Social Identity Dynamics Research Articles

Confronting Islamic Jihadist Movements

This paper argues that in order to win the long-term fight against Islamic Jihadist movements, we must confront their ideological foundations and provide the majority of Muslims with an alternative narrative that satisfies their social identity needs for a positive esteem. By analysing social identity dynamics of Western-Muslim interactions, this paper presents some novel ideas that can lead to the creation of such a narrative.

Why partisan warriors don't listen: the gendered dynamics of intergroup anxiety and partisan conflict

Talking and listening to political opponents is central to the proper functioning of deliberative democracy. But the social identity dynamics of partisan intergroup conflict make party identifiers in the US – Democrats and Republicans alike – less likely to engage in these activities. We argue that those group dynamics are gendered such that men are more sensitive than women to intergroup conflict and competition. Consequently, men are more likely to experience “intergroup anxiety” at the prospect of political interaction with partisan opponents. Using survey data from the 2010 Cooperative Congressional Election Study and experimental data, we found that men with higher intergroup anxiety were more likely than women to avoid cross-party political discussion, not listen when they did engage in such conversations, and reject information from outparty leaders. These results highlight the critical role that partisan social identities play in everyday democratic citizenship, but also emphasize the important and neglected gender aspect of mass interparty dynamics in the USA.

Does the Mask Govern the Mind?: Effects of Arbitrary Gender Representation on Quantitative Task Performance in Avatar-Represented Virtual Groups

Virtual environments employing avatars for self-representation-including the opportunity to represent or misrepresent social categories-raise interesting and intriguing questions as to how one's avatar-based social category shapes social identity dynamics, particularly when stereotypes prevalent in the offline world apply to the social categories visually represented by avatars. The present experiment investigated how social category representation via avatars (i.e., graphical representations of people in computer-mediated environments) affects stereotype-relevant task performance. In particular, building on and extending the Proteus effect model, we explored whether and how stereotype lift (i.e., a performance boost caused by the awareness of a domain-specific negative stereotype associated with outgroup members) occurred in virtual group settings in which avatar-based gender representation was arbitrary. Female and male participants (N=120) were randomly assigned either a female avatar or a male avatar through a process masked as a random drawing. They were then placed in a numerical minority status with respect to virtual gender-as the only virtual female (male) in a computer-mediated triad with two opposite-gendered avatars-and performed a mental arithmetic task either competitively or cooperatively. The data revealed that participants who were arbitrarily represented by a male avatar and competed against two ostensible female avatars showed strongest performance compared to others on the arithmetic task. This pattern occurred regardless of participants' actual gender, pointing to a virtual stereotype lift effect. Additional mediation tests showed that task motivation partially mediated the effect. Theoretical and practical implications for social identity dynamics in avatar-based virtual environments are discussed.

Organizational Faultlines: Social Identity Dynamics and Organizational Change

The role that social identity dynamics play during organizational change is explored in a grounded theory study of a rural hospital undergoing major change. The faultline concept, from small group research, is applied at the organizational level to explain how professional identity group dynamics act as a barrier to change. The main contribution is the authors' organizational faultline model, which shows how non-explicit social identities (i.e. small town membership), when triggered by organizational change, can result in poor intergroup dynamics and decreased job satisfaction. This study contributes to our understanding of social identities and organizational change by illustrating how organizational change may have activated latent social identity faultlines.

