Collective/Social Identity

As a result of globalization and increasing influence of mass media and communication, individuals around the world have the ability to come into contact with diverse others. Increased intergroup contact has led to a greater focus on how people construe their identity as individuals seek to define and know themselves. Two perspectives are commonly used to illustrate how individuals construe their identities: individualist and collectivist views.

On one hand, individuals tend to think of themselves as independent of relationships. They value autonomy and uniqueness and construe their sense of self as separate from others. They describe themselves with attributes that are not shared with other people. Here, it is the “I” that prevails (common to many Western cultures). Others construe their identities in terms of their relations with others. People who adopt a collective identity tend to think of themselves as interdependent with close others and define themselves by their important roles and situations. In this case, individuals place primary importance on interpersonal relationships and tend to see others as part of the self (“We”). Consequently, for people with a collective identity, the definition of self includes many of the attributes of their social and familial groups.

Hazel Markus and Shinobu Kitayama coined the term interdependent self to define a flexible and variable self that is connected with one's social context (common to many Asian cultures). For these individuals, greater importance is given to one's relationships with specific others and with ingroups. According to these authors, interdependent self construal may be acquired by the individual through the process of socialization.

These two perspectives can be illustrated by the study of group processes and intergroup relations. After World War II, genocide, war, and intergroup conflict in general were explained in terms of individual characteristics (only an evil person could partake in genocide). However, in the 1970s, the [Page 99]focus shifted from individual differences to how the social context affects intergroup relations (a person that identifies strongly with a group could be influenced by the group and partake in genocide). Thus, the explanation rested in group membership. Henri Tajfel and John Turner developed social identity theory, broadening our knowledge of collective identity.

The following sections focus on social identity theory, the most influential theory in social psychology, explaining why individuals define themselves in terms of their group memberships.