List of Contributors

Teaching and Learning Guide for: Group Norms and the Attitude–Behaviour Relationship

Social identities in physical activity promotion for sedentary women

Identity is a concept that consists of many concrete and abstract elements, both individually and socially. Individuals form groups emotionally and consciously within the framework of this concept and build different social identities. Social identity brings individuals together within their groups around similarities and differences, completing it as an integral part of their own self. Social identity constructs individuals and groups in societies by representing them with many character traits and self-creation motivation. Language is one of the most important characteristics in self-motivation and representation in the social identities of individuals and groups. Spoken language and its varieties (dialects) shape the identity of the individual throughout their life from birth and help them to reveal their subjectivity within the framework of a separate social group identity. Spoken language and its varieties (accent/idiom/dialect) shape the identity of the individual throughout their life and help them to reveal their subjectivity within the framework of social group identity. The subject of this study is the status of the dialect element as one of these preserved features constituting and developing the social identity of the individual in the city of Bursa. Data were collected through field research, using the qualitative analysis method. As the structure of dialects is most intensively observed in villages, the sample consisted of people selected only from the villages of Bursa city, mountain villages in particular. The people chosen in terms of representation ability were individuals with different characteristics pertaining to education, age, and occupational groups. The linguistic features and structure of the dialect used in Bursa are not examined in the study. The aim of the study is to reveal, with the qualitative field study conducted with the source persons, that the social identity approach is one of the representations that builds the individual and society.

The social identity approach was used to explore the inter-professional relations between nurse prescribers, pharmacist prescribers and general practitioners (GPs) in primary care in the United Kingdom. We investigated their social identities as prescribers, the influence of social structure in practice settings and the implications for further development of nurse and pharmacist prescribing. Interviews were conducted with 21 GPs, nurse prescribers and pharmacist prescribers in primary care from the south of England. Five themes emerged, including the ambiguous social identity of some nurse and pharmacist prescribers (‘a no man’s land’), constraining social structures (‘the doctor is king’), the content of GPs’ social identity (‘subtle prescribing’), the content of nurse and pharmacists’ social identity (‘more than just competent’) and context (‘engaging with each other’s identities’). At some GP practices, there was a willingness to engage with the different social identities and reframe them within the organisational context of a GP surgery. At these sites, where social identities were respected and supported, the social identity approach offered insight into how the resulting teamwork could lead to a shared practice identity focused on multi-disciplinary working. This research provides evidence of how professional and organisational identities can be enhanced and supported. Further, there is the potential for an intervention using the social identity approach to improve patient care.

