Optimal Distinctiveness

Definition and Background

For group membership to satisfy an individual's need for meaning and coherence, the clarity of the boundary that separates ingroup membership from nonmembership becomes particularly important. This calls attention to the importance of the distinctiveness of social categories as a factor in group identification. Optimal distinctiveness theory provides a model of the psychological motives underlying the preference for distinctive social identities.

According to the optimal distinctiveness model, social identities derive from a fundamental tension between two competing social needsthe need for inclusion on one hand and a countervailing need for uniqueness and individuation on the other. People seek social inclusion to alleviate or avoid the isolation, vulnerability, or stigmatization that may arise from being highly individuated. Researchers studying the effects of tokenism and solo status have generally found that individuals are both uncomfortable and cognitively disadvantaged in situations in which they feel too dissimilar from others, or too much like “outsiders.” On the other hand, too much similarity, or excessive deindividuation, provides no basis for self-definition, and hence individuals are also uncomfortable in situations in which they lack distinctiveness. Being “just a number” in a large, undifferentiated mass of people is just as unpleasant as being too alone.

Because of these opposing social needs, social identities are selected to achieve a balance between needs for inclusion and for differentiation in a given social context. Optimal identities are those that satisfy the need for inclusion within one's own group and simultaneously serve the need for differentiation through distinctions between one's own group and other groups. In effect, optimal social identities involve shared distinctiveness. (Think of adolescents' trends in clothes and hairstyles: Each [Page 621]teenager is anxious to be as much like others of their age group as possible, while at the same time differentiating themselves from the older generation.) To satisfy both needs, individuals will select group identities that are inclusive enough that they have a sense of being part of a larger collective but exclusive enough that they provide some basis for distinctiveness from others.

Importance and Implications

Optimal distinctiveness theory has direct implications for selfconcept at the individual level and for intergroup relations at the group level. Research testing the basic assumption of optimal distinctiveness theory has demonstrated that individuals adapt their self-image to maintain or restore optimal identities, prefer membership in groups that are relatively small and distinctive, and defend or restore group boundaries if distinctiveness is threatened.

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