Social Identity Salience Research Articles

Social identity shapes social valuation: evidence from prosocial behavior and vicarious reward.

People frequently engage in more prosocial behavior toward members of their own groups, as compared to other groups. Such group-based prosociality may reflect either strategic considerations concerning one's own future outcomes or intrinsic value placed on the outcomes of in-group members. In a functional magnetic resonance imaging experiment, we examined vicarious reward responses to witnessing the monetary gains of in-group and out-group members, as well as prosocial behavior towards both types of individuals. We found that individuals’ investment in their group—a motivational component of social identification—tracked the intensity of their responses in ventral striatum to in-group (vs out-group) members’ rewards, as well as their tendency towards group-based prosociality. Individuals with strong motivational investment in their group preferred rewards for an in-group member, whereas individuals with low investment preferred rewards for an out-group member. These findings suggest that the motivational importance of social identity—beyond mere similarity to group members—influences vicarious reward and prosocial behavior. More broadly, these findings support a theoretical framework in which salient social identities can influence neural representations of subjective value, and suggest that social preferences can best be understood by examining the identity contexts in which they unfold.

The Political Sources of Religious Identification: Evidence from the Burkina Faso–Côte d’Ivoire Border

Under what conditions does religion become a salient social identity? By measuring religious attachment among the people living astride the Burkina Faso–Côte d’Ivoire border in West Africa, an arbitrary boundary that exposes otherwise similar individuals to different political contexts, this article makes a case for the importance of the political environment in affecting the weight that people attach to their religious identities. After ruling out explanations rooted in the proportion of different religious denominations, the degree of secularization and the supply of religious institutions on either side of the border, as well as differences in the degree of religious pluralism at the national level, it highlights the greater exposure of Ivorian respondents to the politicization of religion during Côte d’Ivoire’s recent civil conflict. Methodologically, the study demonstrates the power – and challenges – of exploiting Africa’s arbitrary borders as a source of causal leverage.

Coming to Dislike Your Opponents: The Polarizing Impact of Political Campaigns

Loud and vitriolic campaigns are increasingly the norm. For an electorate for which partisanship is a salient social identity, campaign messages questioning the intentions, integrity, and patriotism of political opponents are liable to not only reinforce partisans’ stereotypes of the other side, but also engender new negative stereotypes. We use data from multiple large national surveys, and the Wisconsin Advertising Project to demonstrate that partisans’ evaluations of their opponents become more negative over the course of the campaign. Exposure to televised political advertising, especially negative advertising, increases partisan a ffect. We discuss the implications of our findings for current debates about the extent of partisan polarization within the mass public, and the consequences of such polarization for electoral accountability.

Ethnic identity salience improves recognition memory in Tibetan students via priming.

Social identity salience affects group-reference effect in memory. However, limited studies have examined the influence of ethnic identity salience on group-reference effect among minority group people in conditions where the minority group dominates. In the present research, we aim to investigate, in a Tibetan-dominant context, whether the salience of ethnic identity among Tibetan students could display an influence on their group-reference effect via priming method. We recruited 50 Tibetan and 62 Han Chinese students from Tibetan University in Lhasa, the capital of Tibet Autonomous Region, where Tibetans were the majority. A month before the experiment, we tested the baseline of ethnic identity salience of both Tibetan and Han Chinese students using the Twenty Statements Test. In the formal experiment, we assessed the effectiveness of priming method first and then conducted a recognition memory test 2 week later via priming approach. The results showed that the ethnic identity both of Tibetan and Han Chinese participants was not salient in the baseline assessment. However, it was successfully induced via priming among Tibetan students. Tibetan students showed a significant group-reference effect in recognition memory task when their ethnic identity was induced via priming. On the contrary, Han Chinese students did not show increased ethnic awareness and superiority of ethnic in-group reference memory after being primed. Current research provides new evidence for the influence of salience of ethnic identity on group-reference effect, contributing to the application and extension of social identity theory among minority group people.

