The purpose of this essay is to, with help of content analysis, analyze three posts on the website Chabad.org to regarding how married orthodox Jewish women within the group Chabad express their choice of wearing a sheitel. The analysis is based on social identity theory as well as identity process theory. Chabad is a jewish orthodox group who follow the Chabad-Lubavitch philosophy and are known to follow the progress of technology to spread God’s word. The result of the essay is that married women within the group express different opinions about wearing the sheitel, but both seem to wear them because of the ingroup norm. They way the women express themselves it seems from an identity process theory standpoint that their hair is as big of a part of their identity as their religion.

Background: The football industry is a giant economic driver in the world with the English Premier League being the one with the largest following worldwide. Recently, the Premier League club Manchester City FC got charged with over 100 breaches of the leagues financial fair play rules invoking discussion and reactions among fans. This provides an opportunity to conduct research of social identity threat situations of a real-time event. Therefore, the study of Manchester City FC fans is a valid case to contribute to the understanding of British football fans´ reactions to social identity threats and coping strategies.  Purpose: This study aims to explore the reaction and coping mechanisms of football fans as their supported club has been accused of potential rule-breaking activities. Method: The study is following an interpretivist approach through a single case study. A qualitative content analysis method is used to analyse the data gathered through a Manchester City online forum. The data is analysed through manual coding, where the sub-categories emerge from the raw codes gathered from the Manchester City online forum. Conclusion: This study suggests that social mobility is not prominent amongst Manchester City FC fans in the occurrence of this Social Identity Threat, while aggressive coping strategies such as Social Competition and Social Creativity are prominent in the analysis of the sample. The study also supports previous research identifying humour as a prominent coping strategy and identifies similarities between British sports fan and sports fans in other cultures.

<p>Undersökningen syftade till att beskriva upplevelsen av sitt eget och andras sätt att konsumera. I relation till faktorer baserade på ”social identity theory” (Tajfel & Turner. 1979, refererat i Myers, 2007) men också egna individuella upplevelser om påverkan på det egna konsumtionssättet hos kvinnor i åldern 20-24 år. Strävan efter att uppnå en positiv social identitet och undvika en negativ social identitet upplevs påverka sättet att konsumera. Den sociala identiteten upplevs återspegla den egna identiteten i sociala interaktioner. Intervjuer med sju kvinnor gjordes och resultatet analyserades med kvalitativ tematisk analys. Resultatet beskriver att kvinnors eget och andras sätt att konsumera kan kategoriseras, identifieras och jämföras under påverkan av upplevelser kring stil, ekonomi och värderingar. Även humör och känslor upplevs påverka konsumtionssättet. Resultatet diskuteras kring betydelsen av intresse och vikten av att förmedla en positiv självpresentation och hur det kan påverka hur och vad man handlar.</p>

