Social identity
The part of the self-concept that comes from membership of groups, together with the value and feeling attached to it. When a group identity is salient, people think and act as group members rather than as individuals.
What drives it
It supplies self-esteem, meaning and certainty: 'who I am' is borrowed partly from 'who we are'. For identification, it explains why the same person can be generous one-to-one and tribal in a group, and why attacks on a group feel like personal attacks.
How it shows
Work
Talk shifts from 'I' to 'we' and 'they': 'We in sales', 'Finance always blocks us'. After a merger, people still describe themselves by the legacy company years later. A leader is followed most readily when seen as prototypical of the group ('one of us'), which is why an outsider CEO struggles even with good ideas. Who resists change: those whose identity is most tied to the old group.
Relationships
Family identity ('In this family we don't quit', 'We're not a therapy family') that shapes choices more than any individual preference. Partners from different religious, class or national groups find conflicts about small things are really about which group's way prevails.
Self
You feel a jolt of pride or defensiveness when your company, school, profession or country is mentioned, out of proportion to your personal involvement. Criticism of the group lands as criticism of you.
What tells it apart
In-group bias: Social identity is the self-definition; in-group bias is the behavioural consequence (favouring your group). Someone can strongly identify yet treat outsiders fairly, which shows the two separate.
Need to belong: The need to belong is satisfied by close bonds with specific people; social identity attaches to a category, including millions you will never meet.
Conformity: Conformity is following whoever is in the room; identity-driven behaviour follows the group's norms even when no members are present to see.
A test
Make the group membership salient (mention the rival firm, the other party, the other department) and watch whether the person's language and judgements shift towards 'we' and 'they'.
Questions to carry
- Once the rival group was mentioned, how did the language change, and when did ‘we’ and ‘they’ appear?
- Which group's name, when attacked, makes me feel attacked, and what does belonging to it give me?
How strong the research is
strong
Where it comes from
Henri Tajfel and John Turner, 1979; John Turner, 1987 (self-categorisation theory)
Sources
- Robert Jay Lifton, Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism: A Study of 'Brainwashing' in China (1961)
- Henri Tajfel and John C. Turner, An Integrative Theory of Intergroup Conflict (1979)
- Jonathan Haidt, The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion (2012)