the white citizens reigned supreme. The oppression raised internal resistance among the community and in 1970 the Black Consciousness movement was created to endorse black pride and to improve the psychological battle for the minds of the black individuals. One of the well-known anti-apartheid activists associated with the movement was Steve Biko. His methods of decolonising the minds of the oppressed while providing them the opportunity to regain their culture, pride, security and confidence (lost to the oppressive culture) can be made sense of by one of the most important theories in psychology for understanding social conflict, the Social Identity Theory of Henri Tajfel. This assignment is set out to evaluate and unravel Steve Biko’s claims with references to The Social Identity Theory. During the process of this assignment the reader will become aware that there is a direct correlation between Biko’s basic statements and that of the statements made by Henri Tajfel. The introduction of how categorization and self-esteem concepts arise are discussed in order to provide explanations as to why individuals find themselves segregated and in need of movements and societies such as above mentioned. The cognition of individuals who experienced segregation will be mentioned
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