Social Identity Strength Research Articles

How team socialization processes relate to youth ice hockey players’ social identity strength and cohesion.

How team socialization processes relate to youth ice hockey players’ social identity strength and cohesion.

Civic education’s relationship to affective partisan divides later in life

Civic education is often touted as a counterweight to the contentiousness of American politics. Yet, civic education’s relationship to dislike and distrust of opposing partisans (affective polarization) remains largely untested. Simultaneously, there are calls for educators to promote more civic informed action, taking civic education beyond the walls of the classroom. This study utilizes data from a survey of the 2016 election to examine the relationship between individuals’ recalled civic education experiences (classroom pedagogy and community service) and affective polarization. In addition, this study explores two potential moderators of the relationship between civic education and affective polarization, partisan social identity strength and age. Analysis of the sample shows a significant relationship between both types of civic education experience and affective polarization, though the nature of that relationship may depend on respondents’ partisan social identity and age.

Supplemental Material for How Team Socialization Processes Relate to Youth Ice Hockey Players’ Social Identity Strength and Cohesion

Supplemental Material for How Team Socialization Processes Relate to Youth Ice Hockey Players’ Social Identity Strength and Cohesion

From Slum Tourism to Smiley Selfies: The Role of Social Identity Strength in the Consumption of Morally Ambiguous Experiences

Why do some consumers find a consumption activity appealing while others see it as morally appalling? A series of five experiments in two different morally ambiguous contexts shows that differences in social identity strength can in part explain discrepant reactions to the very same consumption experience. Consumers who identify weakly (vs. strongly) with the people most related to the consumption environment are less likely to question the experience on moral grounds. As a result, they are more likely to choose a morally ambiguous consumption experience or to act in a morally ambiguous manner. The impact of social identity strength on consumer preference vanishes when the consumption experience is morally neutral or when all consumers are prompted to judge the experience on moral grounds. Statistical analyses based on post-hoc justifications provide further evidence for the mediating role of moral considerations.

From Slum Tourism to Smiley Selfies: The Role of Social Identity Strength in the Consumption of Morally Ambiguous Experiences

Why do some consumers find a consumption activity appealing while others see it as morally appalling? A series of five experiments in two different morally ambiguous contexts shows that differences in social identity strength can in part explain discrepant reactions to the very same consumption experience. Consumers who identify weakly (vs. strongly) with the people most related to the consumption environment are less likely to question the experience on moral grounds. As a result, they are more likely to choose a morally ambiguous consumption experience or to act in a morally ambiguous manner. The impact of social identity strength on consumer preference vanishes when the consumption experience is morally neutral or when all consumers are prompted to judge the experience on moral grounds. Statistical analyses based on post hoc justifications provide further evidence for the mediating role of moral considerations.

How teammate behaviors relate to athlete affect, cognition, and behaviors: A daily diary approach within youth sport

ObjectivesThe current study examined prosocial and antisocial behaviors from teammates as predictors of within-person differences over time in self-reported prosocial and antisocial teammate behaviors toward teammates and social identity strength. DesignOver a 10-day period, a daily diary approach was used to collect 848 observations from 100; male, n = 45; female, n = 55 youth hockey athletes who were between 11 and 17 years of age (Mage = 13.24, SD = 1.83). MethodParticipants completed daily diaries related to their experiences of prosocial and antisocial behavior from teammates, the prosocial and antisocial behaviors they directed toward teammates, and social identity strength. Linear mixed-level modelling was used to examine how daily experiences of moral behavior from teammates over-time were linked to within-person differences in moral behaviors toward teammates and social identity strength. ResultsMultilevel analyses showed significant within-person variance in athletes’ moral behaviors toward teammates and their social identity strength. These differences were predicted by daily experiences of prosocial and antisocial behavior from teammates. Athletes reported a stronger social identity on days they experienced a higher number of prosocial behaviors, and a weaker social identity on days they experienced a higher number of antisocial behaviors. The frequency of daily experienced prosocial and antisocial behaviors interacted in predicting self-reported prosocial and antisocial behaviors toward teammates. ConclusionDaily prosocial and antisocial behaviors from teammates are systematically related to the ways that athletes behave toward their teammates as well as the strength with which they identify with their sport team.

