Uncertainty-Identity Theory

Uncertainty-identity theory, developed by Michael Hogg in 2000 and elaborated more extensively in 2007, argues that people are motivated to reduce feelings of uncertainty, particularly about themselves and about their perceptions, attitudes, and behaviors that reflect most directly on self. One way to satisfy this motivation is to identify with a group (a team, an organization, a religion, an ethnicity, a nation, etc.) a process that not only defines and locates oneself in the social world but also prescribes how one should behave and how one should interact with others.

Uncertainty-identity theory is grounded in social identity theory and invokes social cognitive and social interactive processes associated with social identity to explain how uncertainty motivates group identification and how identification reduces uncertainty. Uncertainty-identity theory can be ...