Identity Dynamics and Conflict in Collaborative Processes: The Case of Participatory Management of Protected Areas in Benin

The research reported in this paper investigated the role of identity construction in the emergence and escalation of conflict in the participatory management of protected areas in Benin. The study shows that social identity salience was dynamic and played an important role in the emergence and escalation of conflict in the studied cases. Conflicts emerged when identities became salient as a result of the stake-holders’ framing of contextual factors as a threat to their identity. The conflicts escalated when decisions and actions undertaken in the management process were framed as top-down and as posing a threat to the identities of the stakeholders. We conclude that, although the government in the management of the protected areas introduced participation, unilateral decisions taken about the way the conflicts should be managed caused disappointment and distrust, and thus led to a greater distance between the parties involved and to conflict escalation.

The social psychology of disordered eating: The Situated Identity Enactment model

ABSTRACTEating disorders and subclinical behaviours such as dangerous dieting are a significant public health burden in the modern world. We argue that a social-psychological model of disordered eating is needed to explain how sociocultural factors are psychologically represented and subsequently reflected in an individual’s cognitions and behaviour. We present evidence that three central elements shape disordered eating – social norms, social identity and social context – and integrate these within a Situated Identity Enactment (SIE) model. Specifically, the SIE model states that social context determines the salience of both social norms and social identities. Social norms then influence disordered eating behaviour, but only to the extent that they are consistent represented in the content of a person’s social identities. We conclude by outlining the implications of the SIE model for researchers and practitioners in the domain of disordered eating, focusing in particular on the need for, and potential value of, theory-derived social interventions.

How to Become more Entrepreneurial? The Role of Identity in Entrepreneurial Goal Orientation

In this study, we analyze how social identification and role identity salience interplay and explain the entrepreneurial goal orientation of founder-owners of professional home nursing practices. F...

Understanding consumer reactions to product contamination risks after national disasters: The roles of knowledge, experience, and information sources

This study shows that not all consumers intend to decrease purchases of potentially contaminated products after disasters; some rather intend to increase purchases. Purchase intent reductions derive from contamination risk knowledge, which depends on observed behavior of other consumers, objective media information, and past opposition to the technology causing contamination. Technology hazard expertise reinforces the effects of consumers' risk assessments and of past opposition to technology use. By contrast, purchase intent increases derive from empathy and salient social identity shared with disaster victims, which are triggered by affect-laden media exposure, past disaster-related experience, and disaster involvement of consumers' social networks.

A Social Identity and Social Power Perspective on Terrorism

This article presents a theoretical framework for understanding terrorism that is grounded in experimental work on social identity and social power. It is suggested that social identity salience and social power may be harnessed to reduce terrorist activity by reducing perceptions of threat from the view of terrorist organizations, by reducing perceived threat of terrorist activity from the view of potential targets, and by addressing distributions of and susceptibility to social power as it relates to acceptability of parochial altruism.

Reproduction of Conflict in History Teaching in Ukraine: A Social Identity Theory Analysis

Based on 60 semistructured interviews with history teachers in Ukraine, the ways in which social identity impacts reproduction of intergroup prejudice and conflict on the level of secondary education are explored. This involves an analysis regarding how salience and meaning of social identity of the teachers affect how they present the in-group and other groups to school pupils. The analysis reveals how teachers create conflict narratives in their classrooms by altering the teaching program and textbooks to promote their vision of a nation and the rights of specific groups to participate in nation-building processes and to define enemies and allies. The major channels of this influence are specific concepts of national identity (ethnic, multicultural, and civic), social boundaries, and collective axiology.

Immigrant Arab adolescents in ethnic enclaves: physical and phenomenological contexts of identity negotiation.

Ecologically embedded social identity theories were used to examine the risk and protective factors associated with the identity negotiation and adjustment of recent immigrant Arab (IA) adolescents to the United States residing in ethnic enclaves. Yemeni, Lebanese, and Iraqi 8th-graders (n = 45) from 4 ethnic enclave schools participated in focus-group interviews. In-depth analyses of interviews revealed that living in an ethnic enclave enhanced IA adolescents' feelings of belonging to the community. However, the new immigrant status coupled with country of origin determined the permeability of intergroup boundaries with well-established Arab and Arab American peers. Their identity negotiations and social identity salience (national, religious, and pan-Arab) were informed by transitional experiences from home to host country and the prevailing political and cultural tensions between the two, recognition of national hierarchy within the Arab community, perceptions of discrimination by the larger society, changed educational aspirations consequent to immigration, and current physical (school and community) and phenomenological contexts. Findings suggest that current theoretical perspectives should be extended to incorporate phenomenological representations of past spaces and places not currently occupied to understand adolescents' multifaceted identity.

