Psychological groups and political psychology: A response to Huddys Critical examination of social identity theory

In a recent article in this journal, Leonie Huddy (2001) asks whether the social identity approach developed by Tajfel, Turner, and their collaborators can "advance the study of identity within political science" (p. 128). She concludes that "various shortcomings and omissions in its research program" (p. 128) hinder the application of the approach to political phenomena. This paper presents a response to Huddy's evaluation of the social identity approach. Several aspects of her account of social identity work are challenged, especially her suggestion that it ignores subjective aspects of group membership. The interpretation of the minimal group paradigm is discussed in detail, as are issues of identity choice, salience, and variations in identity strength. The treatment of groups as process in social identity theory and self-categorization theory is given particular emphasis

How context‐independent is the outgroup homogeneity effect? A response to Bartsch and Judd

Bartsch and Judd (1993) argue that outgroup homogeneity effects occur independently of any tendency for members of minority groups to see their ingroup as more homogeneous than the majority outgroup. This argument is based on evidence of an underlying outgroup homogeneity effect in a study which purports to unconfound the roles of judged group size and ingroup–outgroup judgement by presenting subjects first with a small or large ingroup (or outgroup) and then a small comparison outgroup (or ingroup). However, from the perspective of self‐categorization theory (SCT), such a procedure actually introduces a confound as SCT predicts that when an ingroup is judged first it should be perceived as relatively heterogeneous due to the intragroup nature of this judgemental context. Close examination of Bartsch and Judd's data bears this point out: the tendency to see the ingroup as less homogeneous than the outgroup when the ingroup was judged first was extinguished when the ingroup was judged second even when the judged groups were of equal size. Consistent with SCT, this re‐analysis suggests that manifestations of outgroup homogeneity are not independent of contextual factors which determine the relative appropriateness of category‐based perception of ingroup and outgroup

The variablity of the delinquent self: Anti-authority attitudes and endorsement of neutralization techniques among incarcerated delinquents in Singapore

This study presents research findings showing that the delinquent social identity is not a fixed entity but varies according to situational factors. Participants were incarcerated Singapore delinquents of both genders, who responded to a vignette of a rule-breaking situation when either their family or their gang social identities are made salient. Another manipulation involves confrontation by authority either in public or in private. Results demonstrate that delinquents' attitude toward authority and their endorsement of the techniques of neutralization vary depending on the salience of their identities and confrontation by authority. This lends support to self-categorization theory's concept of the variable self

Variability in Impression Formation: Investigating the Role of Motivation, Capacity, and the Categorization Process

Current theory and research suggests that stereotyping is inversely related to the allocation of attentional resources. For example, motivational factors (e.g., interdependence, accuracy goals) are argued to increase attentional investment and encourage individuation. Within this model, a neglected feature of the impression formation process is the role of the perceivers' own self-definition. Based on self-categorization theory, it is argued that whether the salient self-other categorization is defined in interpersonal or group terms, respectively, will determine whether impressions will be more individuated or stereotypic. Two experiments are reported where the effect of interdependence (Experiment 1) and accuracy goals (Experiment 2) as well as the salient comparative context (interpersonal, intergroup) on impression formation were investigated. The results suggest that the nature of self-other categorizations does play a significant role in explaining variability in impression formation

Rhetorical Unity and Social Division: A Longitudinal Study of Change in Australian Self-Stereotypes

This paper examines the impact of social division associated with the emergent "race debate" in Australia (and the so-called "Hanson phenomenon") on the consensus of Australian students' stereotypes of their national ingroup. It compares the stereotypes held by a sample of students in 1997 (N = 20) with those revealed in studies conducted from 1992 onwards (N = 102). Results provide strong evidence that stereotype consensus was reduced in the current phase of research and post-testing also indicates that participants themselves interpreted this as being the product of political change in Australian society. The findings are consistent with the argument that stereotypes are sensitive to changes in intergroup and intragroup relations, and that they respond to the reality of social division rather than to the rhetoric of unity

Perceiving people as group members: The role of fit in the salience of social categorizations

It was hypothesized that the perceived social category membership of others becomes salient as a description and explanation of their behaviour where their attitudes ‘fit’ the social categorization. Fit is defined as the degree to which the attributes of others are perceived to correlate with group membership in a normatively consistent direction. In Expt 1 subjects viewed tape—slide presentations of six‐person groups where gender composition (‘solo’ or ‘collective’) and the pattern of agreement (‘deviance’ or ‘conflict’) were manipulated in a 2 × 2 design to produce a correlation between gender and attitudes in the solo/deviance and collective/conflict conditions. In Expt 2, subjects viewed videos of a group of three arts and three science students in which the normative consistency of an arts target person (‘consistent’ or ‘inconsistent’) and the pattern of agreement (‘consensus' or ‘conflict’ or ‘deviance’) were manipulated in a 2 × 3 design to produce a normative correlation between faculty membership and attitudes in the consistent/conflict condition. Salience was measured by stereotyping in terms of, and attributions to, social category memberships. The results of both experiments were largely consistent with predictions. 1991 The British Psychological Societ