The Context of Social Identity: Domination, Resistance, and Change

The task of social psychology is to explain the flexibility of human beings in creating and relating to their social worlds. Social identity and self-categorization theories provide a thoroughgoing interactionist framework for achieving such a task. However, in order to do so, it is necessary to avoid reductionist misreadings of the theories that would explain human social action simply by reference to psychological processes, without examining how the play of process depends on the cultural and structural settings in which they occur. More specifically, to the extent that self-categories shape social action, flexibility is achieved through the categories to which we belong, the others with whom we compare ourselves, and the dimensions along which such comparisons occur. These are not a fixed aspect of the human condition but are a focus for argument precisely because of their world-making consequences.

[1]  H. Tajfel,et al.  The Social Identity Theory of Intergroup Behavior. , 2004 .

[2]  N. Branscombe,et al.  Attitudes toward group-based inequality: social dominance or social identity? , 2003, The British journal of social psychology.

[3]  E. Renan.  WHAT IS A NATION? (1882) , 2002 .

[4]  S. Reicher,et al.  Psychology and the End of History: A Critique and a Proposal for the Psychology of Social Categorization , 2001 .

[5]  Clifford Stott,et al.  A model of crowd prototypes and crowd leadership , 2001 .

[6]  J. Turner,et al.  Prejudice as a group process: The role of social identity , 2001 .

[7]  J. Drury,et al.  Collective action and psychological change: the emergence of new social identities. , 2000, The British journal of social psychology.

[8]  S. Guimond.  Group socialization and prejudice: the social transmission of intergroup attitudes and beliefs , 2000 .

[9]  F. Sani,et al.  Identity, Argument and Schism: Two Longitudinal Studies of the Split in the Church of England over the Ordination of Women to the Priesthood , 1999 .

[10]  John C. Turner,et al.  Some current issues in research on social identity and self-categorization theories , 1999 .

[11]  Naomi Ellemers,et al.  The context and content of social identity threat , 1999 .

[12]  F. Pratto,et al.  Social Dominance: An Intergroup Theory of Social Hierarchy and Oppression , 1999 .

[13]  F. Sani,et al.  Introducing SAGA: Structural analysis of group arguments. , 1998 .

[14]  F. Sani,et al.  When consensus fails: an analysis of the schism within the Italian Communist Party (1991) , 1998 .

[15]  S. Reicher,et al.  On the parallels between social cognition and the ‘new racism’ , 1997 .

[16]  S. Reicher,et al.  Intergroup contact and desegregation in the new South Africa , 1997 .

[17]  S. Reicher.  ‘The Crowd’ century: Reconciling practical success with theoretical failure , 1996 .

[18]  A. Manstead,et al.  Intergroup norms and intergroup discrimination: distinctive self-categorization and social identity effects. , 1996, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[19]  S. Reicher,et al.  Seeking influence through characterizing self-categories: an analysis of anti-abortionist rhetoric. , 1996, The British journal of social psychology.

[20]  S. Reicher,et al.  Making sense of symptoms: self-categorization and the meaning of illness and injury. , 1996, The British journal of social psychology.

[21]  S. Reicher,et al.  Self‐category constructions in political rhetoric; an analysis of Thatcher's and Kinnock's speeches concerning the British miners' strike (1984–5) , 1996 .

[22]  T. Postmes,et al.  A Social Identity Model of Deindividuation Phenomena , 1995 .

[23]  Erica Burman,et al.  Deconstructing Developmental Psychology , 2011 .

[24]  John C. Turner,et al.  Self and Collective: Cognition and Social Context , 1994 .

[25]  Mark Levine,et al.  Deindividuation, power relations between groups and the expression of social identity: The effects of visibility to the out‐group , 1994 .

[26]  John C. Turner,et al.  Stereotyping and Social Reality , 1994 .

[27]  John C. Turner,et al.  Context‐dependent variation in social stereotyping 2: The relationship between frame of reference, self‐categorization and accentuation , 1992 .

[28]  A. Reszler.  L'Europe à la recherche de ses symboles , 1992 .

[29]  B. Hayes,et al.  Context‐dependent variation in social stereotyping 1: The effects of intergroup relations as mediated by social change and frame of reference , 1992 .

[30]  M. Hogg,et al.  Rediscovering the social group: A self-categorization theory. , 1989 .

[31]  E. Gross,et al.  Festivals and the French Revolution. , 1988 .

[32]  I. Wallerstein.  The construction of peoplehood: Racism, nationalism, ethnicity , 1987 .

[33]  N. Dorn.  Alcohol, youth and the state , 1983 .

[34]  M. Barker.  The new racism , 1981 .

[35]  S. Ng.  The Social Psychology of Power , 1981 .

[36]  H. Tajfel,et al.  An integrative theory of intergroup conflict. , 1979 .

[37]  H. Tajfel.  Differentiation between social groups: Studies in the social psychology of intergroup relations. , 1978 .

[38]  William M. Reddy.  THE TEXTILE TRADE AND THE LANGUAGEOF THE CROWD AT ROUEN 1752–1871 , 1977 .

[39]  John R. Anderson.  Language, Memory, and Thought , 1976 .

[40]  John C. Turner,et al.  Social comparison and social identity: Some prospects for intergroup behaviour , 1975 .

[41]  N. Z. Davis.  THE RITES OF VIOLENCE: RELIGIOUS RIOT IN SIXTEENTH-CENTURY FRANCE , 1973 .

[42]  C. Geertz,et al.  The Interpretation of Cultures , 1973 .

[43]  H. Tajfel,et al.  Social categorization and similarity in intergroup behaviour , 1973 .

[44]  H. Tajfel,et al.  Social categorization and intergroup behaviour , 1971 .

[45]  H. Tajfel,et al.  Aspects of national and ethnic loyalty , 1970 .

[46]  H. Blumer,et al.  Symbolic Interactionism: Perspective and Method , 1988 .

[47]  Hilary Putnam,et al.  It Ain't Necessarily So , 1962 .

[48]  C. James,et al.  The Black Jacobins , 1938 .