Social Identity at Work

Developing Theory for Organizational Practice

S. Alexander Haslam, Daan van Knippenberg, Michael J. Platow, Naomi Ellemers, S. Alexander Haslam, Daan van Knippenberg, Michael J. Platow, Naomi Ellemers

• Publisher: Psychology Press
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781317713593
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: History & Theory in Psychology
• Index: Psychology

Social identity research is very much on the ascendancy, particularly in the field of organizational psychology. Reflecting this fact, this volume contains chapters from researchers at the cutting edge of these developments.

PART I

INTRODUCTION

1

Social Identity at Work

Developments, Debates, Directions

NAOMI ELLEMERS

University of Leiden

S. ALEXANDER HASLAM

University of Exeter

MICHAEL J. PLATOW

LaTrobe University

DAAN VAN KNIPPENBERG

Erasmus University Rotterdam

Recent years have witnessed a surge of interest in using the social–psychological insights provided by social identity theory (and its extension, self-categorization theory) to analyze issues and problems that arise in work settings. This is evident simply in the sheer number of publications devoted to such endeavors, as summarized in special issues of journals from social psychology and the organizational sciences (Academy of Management Review, Albert, Ashforth, & Dutton, 2000; Group Processes and Intergroup Relations, van Knippenberg & Hogg, 2001), recent monographs (Haslam, 2001; Tyler & Blader, 2000), and edited volumes (Hogg & Terry, 2001; Polzer, in press; van Knippenberg & Hogg, in press; the present volume). This development reflects the growing realization among research psychologists, as well as those who actually work with people in organizations, that work behavior is to an important extent determined by people’s membership in social groups, and hence that work-related issues can often be best understood with reference to intragroup processes and intergroup relations.

Whereas previous work in this area has mainly tried to illustrate the feasibility of such an approach and to demonstrate the usefulness of social identity as a construct that helps us understand social behavior in work settings, the present volume builds on these initial efforts in order to take a somewhat different perspective. Now that it has become more common to use a social identity framework to analyze organizational problems, it is important to take a closer look at the implications of doing this. This is because, in our view, further scientific progress in this particular area of research is only possible if we develop a more refined notion of the status and characteristics of social identity theory as an analytical tool and explicitly consider the implications of applying insights from this theoretical perspective to organizational problems.

Accordingly, the aim of this chapter is to provide a general introduction to social identity theory and its relation to work and organizational psychology, as a means of outlining the broader theoretical background that constitutes the frame of reference for the different chapters in this volume. In doing this, we will focus on (1) explaining key theoretical concepts and their relationship to previous work; (2) discussing some complex issues that have been subject to different insights and scientific debate; and (3) outlining the likely directions for future theory development and its application in work organizations.

THE ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OF A “GRAND THEORY”

A well-known assumption in the philosophy of science is that creative ideas and novel hypotheses more easily emerge when insights from different areas of research are combined. Indeed, on occasion, the expectation that multidisciplinary research should be particularly innovative is even institutionalized (e.g., in the criteria that are used by research funding bodies to judge applications). In principle, it can be argued that insights from neighboring fields of science introduce alternative theoretical perspectives and raise additional questions that help to broaden intellectual input and increase the relevance of output. However, as we know from research on the effects of diversity in work teams, heterogeneity of insights only stimulates divergent thinking and creativity when the recipients of different viewpoints are in a position to benefit from the exchange process (e.g., De Dreu & West, 2001). Unfortunately, this means that, just as the boundary conditions for reaping the benefits from diversity in the workplace are not always met, so too exchange of scientific perspectives and insights often bears less fruit than expected. For this reason, it is important to be aware of potential problems in applying a particular theoretical perspective to work that has been done in a different tradition, as a lack of awareness of theoretical specificities may impede rather than promote constructive development.

