Chels

Usually, when I talk about pop culture phenomena here, I look into them through a literary lens. This week, though, The Traitors is still on my mind, and so is the cultural conversation surrounding the show, and I wanted to use it as a tool to illuminate one of my favourite social psychology topics – Tajfel and Turner’s Social Identity Theory. 

The biggest criticism of The Traitors, at least in online spaces, is the fact that in regular, non-celebrity seasons, it’s often people of colour, or people who are otherwise marginalised, who are voted off first in the season. Sometimes, it’s seen as an issue specific to the show that certain people are seemingly targeted, but it’s often discussed as an example of the implicit biases we hold, amplified by the fact that only a small group plays the game. I’m by no means going to justify these biases, or present excuses for them, but social identity theory can explain why they occur, psychologically. The show itself is a great example of social identity theory, too, especially the minimal group paradigm, a method that helped Henri Tajfel and his colleagues to develop and strengthen the theory.

What is Social Identity Theory?

Social Identity Theory is largely a common sense theory, in that it states we, as people, define ourselves through our belonging to certain groups – anything from our race, gender, and nationality, to groups with shared hobbies and interests, or employment in similar sectors. The theory further states that we categorise ourselves and others, and tend to favour people in our ‘in-group’ over people in ‘out-groups’. This is one of the factors in how discrimination comes to exist. 

It’s not just these factors that create in-groups and out-groups, though. In the 1970s, Tajfel created the minimal group study, which split participants into groups based on arbitrary factors, and found that in seemingly unrelated activities, participants favoured members of their own group over members of the other group. The study proved that group loyalty, in-group and out-group labelling, and to a degree, discrimination, could occur with even the most tenuous connections within groups. 

In The Traitors, groups of strangers are brought together knowing nothing about each other, and often they withhold information about themselves like their jobs. Over time, in-groups are formed through friendships and collaboration on tasks, and, often, through mutual suspicion of another player. It’s a really fun way to watch group dynamics unfold.

For the traitors themselves, it’s easy to form an in-group – simply staying close to fellow traitors (although, particularly this season, that loyalty wasn’t always the case). For faithfuls, though, trying to know who to trust is difficult, and I think that’s why people from marginalised groups often face the brunt of early banishments. The more connections you can find with another person, and the more social identities you share, the more likely you are to favour and trust them. 

As much as I enjoyed the Celtic Connection this year, the part of me that loves social psychology would have been really excited to see if that same connection would have been formed had they not been traitors. For those who didn’t watch the series – four of the five Welsh, Scottish, or Irish players were chosen as traitors, and it was referred to by the players themselves as ‘the Celtic Connection’. Even more interesting, actually, is that Matty, the one Scottish player who wasn’t chosen as a traitor, was the only faithful to proposition the traitors for recruitment. Of course, this had to be a coincidence, as the remaining traitors were anonymous and he wasn’t aware of the Celtic Connection (nor did he correctly identify the traitors in the moment), but I wonder if subconsciously he had taken notice of the previously banished traitors – who were both Welsh – and felt a sort of in-group connection with them. Of course, this is all speculation and he most likely made the choice to attempt to remain in the game for longer, but it is a funny coincidence.

There were also secret real-life connections between some players, and this definitely influenced how other players formed in-groups. Ross was set up from virtually the first day by the traitors – they killed Netty, who knew him in real life, planted seeds of suspicion, and tried to frame him for a following murder, eventually getting him banished. (As an aside, Netty, the first murder victim, Judy, the first banished player, and Ross, the scapegoat, were three of the four black players, which definitely raised eyebrows.) Jessie, a faithful, became fixated on avenging Ross’ banishment, and led the theory of the ‘library five’, insisting a traitor had to be in the room at a key moment for framing Ross (she was correct, two traitors were in the room at the time). As a result of her actions, Ellie, who was secretly Ross’ girlfriend, completely trusted Jessie, and they became a sort of mini in-group.

In the celebrity edition, things are slightly different. Most of the contestants already know or know of each other; they’re either friends or friends-of-friends, which shifts the group dynamic. You don’t necessarily see the same patterns of discrimination emerging. The notion of the in-group still stands, though – in the UK’s first celebrity series, Youtuber Niko Omilana was voted out first, and the reasoning was largely that he was a wild card – the only non-mainstream media celebrity in the cast – so the other players couldn’t read him, or didn’t trust him. Of course, the meta game of finding the traitors means that everyone is untrustworthy until proven otherwise (and even then, there are spectacular double bluffs by some traitors), but the show still provides a great insight into the way we behave in groups. Still, there’s no denying that it’s also a microcosm of British culture in the best and the worst ways. The unconscious bias is placed front and centre, but then again, with so many people noticing and criticising it, perhaps The Traitors has unintentionally opened a long overdue conversation.