This guide accompanies the following article: Giessner, S.R., Ullrich, J., & van Dick, R., ‘Social Identity and Corporate Mergers’. Social and Personality Psychology Compass 5/6 (2011): 333–345, doi: 10.1111/j.1751‐9004.2011.00357.x Authors’ Introduction Social psychology is concerned with people interacting as members of social groups. Corporate mergers provide an interesting field to apply social psychological theory in practice and also provide a context for the test and development of such theories. Mergers and acquisitions have been shown to often fail their financial and other strategic aims – one key reason for this failure is that human resources, that is, the needs of employees involved in the merger, are often considered less important than legal, technological or other factors by senior managers. In particular, it is often the merger’s impact on employee identities as members of the pre‐merger organizations and its consideration by change leaders that determines the merger’s failure or success. The article ‘Social Identity and Corporate Mergers’ utilizes a social identity approach to analyze the problem zones of mergers and we provide research suggesting how to lead a merger into success. In particular, leaders should provide reasons for why the merger is necessary, they should demonstrate actual and future continuity to reduce uncertainties due to the merger situation and leaders should pay attention to status differentials (e.g., between employees of the acquiring versus the acquired organization) as employees of the lower status merger partner have different concerns than employees of the higher status merger organization. Authors’ Recommend Hogan, E. A., & Overmyer‐Day, L. (1994). The psychology of mergers and acquisitions. In C. L. Cooper & L. T. Robertson (Eds), International review of industrial and organizational psychology (Vol. 9, pp. 247–281). Chichester, UK: Wiley. This paper is an early comprehensive overview of psychological processes involved in mergers and acquisitions. Cartwright, S. (2005). Mergers and acquisitions: An update and appraisal. In G. P. Hodgkinson & J. K. Ford (Eds.), International review of industrial and organizational psychology (Vol. 20, pp. 1–38). Chichester, UK: Wiley. This paper provides an update of the classic overview by Hogan and Overmyer‐Day (1994). King, D. R., Dalton, D. R., Daily, C. M., & Covin, J. G. (2004). Meta‐analyses of post‐acquisition performance: Indications of unidentified moderators. Strategic Management Journal , 25, 187–200. This article provides a strategic perspective on M&As’ (financial) performance presenting findings of a meta‐analytic summary of 93 empirical studies. Based on more than 800 effect sizes from over than 200,000 mergers and acquisitions and using a range of accounting measures of acquisition outcomes (e.g., return on investment, return on equity), the authors conclude that returns are either unaffected or slightly negatively affected after the M&A deal. Marks, M. L., & Mirvis, P. H. (2001). Making mergers and acquisitions work: Strategic and psychological preparation. The Academy of Management Executive , 15, 80–94. Marks and Mirvis start their paper with the notion that three out of four mergers fail to achieve their objectives. The authors then present a hands‐on approach for managers with a number of straightforward suggestions (e.g., ‘define the end state’; ‘cards‐on‐the‐table’). Further, they provide a classification of integration end‐states which can be nicely combined with the discussion of the representation of organizational identity in the article ‘Social Identity and Corporate Mergers’. van Knippenberg, D., van Knippenberg, B., Monden, L., & de Lima, F. (2002). Organizational identification after a merger: A social identity perspective. British Journal of Social Psychology , 41, 233–252. This paper is one of the first articles utilizing a social identity approach to understand why issues of dominance and continuity are crucial factors for employees’ post‐merger identity. Two survey studies are presented providing support for the authors’ hypotheses. Online Material http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ppYUZ1aoKYE A 10‐minute video in which management researcher Philip Mirvis is discussing organizational culture clashes and how to integrate organizations after a merger. http://www.london.edu/videoandaudio/facultyandresearch/organisationalbehaviour.html Collection of inspirational short video clips by London Business School faculty, including several on organizational change. Sample Portion of an Organizational Behavior Syllabus (for a BSc or MBA class) An excellent reading accompanying this course is: Robbins, S. P., & Judge, T. A. (2011). Organizational behavior (14th edn). New York: Prentice Hall. This is a comprehensive, accessible textbook covering all areas of organizational behavior and provides lots of additional features (point‐counterpoint, exercises) and accompanying material (self‐assessments, videos). Week 1: Course Administration and Introduction Week 2: Models of organizational behavior Week 3: Individual Level I: Personality, perception, emotions, attitudes Week 4: Individual Level II: Motivation Week 5: Group Level I: Groups and teams in organizations Week 6: Group Level II: Leadership Week 7: Group Level III: Power and conflict Week 8: Organizational Level I: Organizational structure Week 9: Organizational Level II: Organizational culture Week 10: Organizational Level III: Organizational change – Mergers & Acquisitions