Social identity theory is one of the few “grand theories” in social psychology. In contrast to so-called single-hypothesis theories, the theory is complex, multifaceted, and dynamic. Indeed, in different periods, different aspects of the social identity process have been the focus of attention, and parts of the theory have developed at different points in time (Turner, 1999). In the case of social identity theory, this meant that in addition to original formulations in the late 1970s (Tajfel, 1974, 1975, 1978c; Tajfel & Turner, 1979) the theory was elaborated within the broader theoretical framework of self-categorization theory in the 1980s (Turner, 1982, 1985, 1987; Turner, Hogg, Oakes, Reicher, & Wetherell, 1987). As a result, more than 20 years of research have contributed to important elaborations of the theory and its implications and these have yielded more precise specifications of the psychological processes involved (Turner, 1999).

One obvious advantage of such a grand theory is that it can be applied to many different problems, including more complex real life situations, such as interethnic conflict (Hewstone & Brown, 1986), political activism (Simon, Loewy et al., 1998), union participation (Kelly & Kelly, 1994), and workplace behavior (e.g., Ellemers, de Gilder, & van den Heuvel, 1998; Haslam, Powell, & Turner, 2000; van Knippenberg, van Knippenberg, Monden, & de Lima, 2002). Indeed, social identity theory has inspired a substantial body of experimental work intended to specify particular psychological processes as well as providing an analytical framework that can been used to understand, intervene in, and perhaps even resolve a variety of social and organizational problems (for illustrative overviews, see Augoustinos & Reynolds, 2001; Ellemers, Spears, & Doosje, 1999; Haslam, 2001).

However, the broadness, complexity, and dynamic nature of the theory also has important drawbacks. First, social identity theory has been the focus of considerable confusion and sometimes heated debate (a recent exchange can be found in the British Journal of Social Psychology, e.g., McGarty, 2001). This has led some to doubt the usefulness of the theory because they maintain that hypotheses as well as counterhypotheses happily coexist. Indeed, one of its distinctive features is that, rather than providing simple truths, social identity theory emphasizes the contingencies inherent in many social processes, causing people to adapt their perceptions and behavior to the opportunities and restrictions inherent in the situation at hand (Turner, 1999). Second, some have failed to take into account that social identity theory is still developing, and rely on specific theoretical “interpretations” to represent (and sometimes misrepresent) established theory (e.g., Jost & Elsbach, 2001, pp. 182–186). We feel that such readings do not always do justice to the theory because they fail to take into account nuances, specifications, and developments (McGarty, 2001; Turner, 1999). At the same time, we also recognize that it may seem difficult to keep abreast of current developments, especially for those who follow the theory “from a distance,” which may complicate use of the theory in a multidisciplinary analysis.

In this chapter we aim to elucidate some aspects of social identity theory that can easily go unnoticed by those who have been educated in a different tradition, have been working with other theoretical frameworks, or have been following the scientific debate in journals. In doing this, we observe that there are not only empirical and theoretical, but also political dimensions of social identity theory, and argue that this has important implications for the resulting view of behavioral processes in organizations. In the remainder of this chapter we will therefore elaborate the different dimensions of social identity theory, address the consequences of adopting a particular interpretation of the theory, and specify how the contributions in the present volume relate to this discussion.

THE INITIAL STATEMENT OF SOCIAL IDENTITY THEORY

We will begin our argument by going back in time in order to trace how current insights in social identity theory have developed from initial statements, and analyze how particular research findings, theoretical views, and specific publications have crucially impacted upon this development as well as the resulting notion of what social identity theory actually stands for.

Social identity theory was initially formulated to account for the unexpected finding that people tend to display intergroup discrimination in so-called minimal groups (Tajfel, Flament, Billig, & Bundy, 1971). Specifically, in an experimental situation that excluded the operation of conflicting interests, people tended to allocate more resources to an anonymous ingroup member than to an out-group member, even when they were randomly assigned to one of two groups, did not even know who their fellow in-group members or out-group members were, and were aware that they could not personally benefit from their discriminatory behavior. This turned out to be a rather robust phenomenon, as these results were replicated in a number of follow-up studies where different variations of this paradigm were investigated in order to exclude various alternative explanations (see Diehl, 1990, for an overview). These initial findings prompted Tajfel to develop the original foundations of social identity theory, connecting three social–psychological processes, namely:

Social categorization—the tendency for people to perceive themselves and others in terms of particular social categories, instead of as separate individuals;

Social comparison—the tendency to assess the relative worth of groups as well as individuals by comparing them on relevant dimensions with other groups; and

Social identification—the notion that people do not generally relate to social situations as detached observers, but, instead, their own identity is typically implicated in their perceptions of, and responses to, the social situation.