The state of the natural environment is a topic of increasing concern, with climate change, loss of biodiversity, and diminishing natural resources all posing eminent threats to the well-being of the planet and its inhabitants. Much of this environmental degradation is caused by human behaviour that can be changed. Psychologists have realised their role in understanding and influencing pro-environmental behaviours to help (see Chapter 1). Most psychological research of environmental behaviour has focused on the individual person as the unit of analysis. While this has been helpful, less attention has been given to how group memberships, and the social influences these create, affect environmental behaviour. Because environmental behaviour often occurs within a social context, understanding the social element may be critically important to promoting environmentally sustainable behaviour (see Chapter 2). Using the social identity approach, this research investigates how various aspects of social group membership interact with individual attributes to influence environmental behaviour. Three related strands of research explore this issue (see Chapter 3 for an overview). In Chapter 4, two studies (Studies 1 and 2) examined how group feedback in the form of social comparisons affect individual behaviour. Based on social identity theory, it was predicted that positive social comparisons would lead to more positive behaviour, and less positive comparisons to less positive behaviour, especially among individuals who identified strongly with the target ingroup. Results from both studies found some support for these hypotheses on certain (but not all) behavioural dependent measures, both at the time of manipulation and one week later. This supports the notion that individual social identification strength can moderate behavioural response to group-level feedback on environmental topics. In Chapter 5, Study 3 considered how interaction within groups via discussion might induce group norms about environmental behaviour that over-ride the effects of intergroup comparisons. A design similar to Study 1 was used, with the addition of a small-group discussion following the feedback manipulation. Discussion content was hypothesised to predict environmental behaviour, with the feedback manipulation having less impact than in Study 1. Results found that the more participants discussed environmental behaviours, the more they engaged in them one week later. This effect was independent of pre-existing environmental values, suggesting that the effects of group interaction were not merely a reflection of existing individual orientations. Following the discussion, values were also found to be very strong predictors of behaviour, a result not found in Study 1, suggesting that group interaction not only shapes individual behaviour but also reduces the classic value-action gap. Together, these findings point to the powerful role that intra-group interaction can play in forming norms of environmental behaviour and shaping individual responses. In Chapter 6, two studies (Studies 4 and 5) explored how comparisons within a group over time (i.e., intra-group comparisons) may function differently to comparisons between groups (i.e., inter-group comparisons), which were explored in Chapter 4. Based on the findings in Chapter 4, positive intergroup comparisons were predicted to result in more positive individual intentions, whereas negative intergroup comparisons were expected to result in reduced intentions. With respect to intra-group comparisons, however, the opposite pattern of effects was predicted. The results of Study 4 did not support these hypotheses. However, feedback from participants suggested that the experimental design may have produced reactance. To address this, Study 5 made use of a revised design, and the results of this study indicated support for the hypotheses. Importantly, in addition to negative and positive comparisons having opposing effects depending on whether these were intra- or inter-group, the processes behind these effects also differed. The effects of intra-group comparisons were mediated by shared responsibility whereas the effects of intergroup comparisons were mediated by environmental value centrality. These results are integrated and discussed in Chapter 7. The recurring theme of these results is that group-level feedback can interact with individual-level variables in subtle but powerful ways, leading to differing outcomes of environmental behaviour. These findings highlight the socially imbedded nature of individual environmental actions, and suggest new avenues for theoretical and practical work in the environmental domain. In particular, on the basis of the studies included in this thesis it is recommended that psychologists who are interested in understanding and changing individual environmental behaviour should incorporate an understanding of intra- and inter-group processes into their theorising and future research.

This thesis examines the impact of leaders’ personal performance and prototypicality on their ability to champion a social identity by advancing shared group interests. With this in mind, general theories of leadership and followership are reviewed as well as theories of leaders’ performance more specifically. As a framework for understanding leaders’ role in managing shared identity, we then discuss the social identity approach and its application to the field of leadership. In three studies (Chapter 3), we examine the interactive effect of leaders’ prototypicality and personal performance on followers’ evaluations of their leadership. Studies 1 and 2 show that the impact of leaders’ performance on followers’ favourable reactions to their leadership (in terms of group advancement, trust in the leader, and leader endorsement) is more pronounced when leaders are prototypical, rather than non-prototypical, of followers’ ingroup. Study 3 provides evidence from the field that this interaction between performance and prototypicality also impacts on followers’ perceptions of leader charisma. Moreover, there is evidence that this impact can be explained, in part, by the degree to which followers perceive leaders to advance shared group interests. Results suggest that highly prototypical leaders who display elevated, rather than average, performance are responded to more favourably because their performance is perceived to advance a shared social identity. Although our first three studies demonstrate that we can disentangle leaders’ performance and prototypicality in order to examine their interactive effects, this does not mean that these two things are independent. Studies 4-6 (Chapter 4) provide evidence from the field and the laboratory that followers associate the performance of leaders with their prototypicality. A field study indicates that followers’ perceptions of leader performance and prototypicality are indeed positively related (Study 4). Moreover, experiments suggest that while followers infer a leader’s prototypicality from his or her performance (Study 5), their evaluation of a leader’s performance is also influenced by his or her prototypicality (Study 6). Studies 5 and 6 also indicate that leaders’ performance and prototypicality determine their capacity to engage in identity entrepreneurship by changing ingroup norms and ideals. In this way, results suggest that leader performance and prototypicality are not only bidirectionally related but are also important factors that contribute to a leader’s capacity to craft present and future understandings of a social identity. In the third empirical chapter (Chapter 5), we examine the impact of evaluators’ status as either internal or external to a group on assessments of leader prototypicality and performance. Study 7 shows that compared to external evaluators, internal evaluators are more likely to perceive highly prototypical low-performing leaders to advance the group more than low-prototypical high-performing leaders. Study 8 also demonstrates that internal (but not external) evaluators perceive highly prototypical leaders as more likely to advance the group compared to their moderately prototypical counterparts. Results suggest that these differential evaluations are primarily attributable to internal evaluators’ increased responsiveness to prototypicality such that they are less willing than external evaluators to forgo leaders’ prototypicality in exchange for their outstanding performance. Taken together, the thesis supports a complex model in which leader effectiveness is determined by followers’ appreciation of leaders’ prototypicality and performance against the backdrop of their perceived capacity to realize shared goals and ambitions. The present thesis extends theories that emphasize the importance of leaders’ exceptional performance. It shows that leaders’ extraordinary capability is of limited value if they fail to demonstrate their alignment with followers. In successful leadership these two go together such that leaders must be seen to promote ‘our’ ambitions and to be able to realize them. Theoretical implications for leadership theories and practical implications for organizational practices are discussed.