Negative Outgroup Leader Actions Increase Liking for Ingroup Leaders: An Experimental Test of Intergroup Leader-Enhancement Effects

We conducted two studies to examine how information about outgroup leaders' negative actions affect ingroup leader favorability ratings. Study 1 found that people hold more favorable attitudes toward ingroup leaders (i.e. their own nation's leaders) when learning of negative actions of outgroup leaders (i.e. another nation's leaders). Study 2 replicated the finding, examining social identity strength as a moderator of this effect, and found that participants with strong national identification exhibit this intergroup leader-enhancement effect but participants with weak national identification do not. These data extend previous research on liking for leaders and are consistent with predictions derived from social identity theory. The implications of these findings for intergroup relations research and the psychological study of leadership are discussed.

Do Unto Others as They Do Unto You: Reciprocity and Social Identification as Determinants of Ingroup Favoritism

Predictions from the bounded and unbounded reciprocity hypotheses and from social identity theory (SIT) were examined in a minimal group experiment in which ingroup outcome dependence, outgroup outcome dependence, and the strength of social identity were orthogonally manipulated. Both ingroup and outgroup outcome dependence affected reward allocations. Participants made more ingroup-favoring reward allocations across all conditions. The identification manipulation produced hypothesized effects on social identification measures and marginal effects of identification on reward allocations in the no-dependence condition. Support was found for both an unbounded and bounded version of the reciprocity hypothesis and marginal support for a SIT approach to intergroup discrimination. The study highlights insufficiencies of both theoretical approaches and suggests possibilities for integration and elaboration.

The Effect of Conflict and Power Differentials on Social Identity and Intergroup Discrimination

Social identity theory posits that situational factors increase category salience that, in turn, brings intergroup bias, such as prejudice, stereotype, and discrimination. This study investigates the effects of two situational factors, conflict and power differentials, on social identity and intergroup discrimination. We hypothesize that high-conflict or high power differentials raise the strength of social identity and therefore result in greater intergroup discrimination. Result showed that intergroup power differentials had a direct effect on intergroup discrimination, not mediated by social identity strength. Additionally, different response patterns were found between male and female subjects, with females showing stronger gender identity and less intergroup discrimination than males. Male's gender identity was stable across conditions, while female showed greater variability of gender identity across conditions. Some implications on managing diversity were suggested.

Social representations of history: preliminary notes on content and consequences around the pacific rim

Social representations of world history were examined among student populations in four Pacific Rim cultures: Hong Kong, Japan, Australia, and New Zealand. Nominations of the five most influential figures in the last 1000 years revealed a preponderance of political and wartime leaders (59 and 37% overall ), with Hitler number one by a wide margin. Nominations of the seven most important events were complementary, with politics and war again dominating. World War II was named most frequently, World War I next. There was little cultural variation in the emphasis on politics and war, and all nominations centred around the 20th century. Each culture showed evidence of relative in-group ontogeny, or a focus on their own ethnic or national in-group, but Europe was central to all representations, and neighbouring cultures relatively unimportant. Absolute ontogeny was found only at the level of ethnicity, not nationality, with Japanese showing the least ontogenic focus. Taken as wholes, Chinese and Japanese representations showed potential for conflict, but broad historical perceptions were unrelated to individual differences in political preferences or strength of social identity.

Genii of the River Niger

The river Niger, a source of life and danger for the people in impoverished eastern Mali, is also the origin of elaborate mythology. From his travels through Mali and down the in a dugout canoe, Jean-Marie Gibbal has created a personal documentary of the cultures of the region. The result is at once an ethnography of cultures in crisis and a evocation of the environment and people he encountered. Gibbal portrays the river as the dominant, cohesive force among people in the face of social and environmental strife. He focuses on the Ghimbala healing cult, which centres on the river, and how the cult structures social relations in the region. Gibbal relates the Ghimbala rites, nocturnal ceremonies of spirit possession and seance which animate the water spirits, or genii, that inhabit the river. The genii, he finds, provide the strength of social identity in a world where famine and competing versions of Islam threaten to overpower traditional culture. In its original French publication, Genii of the River Niger was honoured with an Alexandra David-Neel literary prize in 1989.