In his initial writings about the theory, Tajfel (1974, 1975, 1978) elaborated on these processes and the way they interact with each other, to develop the notion that—in contrast to situations that are purely defined at the individual level and involve interpersonal behavior—there is also a class of situations where people primarily define themselves and others at the group level, and interact with each other in terms of their group membership. In doing this, Tajfel heavily relied on his observations of real life phenomena, such as interethnic conflict and struggles of underprivileged social groups, in order to develop his argument and illustrate the resulting phenomena.

These initial arguments culminated in the seminal chapter with John Turner (Tajfel & Turner, 1979; later slightly updated and retitled in Tajfel & Turner, 1986). This is usually seen as the formulation of social identity theory and summarizes its main propositions and hypotheses. An important part of the 1979 chapter is devoted to explaining the plight of members of underprivileged social groups, and specifying the different responses they are likely to display in an attempt to cope with the situation they face. Departing from the assumption that inclusion in a group that fares negatively compared to relevant other groups necessarily challenges one’s social identity, Tajfel and Turner argue that different cognitive and behavioral strategies are available to individual group members, depending on the psychological and sociostructural conditions (level of commitment to the group, stability and legitimacy of existing intergroup relations, permeability of group boundaries).

Individual group members may resolve identity threat by distancing the self from the group in question, and moving into another group. This strategy, which is referred to as individual mobility, tends to be used by those with relatively low levels of commitment to the group (e.g., Ellemers, Spears, & Doosje, 1997), and when group boundaries are permeable (e.g., Ellemers, Wilke, & van Knippenberg, 1993). At the group level, an unfavorable intergroup comparison may be addressed by trying to improve the in-group’s standing through social competition with the goal of social change. Such a group-level strategy is most likely to occur when people are more closely tied to the group either for psychological reasons (high commitment) or for practical reasons (impermeable boundaries), and when current intergroup relations seem unstable or illegitimate (e.g., Ellemers, van Knippenberg, & Wilke, 1990). Alternatively, when stable or legitimate intergroup differences provide little scope for achieving social change (and leaving the group is not a feasible option) group members may try to enhance the image of their group at a cognitive level. Such social creativity strategies include redefining the value of characteristic group traits (e.g., Ellemers, van Rijswijk, Roefs, & Simons, 1997), introducing alternative dimensions of intergroup comparison (Lemaine, 1974; Mummendey & Schreiber, 1983; Mummendey & Simon, 1989), or alternative comparison groups (e.g., Spears & Manstead, 1989), among others (see also van Knippenberg & Ellemers, 1990; Galinsky, Hugenberg, Groom, & Bodenhausen, in press).

FURTHER DEVELOPMENTS

Interdependence and Bias

Despite this explicit theoretical consideration of the different strategies that group members may employ to maintain or enhance their social identity, in the 1970s and early 1980s research effort and scientific debate were directed mainly at establishing the psychological process responsible for the occurrence of ingroup favoritism in the minimal group paradigm. As an alternative to the contention that ingroup favoritism was motivated by a desire to enhance one’s social identity, some researchers argued that perceived interdependence between group members would provide them with an important instrumental reason for displaying such behavior (Bornstein et al., 1983; Rabbie, Schot, & Visser, 1989). This inspired a number of empirical tests, which conclusively demonstrated that, while interdependence did elicit biased outcome allocations, in-group favoritism persisted when all individually instrumental reasons for doing so were eliminated (e.g., Diehl, 1990) in a manner consistent with the theoretical ideas originally put forward by Tajfel and Turner (1979).

