Social identity approach

The term social identity approach refers to research and theory pertaining to two intertwined, but distinct, social psychological theories. These being: social identity theory and self-categorization theory. The social identity approach has been applied to a wide variety of fields and continues to be very influential. There is a high citation rate for key social identity papers and that rate continues to increase.

The term "social identity approach" arose as an attempt to mitigate against the tendency to conflate the two theories, as well as the tendency to mistakenly believe one theory to be a component of the other. Instead these theories should be thought of as overlapping in the manner demonstrated in Fig 1. That is, while there are similarities, self categorisation theory has greater explanatory scope (i.e. is less focused on intergroup relationships specifically) and has been investigated in a broader range of empirical conditions. Self-categorization theory can also be thought of as developed to address limitations of social identity theory. Specifically the limited manner in which social identity theory deals with the cognitive processes that underpin the behaviour it describes.

Although this term may be useful when contrasting broad social psychological movements, when applying either theory it is thought of as beneficial to distinguish carefully between the two theories in such a way that their specific characteristics can be retained.

The social identity approach has been contrasted with the social cohesion approach when it comes to defining social groups. The social identity approach describes the state of people thinking of themselves and others as a group. Therefore three intrapsychological processes proceed. Firstly, social categorization (see self-categorization theory) means that people organize social information by categorizing people into groups. Secondly, social comparison (see social comparison theory) means that people give a meaning to those categories in order to understand the task of the group in the specific situation. Thirdly, social identification is the process in which people relate the self to one of those categories.

Regarding the relation between collective identification and work motivation, several propositions have been made regarding situational influences, the acceptance of the leader and the self-definition of a collective. As a situational influence, research says that individuals are activated by situations that challenge their inclusion to the group. The acceptance of the leader is another proposition. The so-called ingroup-favoring-bias (see in-group favoritism) means that if the team leader is interpreted as an ingroup member, the other team members will attribute his or her good behavior internally while they will attribute bad behavior externally. For self-definition of a collective the value of the group as well as the belief in current and future success is important. Closely linked to self-definition to a collective, cohesion is another construct that has an impact on the development of group motivation and in a broader sense also to the group performance.

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