Responding to negative social identity: a taxonomy of identity management strategies

✍ Scribed by Mathias Blanz; Amélie Mummendey; Rosemarie Mielke; Andreas Klink

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1998
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 269 KB
• Volume: 28
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0046-2772
• DOI: 10.1002/(sici)1099-0992(199809/10)28:5<697::aid-ejsp889>3.0.co;2-#

✦ Synopsis

Taken from literature on social identity theory and social comparison theory, 12 strategies of identity management were identi®ed as possible responses to negative social identity. A taxonomy with two orthogonal axes is proposed as theoretical organization of these diverse strategies. While the ®rst axis considers responses as being either individual or collective, the second axis refers to the distinction between behaviours and cognitions. It is assumed that the German uni®cation process implied a lower status position of East Germans relative to West Germans on relevant comparison dimensions, and that East Germans have to deal with this threat to their identity. Hence, data of an East German sample are used to empirically systematize identity management strategies, and, thus, to test the proposed taxonomy. Results support the expected four-factor solution only for those strategies taken from social identity theory, while the responses derived from social comparison research build a ®fth factor. In addition, the empirical assignments of strategies to cells of the taxonomy are only partly in line with the expected pattern. The empirical ®ndings suggest some clari®cation and modi®cations of the proposed response taxonomy. The most important refers to a re-interpretation of the taxonomy's ®rst axis, which now dierentiates between responses according to the speci®c changes of the comparison parameters they imply.