Research on helping and altruism has been revitalized by the shift in focus from individual and interpersonal processed to group processed in the last decade. In particular, the social identity approach (Tajfel & Turner, 1979; Turner, 1985; Turner, Hogg, Oakes, Reicher, & Wetherell, 1987), which ahs been increasingly applied to helping situations, has provided a valuable group perspective on helping behaviour. The significance of social groups and shared identity for altruism has also been suggested (e.g., Monroe, 1996; Sober & Wilson, 1998). Although helping and altruism are typically undifferentiated, central to altruism is the issue of motivation, which as additional theoretical and applied implications. The eight studies reported in this thesis aimed to build upon current social identity research on helping behaviour and to extend the social identity approach to altruism. In line with the social identity perspective, factors associated with group membership were expected to have important implication for individual helping decisions, especially among high identifying group members. Studies 1 to 3 tested the combined effects of target group membership and group identification on individual helping intentions. In all three studies, participant completed an ingroup identification scale and reported their intentions to help the target, who was either an ingroup or an outgroup member. Consistent with expectations, high identifiers were willing to offer more help to a more ingroup-like target in study 1 (N = 141). However, in Study 2 (N = 93). High identifiers offered more help to an outgroup than to an ingroup target. In an attempt to clarify these conflicting finding, Study 3 (N = 138) examined group members’ helping responses in a group-relevant and a group-irrelevant helping situation. Results indicated that high identifiers were more willing to help an outgroup target when the helping situation was group-irrelevant rather than group-relevant. The helping intentions of low identifiers were largely unaffected by the group membership of the target or the group-relevance of the helping dimension. In a further analysis of the impact of target group membership on helping behaviour, Study 4 considered the moderating effects of perceived need on intergroup helping decisions. Using a realistic helping paradigm, participants (N = 94) heard a voice recording of a request for help from either an ingroup or an outgroup target, who expressed either a high or a low need for help. Where as people were more likely to help the ingroup than the outgroup target when there was a high need for help, the group membership of the target did not affect helping decisions when the need for help was low. While Studies 1 to 4 elaborated on the role of social identity factors in intergroup helping contexts, Studies 5 and 6 Focused on helping with intragroup contexts by considering how the intragroup position of the target can also influence people’s helping intentions. In Study 5 (N = 166), social identity salience was manipulated, whereas ingroup identification was measured in Study 6 (N = 118). Participants in both studies were then presented with a profile of either a prototypical or a non-prototypical target and were asked to indicate their helping intentions. As predicted, people who perceived their ingroup identity to be more salient (Study 5) or identified more highly with the ingroup (Study 6) were willing to offer more help to the prototypical than to the non-prototypical target. In addition, concern for the target was found to be a mediator in predicting individual helping intentions. The final two studies investigated social identity processed in field settings. Study 7 (N =618) assessed both helping intentions and behaviour in the context of a charity door-knock appeal. Respondents in both studies completed a survey, which included measures of group identification, concern, and helping intentions. Greater identification with the group was associated with increased willingness to contribute to the community (Study 7) and intentions to donate more money to the door-knock appeal (Study 8). Further more, the relationship between group identification and individual helping intentions was mediated by concern. Together, these eight studies highlighted the complexities of social identity influences on helping behaviour as well as the contributions that the social identity approach can make to the study of helping and altruism.

The social identity approach to understanding socio-political conflict in environmental and natural resources management

This paper advances the social identity approach as a valuable theoretical lens for interrogating teaching‐related professional identities, illustrating its analytical utility through a case study of English for Academic Purposes educators in higher education. Despite their pivotal role in supporting internationalisation agendas and student success, English for Academic Purposes educators often occupy structurally marginal and ambiguously defined positions, situated between academic and professional domains. Drawing on the two core components of the social identity approach—social identity theory and self‐categorisation theory—this paper offers a social‐psychological framework for examining how status, belonging and legitimacy are negotiated by English for Academic Purposes educators in roles historically undervalued within higher education academic hierarchies. The analysis carried out within this paper foregrounds key social identity processes, such as in‐group identification (how individuals locate themselves within communities), perceptions of boundary permeability (the perceived openness of group boundaries and opportunities for movement between communities), and the ideological positioning of teaching (how teaching is framed and valued within institutional hierarchies). In doing so, the paper demonstrates the utility of the social identity approach in theorising the structural and psychological dynamics that influence teaching identities in higher education, offering new insight into the identity struggles and strategies of this group of educators. Context and implications Rationale for this study: This paper advances the Social Identity Approach (SIA) as a valuable theoretical lens for interrogating teaching‐related professional identities, using English for Academic Purposes (EAP) educators in higher education (HE) as a case study. Despite their pivotal role in supporting internationalisation agendas and student success, EAP educators often occupy structurally marginal and ambiguously defined positions within HE, as they are often situated between academic and professional domains. This commentary contributes to a body of literature on EAP professional identity that has, to date, been led predominantly by sociological and critical theoretical frameworks. It extends this discussion by applying a social‐psychological framework—the social identity approach—to examining how status, belonging, and legitimacy are negotiated by EAP educators. Why this paper matters: This paper uses English for Academic Purposes educators as a case study to demonstrate the value of the SIA for understanding educator professional identities. While SIA has been used extensively and effectively in other fields such as organisational and health psychology, its application to educator identity remains limited. This work seeks to highlight the explanatory and predictive power of SIA for examining how educators negotiate, develop, and sustain their professional identities. Implications for researchers: This article explains a well‐established, empirically developed theoretical framework, advocating for its application to examining educator professional identities, and demonstrating its application through the case of EAP educators. In particular, the paper shows how the core elements of SIA can be mapped onto issues of status, belonging, and legitimacy in teaching‐focused roles, and suggests ways these insights could be used to strengthen professional cohesion and standing. While it has not been within the scope of this paper to design specific interventions, the predictive elements of SIA, particularly those relating to social influence and norm formation, offer a basis for developing context‐sensitive, theoretically grounded strategies to foster stronger collective identities. Although EAP has served as the case study here, the framework's utility extends far beyond this group, offering a powerful lens for understanding educator identities across diverse educational contexts.