Enacting Identities in the EU–Russia Borderland

Drawing on Rogers Brubaker’s theoretical analyses of “nationness” and nationalism in post-communist Europe, this article examines the dynamics of social identity within the nationally contested setting of the Estonian–Russian borderland. Since 1991, the city of Narva (96% Russophone by population) has customarily been defined (both politically and academically) in binary national terms as a “Russian enclave” within a unitary and “nationalizing” Estonian state. An ethnographic approach to the case, however, gives a rather different perspective, pointing to hybridity rather than nationality as the defining characteristic of identity politics within the city. In what follows, we bring to bear the results of extensive fieldwork carried out in Narva during 2006–2008. We first examine how different identity categories (local, national, meso-regional, and supranational) are being officially inscribed within Narva’s sites of memory. Thereafter, we focus on how these discursive-material articulations of place are implicated within the everyday performance of identity amongst the city’s population. Using the novel methodology of photo elicitation, we examine how residents of Narva appropriate but also subvert the identity categories that elites and outsiders (including ourselves as researchers) would seek to impose on them from above. This study (we argue) is significant for its methodological novelty, as well as in terms of giving a more nuanced understanding of Narva’s situation at a time of continued ethnopolitical contestation within Estonia as a whole.

THE SOCIAL IDENTITY DIMENSION OF INTER-GROUP CONFLICTS

This article aims to provide an analytical discussion for inter-group conflicts in the context of the social identity phenomenon, a rather neglected dimension of social conflict. The study reveals that social identity is related to inter-group conflicts by leading to stereotyping, ethnocentric behaviors, and inter-group competitions, offering, thus, a useful framework in capturing many social-psychological aspects of these conflicts. It is noted, however, that social identity, by itself, is not a direct cause of overt inter-group conflicts. The need for further research into conditions that may tie the dynamics of social identity to expressed inter-group conflicts in a clearer way is urged.

Participation politics: African parents’ negotiation of social identities in school governance and its policy implications

Although there is evidence of parental participation in school governance in South Africa, the question of how these parents manage their participation in these affairs is largely unanswered. This question represents one of the major exclusions in the existing reflections on the school governance debate in the country. Using a qualitative approach, this study investigated the underlying dynamics of social identity as a factor in parents’ engagement in school governance in 10 schools in the Eastern Cape. It provides evidence of the fragmented and dynamic nature of social identity and how it shaped behaviours among the parents. While challenging many contemporary social theories, the paper suggests several implications for policy re‐formulation.

Ethnic enclaves and the dynamics of social identity on the college campus: the good, the bad, and the ugly.

The effects of membership in ethnic organizations and fraternities and sororities on intergroup attitudes were examined using a 5-wave panel study at a major, multiethnic university. The results showed that these effects were similar for both minority and White students. Membership in ethnic student organizations for minorities and Greek organizations for Whites was anteceded by the degree of one's ethnic identity, and the effects of membership in these groups were similar, although not identical, for both White and minority students. These effects included an increased sense of ethnic victimization and a decreased sense of common identity and social inclusiveness. Consistent with social identity theory, at least a portion of these effects were mediated by social identity among both White and minority students.

Peter Mark. “Portuguese” Style and Luso-African Identity: Precolonial Senegambia, Sixteenth–Nineteenth Centuries. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2002. 224 pp. Photographs. Notes. Bibliography. Index. $24.95. Paper.

Peter Mark. “Portuguese” Style and Luso-African Identity: Precolonial Senegambia, Sixteenth–Nineteenth Centuries. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2002. 224 pp. Photographs. Notes. Bibliography. Index. $24.95. Paper. - Volume 47 Issue 1

From ‘I’ to ‘We’: The Role of Putdown Humor and Identity in the Development of a Temporary Group

Participant observation of a 6-week Executive Development Course suggests that humor provides a key mechanism for enacting a sense of community for group members. Specifically, the study examines the process through which putdown humor helps foster group identity and cohesion in a temporary group. Putdowns followed a pattern of development that signaled increasing trust and inclusion, and was regulated by implicit rules that incubated the emergent solidarity. The meaning of certain humorous episodes was equivocal, but the act of laughing together glossed over the equivocality so that the sense of community was reaffirmed. Further, social identity dynamics appeared to strongly affect perceptions of the appropriateness of humor. The authors conclude that shared putdown humor and the implicit set of rules regarding its use may facilitate solidarity, and they attempt to reconcile why ‘inclusionary putdowns’ were found here when ‘exclusionary putdowns’ are usually reported in the literature.