Political and Spiritual Migration: The Adaptive Formation of Religious and Partisan Attachments among Latino Immigrants in the United States

AbstractImmigrants to the United States often fail to develop partisan identities, which can be a political impediment. While the development of partisanship has received substantial attention in the existing literature, further research is needed to understand the origins of partisanship for new immigrants who lack the socialized psychological attachments that drive partisanship for many Americans. I theorize that preceding changes in salient social identities may facilitate the formation of partisan attachments as an adaptive response to a new environment. Specifically, I contend that religious conversion, an adaptive change in one's religious identity, increases the probability of political adaptation among Latino immigrants, the largest immigrant group in the United States. Using data from a 2006 Pew survey of Latino religious life, I show that conversion among Latino immigrants is associated with a greater partisan identification, which suggests religious conversion may function as an intervening adaptation in the evolution of partisanship.

Sociality as a natural mechanism of public goods provision.

In the recent literature, several hypotheses have been offered to explain patterns of human behavior in social environments. In particular, these patterns include ‘prosocial’ ones, such as fairness, cooperation, and collective good provision. Psychologists suggest that these prosocial behaviors are driven not by miscalculations, but by salience of social identity, in-group favoritism, emotion, or evolutionary adaptations. This paper imports psychology scholarship into an economic model and results in a sustainable solution to collective action problems without any external enforcement mechanisms. This natural mechanism of public goods provision is created, analyzed, and observed in a controlled laboratory environment using experimental techniques.

Improving HIV prevention programs: the role of identity in shaping healthy sexual behavior of rural adolescents in South Africa

A large body of literature highlights the role of culture and identity in how individuals manage and maintain health. Disappointingly there was no statistically significant decline in HIV prevalence in the 15–24 years age group in South Africa since 2007, Millennium Development Goal 6 indicator. This warrants a new approach to youth HIV prevention, which considers identity and culture, in male-dominant environments. We used identity-based motivation theory, which predicts that possible identities have a crucial influence on health-promoting behavior, to argue that girls are not currently attaining their low risk possible identities because sociocultural factors influence their behavior and compromise their health and economic outcomes. This study employed a cross-sectional survey among 285 rural black South African adolescents (mean age 16.7 years; 48.8% boys) to determine the salient social identity and the associated possible identities. We then tested whether youth behave in accordance with their possible identities. The dependent variables are non-risky behavior, risky behavior, and confidence to discuss sex. The independent variables are age, previous sex experience, and poverty. The adolescents chose gender as the most prominent social identity. Girls chose a safer possible identity than boys did, and girls do not actualize their possible identities while boys do. For girls, no dependent variables were significant. These results show that sociocultural barriers prevent the girls from actualizing their non-risky possible identity. Future adolescent HIV prevention programs aimed at reducing HIV should promote rights and responsibilities and consider cultural norms and beliefs to create a more gender-equal society that embraces less risky sexual behavior, in line with the idealized identity of girls. This to convince both male and female adolescents of the benefits, risks, and social harms embedded in certain traditional practices in a high HIV-prevalent environment.

The effect of intergroup threat and social identity salience on the belief in conspiracy theories over terrorism in indonesia: collective angst as a mediator

The present study tested how intergroup threat (high versus low) and social identity as a Muslim (salient versus non-salient) affected belief in conspiracy theories. Data among Indonesian Muslim students (N = 139) from this study demonstrated that intergroup threat and social identity salience interacted to influence belief in conspiracy theories. High intergroup threat triggered greater belief in conspiracy theories than low intergroup threat, more prominently in the condition in which participants’ Muslim identity was made salient. Collective angst also proved to mediate the effect of intergroup threat on the belief. However, in line with the prediction, evidence of this mediation effect of collective angst was only on the salient social identity condition. Discussions on these research findings build on both theoretical and practical implications.