ContextOne of health care's foremost challenges is the achievement of integration and collaboration among the groups providing care. Yet this fundamentally group-related issue is typically discussed in terms of interpersonal relations or operational issues, not group processes.MethodsWe conducted a systematic search for literature offering a group-based analysis and examined it through the lens of the social identity approach (SIA). Founded in the insight that group memberships form an important part of the self-concept, the SIA encompasses five dimensions: social identity, social structure, identity content, strength of identification, and context.FindingsOur search yielded 348 reports, 114 of which cited social identity. However, SIA-citing reports varied in both compatibility with the SIA's metatheoretical paradigm and applied relevance to health care; conversely, some non-SIA-citers offered SIA-congruent analyses. We analyzed the various combinations and interpretations of the five SIA dimensions, identifying ten major conceptual currents. Examining these in the light of the SIA yielded a cohesive, multifaceted picture of (inter)group relations in health care.ConclusionsThe SIA offers a coherent framework for integrating a diverse, far-flung literature on health care groups. Further research should take advantage of the full depth and complexity of the approach, remain sensitive to the unique features of the health care context, and devote particular attention to identity mobilization and context change as key drivers of system transformation. Our article concludes with a set of “guiding questions” to help health care leaders recognize the group dimension of organizational problems, identify mechanisms for change, and move forward by working with and through social identities, not against them.

Against the backdrop of a global physical inactivity crisis, attempts to both understand and positively influence physical activity behaviours are characterized by a focus on individual-level factors (e.g. cognitions, attitudes, motivation). We outline a new perspective, drawn from an emerging body of work exploring the applicability of social identity and self-categorization theories to domains of sport and health, from which to understand and address this pervasive problem. This social identity approach suggests that the groups to which people belong can be, and often are, incorporated into their sense of self and, through this, are powerful determinants of physical activity-related behaviour. We start by reviewing the current state of physical activity research and highlighting the potential for the social identity approach to help understand how social factors influence these behaviours. Next, we outline the theoretical underpinnings of the social identity approach and provide three key examples that speak to the analytical and practical value of the social identity approach in physical activity settings. Specifically, we argue that social identity (1) can be harnessed to promote engagement in physical activity, (2) underpins exercise group behaviour, and (3) underpins effective leadership in exercise settings. We conclude by identifying prospects for a range of theory-informed research developments.

Paranoia in the Community: A Social Identity Approach

Individuals construct their own identity, but they do not construct their identity just as they please; they do not construct it under circumstances chosen by themselves, but under circumstances encountered, given and transmitted from the past. (Darity, Mason, and Stewart 2006, 290) Identity can’t be compartmentalized. You can’t divide it up into halves or thirds or any other separate segments. I haven’t got several identities: I’ve got just one, made up of many components in a mixture that is unique of me, just as other people’s identity is unique to them as individuals. (Maalouf 1998 [2000], 2) The Economics of Identity What is the “economics of identity?” In fact, the meaning of that expression is ambiguous and contested (Kirman and Teschl 2004; Fine 2009). Many nonetheless associate it with Akerlof and Kranton’s (2000) proposal to introduce the concept of social identity into economics by expanding the traditional Homo economicus utility function to include a set of self-images associated with the individual’s different social identities. On that view, people gain or lose utility according to how their social identity self-images are affected by their interaction with others. However, this does not explain the role that individuals have in determining which social identities they wish to have. That would entail having some account of how individuals choose certain social identities and also some explanation of the extent to which they are influential in determining what social identities they have. That is, it would entail having some understanding of the relationship between who they are, or what their personal identity involves, and their many social identities. Akerlof and Kranton, though they do not refer to personal identity, implicitly equate it with the individual’s utility function. However, because the utility function only tells us how people are affected by their social identities, it does not allow us to say how they influence their determination, thus making it the choice of the economic modeler to say what social identities individuals have. That is, with no real account of personal identity, they are unable to explain the relationship between personal identity and social identity. I argued in the previous chapter that on a capabilities conception of the individual people’s development of their capabilities goes hand in hand with their development of a special personal identity capability that allows them to keep narrative accounts of themselves. If one capability they develop, then, is of being able to elect particular social identities, how they keep narrative accounts of themselves constitutes a way of explaining the relationship between personal identity and social identity. Yet it would be a mistake to say that their doing this gives people complete freedom to determine what social identities they will have. Recall from Chapter 3, then, that in contrast to the psychology’s social identity approach and Turner’s self-categorization theory (Turner 1985) that Akerlof and Kranton draw on, the sociological approach to identity assumes that individuals and social groups mutually influence one another. On this view, the personal and social identities of individuals and also the identities of social groups are all mutually determined. On the one hand, the social construction and assignment of social categories to individuals influences what social groups they belong to and thus what social identities they elect. This in turn influences their personal identities. On the other hand, the social groups individuals belong to and the social identities they elect influences the formation of social groups and the construction of social categories used to represent those social groups. This frames the evolutionary-relational side of the individual conception developed previously in much broader terms that allow us to begin to capture the more indirect social influences that operate on individuality. In effect, what we try to do here, then, is locate that individual conception in an “identity dynamics” (Potts 2008) that operates across individuals and groups.

