Within Identity Differences: an exploration of social identity content’s varying impact on group members

Stewart, Andrew (2024) Within Identity Differences: an exploration of social identity content’s varying impact on group members. PhD thesis, London School of Economics and Political Science.

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Abstract

This dissertation explores the concept of Within Identity Differences, a novel approach for examining how social identity content can lead to diverse expressions of group membership without necessarily constituting dissent or deviance. Through a mixed-methods approach, including experimental studies with Christians and qualitative interviews with political partisans, this research investigates how group members utilize varying aspects of identity content to navigate ambiguous situations. Across two studies on American Christians, I explored how identity content impacted moral decision making. While not yielding statistically significant behavioral differences, the findings demonstrated that religious primes can activate distinct aspects of identity content. Employing a novel methodological approach—BERTopic modeling—this research advances the study of identity content by adopting a multi-dimensional perspective and examining its role in ambiguous situations that do not have prescriptive norms. An in-depth field study on American political identity revealed that these partisans in the US (Republicans and Democrats) draw upon different dimensions of their political identity—including moral values, ideological positions, and policy preferences—when addressing complex social issues, even in the absence of clear prescriptive norms. Findings suggest that identity content serves as a flexible resource for meaning-making, allowing group members to express their 'groupness' in various ways while maintaining ingroup alignment. This work contributes to Social Identity Theory by offering a nuanced understanding of intra-group dynamics and challenging simplistic notions of group homogeneity. It opens new avenues for exploring how individuals make sense of their social identity content, particularly in ambiguous or novel situations.

Item Type:	Thesis (PhD)
Additional Information:	© 2024 Andrew Stewart
Library of Congress subject classification:	B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > BL Religion H Social Sciences > H Social Sciences (General) H Social Sciences > HM Sociology
Sets:	Departments > Psychological and Behavioural Science
Supervisor:	Gleibs, Ilka H.
URI:	http://etheses.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/4889

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