People like me are never promoted! Plurality in hierarchical tournaments for promotion and compensation

A central tenet of tournament theory is that interhierarchical pay dispersion promotes effort and performance among employees—regardless of who ends up winning the tournament—because all employees seek to win and thereby receive the large pay raise. However, drawing from social identity theory, we propose that plurality in labor pools has important implications for tournament theory. Specifically, we posit that the performance benefits from interhierarchical pay dispersion are especially large when employees perceive previous promotees as similar to themselves, but minimal when they perceive dissimilarity. Dissimilarity to past tournament winners reduces the perceived probability of success and enhances the perception of injustice in response to interhierarchical pay dispersion, resulting in reduced performance and increased organizational deviance and turnover. Moreover, the influence of perceived demographic similarity on tournament effectiveness is strengthened by social creativity strategies and identity salience but weakened by social mobility strategies. Thus, in some contexts, interhierarchical pay dispersion will not only fail to promote performance, but will backfire and instead promote negative outcomes.

Social Identity Reduces Depression by Fostering Positive Attributions

Social identities are generally associated with better health and in particular lower levels of depression. However, there has been limited investigation of why social identities protect against depression. The current research suggests that social identities reduce depression in part because they attenuate the depressive attribution style (internal, stable, and global; e.g., “I failed because I’m stupid”). These relationships are first investigated in a survey (Study 1, N = 139) and then followed up in an experiment that manipulates social identity salience (Study 2, N = 88). In both cases, people with stronger social identities were less likely to attribute negative events to internal, stable, or global causes and subsequently reported lower levels of depression. These studies thus indicate that social identities can protect and enhance mental health by facilitating positive interpretations of stress and failure. Implications for clinical theory and practice are discussed.

Going green for self or for others? Gender and identity salience effects on sustainable consumption

AbstractThe aim of this study is to explore the effects of gender and salient identity on sustainable consumption. In particular, this research investigates how gender effects on sustainable consumption may be contingent to the identity that is salient to the consumer during the evaluation process (personal vs. social). According to identity‐based motivation theory, the salience of personal identity means that people temporarily think about themselves as individuals, whereas social identity salience means that people see themselves as part of a group. The results from an experimental study indicated that when personal identity was salient, female participants declared higher levels of sustainable consumption compared with male participants. However, when social identity was salient, male participants increased their sustainable consumption intentions to the same level as female participants. Finally, this research discusses the theoretical and managerial implications on identities, gender and sustainable consumption.

Conceptualization of Sexual Orientation Identity Among Sexual Minorities: Patterns Across Sexual and Gender Identity

This research analyzed how sexual minority individuals discussed identity when critiquing two sexual orientation scales. To better understand the diversity of sexual minority experience, analyses focused on the patterns of responses across sexual orientation identity (monosexual, plurisexual, and asexual) and gender identity (cisgender and transgender). Participants were self-identified sexual minorities who represented a range of gender identities. Using thematic analysis, four main themes were identified related to sexual orientation identity: (1) salience of identity, (2) social identity, (3) identity development and change, and (4) identity and the body. Discussion focuses on understanding the findings in the context of intersectionality theory and emphasizes the need to conceptually disaggregate sexual orientation and gender identity. The conceptualization of sexual orientation as centered on normative assumptions of monosexuality, verisexuality/nonasexuality, genderism, and cisgenderism is also explored.

Consumer social identity: cool and single or caring and attached

This research examines identity-based brand judgments by exploring consumers' preferences for the media environment and their ensuing perceptions of social identity congruence between themselves and media characters. Using lab experiments, we provide evidence that consumers regard brands differently when media characters are presented in a social environment versus an isolated environment, and that such variance is dependent on a consumer's key salient social identity dimensions: gender and ethnicity. Specifically, our evidence indicates that male and Western consumers prefer an isolated environment, whereas female and Asian consumers prefer a social environment. This preference translates to brand preferences and in some instances purchase intention. Further, when the branded product is identified as private, females and Asian consumers retain their preferences. This suggests that images of being cool and single in an isolated environment or caring and attached in a social environment should be tailored wisely for specific market segments.