Understanding and positively influencing athlete mental health have become key goals for researchers and sporting stakeholders (e.g. coaches, support staff, clubs and governing bodies). In this article, we outline a novel perspective for tackling these challenges, drawing on an influential theory of group processes. This social identity approach can, we argue, help explain when and why the characteristics and demands of sport, which is typically a collective endeavour, pose a threat to athlete mental health and provide a guiding framework for efforts to protect and enhance athlete mental health. Here, we seek to illustrate the value of a social identity analysis of athlete mental health through three key points that speak to its analytical and practical value. Specifically, we propose: (1) that social identities can act as psychological resources that support athlete mental health, (2) that social identities are critical to athlete mental health during and after sporting transitions and (3) that leadership informed by a social identity approach can facilitate athlete mental health. With a view to maximising the value of our analysis both for those working with athletes and for researchers, we also identify practical steps that relevant stakeholders could take to support athlete mental health, and key avenues for future research to further test our propositions and advance understanding. Our analysis provides a new lens through which all those invested in understanding and supporting athlete mental health can approach these challenges, and a foundation for novel solutions.

Autistic people face a difficult dilemma around whether or not to disclose their diagnosis because autistic people are a stigmatized socialgroup. The central aim of this study was to examine if a social identity approach could be useful in understanding the factors that predict the likelihood of autistic adults disclosing their autism diagnosis in social settings, in the workplace, in educational settings and in the family. The social identity approach predicts that autistic people may cope with this dilemma by using an individualistic strategy to distance themselves from their autistic social identity. Alternatively, they may embrace their autistic social identity and use a collective strategy to resist stigma and advocate for autistic people. We present a survey based cross-sectional study (n = 175) with autistic adults living in Ireland. Participants completed a series of measures; autism social identification, stigma consciousness, and individualistic and collective strategy use to assess disclosing in the four settings. The overall models in each of the four regressions were significant. Autism social identification positively predicted disclosure in social, workplace and educational settings, while stigma consciousness negatively predicted disclosure in the family and in the workplace. Interestingly, over and above these predictors individualistic strategy use negatively predicted disclosure in each of the four settings, while collective strategy use positively predicted disclosure in social, educational and family settings. Our novel social identity approach was useful for explaining autistic adults' strategies to cope with the complex disclosure dilemma. Strengths, limitations, and directions for future research are discussed.

The concept of group identity, and its implications for the self and relation to others are addressed by the social identity approach within psychology. I review this approach, comprising social identity theory, self-categorization theory, and the most important subsequent developments. Social identity theory not only addresses the bases for differentiation and discrimination between groups, but it also views social competition as a means for disadvantaged groups to challenge the status quo, helping to explain social change. Self-categorization theory develops the concept of group identity, clarifying the contrast with personal forms of identity, and extends the realm of application to address a range of classical phenomena within social psychology. These include issues clearly relating to the intergroup context (stereotyping, salience, collective behavior), as well as others where an intergroup dimension has not always been acknowledged (self, social influence, leadership, etc.). Some key extensions and developments of the social identity approach focus on contextual factors that can affect the salience and strategic expression of identity (the social identity model of deindividuation effects), how identity is transformed and radicalized through collective struggle (the elaborated social identity model), and the importance of emotions to group identity and group life (intergroup emotion theory). These extensions help to specify further the precise forms that group behavior may take and the processes responsible for this. The influence of the social identity approach not only within social psychology, but also beyond its borders, points both to the importance of group identity and to the heuristic and explanatory value of this theoretical tradition.