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Henri Tajfel (1919-1982)was a distinguished social psychologist


Biographical information[]

He was born of Polish-Jewish parentage, in Wloclawek, Poland on 22 nd June 1919.

Education[]

He began by studing chemistry at the Sorbonne. He was called up into the French army and, a year later was

Positions[]

Tajfel was professor of Social Psychology at Bristol University from 1967 until his death in 1982

Main areas of interest[]

Steven Reicher in his biography on the EAESP website makes the intereting point that Tajfel's intersts grew out of his wartime experience. Captured by the Germans in WWI , they never discovered he was a Jew so he was able to survive but the experience shaped his career in three ways:

  1. he developed an abiding interest in prejudice
  2. he recognised that his fate was tied entirely to his group identity
  3. he understood that the Holocaust was not a product of psychology but of the way in which psychological processes operate within a given social and political context


Funded grants[]

Honors[]

Editorial board/consulting editor[]

Association affiliations[]

See also[]

Publications[]

Books[]

  • Tajfel, H. (1981) Human Groups and Social Categories: Studies in Social Psychology, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Book Chapters[]

Papers[]

  • Tajfel, H. (1969) Cognitive aspects of prejudice, Journal of Social Issues 25(4): 79-97.
  • Tajfel, H., Billig, M.G., Bundy, R.P. and Flament, C. (1971) Social categorisation and intergroup behaviour, European Journal of Social Psychology 1: 148-78.
  • Tajfel, H. and Jahoda, G. (1966) Development in children of concepts and attitudes about their own and other countries: a cross-national study, Proceedings of the XVIII International Congress of Psychology: Moscow Symposium 36: 17-33.
  • Tajfel, H. and Turner, J.C. (1979) An integrative theory of intergroup conflict. In: W.G. Austin and S. WorcheL (eds) The Social Psychology of Intergroup Relations, Monterey, Calif.: Brooks/Cole.
  • Tajfel, H. and Wilkes, A.L. (1963) Classification and quantitative judgement, British Journal of Psychology 54: 101-14.

External links[]

Biography by Steve Richter