Social identity motives in evolutionary perspective

Abstract

The aim of this chapter is to suggest an evolutionary model that can accommodate research on self and social identity. Drawing on recent developments in evolutionary biology and on considerations of morphology and ecology, we hypothesize that human social groups consist of a small number of evolutionary significant core configurations, and that uniquely human cognitive and motivational systems are adapted to these configurations. This model is then applied to a specific theory of the motivations underlying social identity at the individual, relational, and collective levels of analysis.