Self-Esteem

Once it was widely accepted that social identity maintenance and enhancement provided an important basis for the behavior of individuals, further efforts to understand the precise motives underlying displays of intergroup discrimination in minimal groups resulted in the development of the so-called self-esteem hypothesis (Hogg & Abrams, 1990). This hypothesis consists of two corollaries. In addition to the notion that inclusion in a positively valued social group contributes to a positive identity and hence may enhance group members’ collective self-esteem, Hogg and Abrams (1990) suggested that those with depressed group-based self-esteem should be motivated to enhance it by displaying in-group favoritism. Although this development inspired a substantial amount of empirical work, much of this research suffered from methodological shortcomings that make it difficult to draw unambiguous conclusions (e.g., Long & Spears, 1997). In particular, a key methodological problem arose from the tendency for researchers who were unfamiliar with the social identity tradition to take personal self-esteem as a proxy for collective self-esteem (i.e., esteem derived from one’s membership of a relevant group).

Going back, in a way, to the idea of interdependence, the implicit assumption thus remained that people would generally be driven by individually instrumental motives. That is, group situations were simply regarded as interpersonal situations where individual instrumentality (the desire to have high personal self-esteem) is tied to the group’s fate, and hence the individual only contributes to the group as a means to advance the self. As a result, what theoretically was supposed to be group-based self-esteem was often assessed with stable and global measures referring to the personal self in empirical research (e.g., after Rosenberg, 1965), while a proper test of the theoretical proposition would require assessing the temporary state of the social self-esteem derived from a particular intergroup comparison (e.g., Crocker & Luhtanen, 1990). Indeed, more recent work that avoids these problems has elucidated more clearly the relationship between individual-level and group-level self-esteem and specified much more convincingly how they are related to displays of in-group favoritism (e.g., Hunter, Platow, Howard, & Stringer, 1996; Long & Spears, 1998; Rubin & Hewstone, 1998).

At the same time, this more sophisticated work makes it clear that there is no simple one-to-one relationship between single motives (such as self-esteem enhancement) and particular behaviors (e.g., intergroup discrimination). Indeed, as was made clear in early formulations of social identity theory, favoring the ingroup is only one possible strategy that can be used to enhance or protect one’s social identity. Furthermore, there are indications that under some circumstances establishing the in-group as a separate entity may be so important that group members prefer to differentiate the in-group in a negative way, rather than perceiving the in-group as positive but indistinct (Mlicki & Ellemers, 1996). This further attests to the notion that socially meaningful motives rather than individual instrumentality drive the responses of group members.

Self-Categorization

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, along with the general shift toward the examination of cognitive processes in social psychology, work in the social identity tradition also focused on the development of theory describing the cognitive aspects of social categorization, and its consequences for social behavior. As noted above, this resulted in the formulation of self-categorization theory (Turner, 1985; Turner, Hogg et al., 1987; Turner, Oakes, Haslam, & McGarty, 1994), which focused on the implications of cognitive self-categorization for self-perception and social perception (stereotyping). Important components of this theoretical and empirical work were devoted to (1) examining and explaining the context-dependence of particular self-categorizations (e.g., Haslam & Turner, 1992), and (2) demonstrating the manifest expressions of these self-categorization processes in people’s perceptions, attitudes, and normative behavior (e.g., Oakes, Haslam, & Turner, 1994; Spears, Oakes, Ellemers & Haslam, 1997; Turner, 1991). Amongst other things, such work examined the crucial role that social self-categorization (i.e., definition of the self in terms of social identity) played in processes of stereotyping, social influence, and coordinated group activity.

Social Creativity

Although from the outset social identity research had been conducted with artificially construc...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• About the Editors
• List of Contributors
• Preface and Acknowledgments
• Part I: Introduction
• Part II: Motivation and Performance
• Part III: Communication and Decision Making
• Part IV: Leadership and Authority
• Part V: Change and Change Management
• Part VI: Perceiving and Responding to Inequity
• References
• Author Index
• Subject Index