Gymnasiestart innebär allt som oftast ny skolmiljö, nya klasskamrater och ett annorlunda studiesätt än vad eleverna tidigare är vana med. Nyblivna gymnasieelver befinner sig i en ålder där identifikation och tillhörighet är viktigt, detta gör det intressant att undersöka de nyblivna elevernas uppleverlser angående just identifikation och grupptillhörighet (McAdams &amp; de St Aubin, 1998., Tanti et al., 2011). Föreliggande studies syfte är att studera gymnsieelvers upplevelser om grupperingar. studien har haft Social Identity Theory som utgångspunkt och i synnerhet aspekterna om in- och ut-grupper (Tanti et al., 2011., Turner &amp; Rynolds, 2010). Sju nublivna elever från två olika städer har deltigit i semistrukturerade intervjuer angående deras upplevelser att börja gynasiet, grupperingar och deras egna identifikation. Resultatet av intervjuerna analyserades genom Burnards (1991) metodfem teman som representerar elevernas uppleveler: Mångfacetterad popularitet, Fördomar, Att skapa vänner, Identitetsskiftning samt Icke-genus grupper. Avslutningsvis diskuteras de fem temana med förankring i tidigare forskning.

Inspired by Michael Foucault’s "technologies of the self" and Jacques Rancière's idea of the politics of aesthetics, specifically, his concept of "the distribution of the sensible", this thesis examines two groups of people who actively pursue creativity in China today: first, a group of Chinese youth who seek their identity as creative writers through their participation in the Xin Gainian Zuowen Dasai, or the New Concept Writing Competition, held by Mengya magazine since 1998; second, a group of men and women who are grouped together under the name of "Dafen painters", who pursue their creative identities as oil painters either for their own artistic dreams or for better lives. Through these two cases, this thesis explores the relationship between creative practices and individuals’ identity formation, and attempts to achieve a better understanding of how the formation of these identities relate to broader desires for creative identity in China’s society today. This paper argues that an individual's own desire for creative expression and recognition in fact acts to diminish their ability to engage in truly creative expression, and that the attempts at recognition reconfigure groups to block individuals from finding opportunities to express their creative identities.

Prior research suggests that controls can negatively impact the motivation of employees to exert effort and that the detrimental effects of controls depend on control source. That is, controls cause more adverse behavior when employees attribute the source of control implementation to their manager’s decision than when the source of control implementation is beyond their manager’s authority. This study uses experiments to investigate whether the behavioral effects of controls depend not only on control source, but also on control framing, by which managers can frame the control implementation either for monitoring or coordinating purposes. The study also suggests that the interaction of control source and control framing impacts the strength of vertical collective identity, i.e. the shared identity between managers and employees, which in turn explains the differences in employee effort. While this study documents that the interaction of control source and control framing has no effect on vertical collective identity or employee effort, it finds a surprising result: employees respond more positively to the monitoring-framed controls than to the coordinating-framed controls, particularly when the controls are imposed by the manager. This finding suggests that persuasive messages can backfire if the employees are aware of the manager’s potentially self-serving motives behind the control implementation.

The central question of this thesis is: “How can people be mobilised to feel strongly attached to or invest into their nations?” Following a review of literature on the psychology of nationhood, a social identity approach towards national attachment is suggested. The possibility of the family metaphor (e.g. fatherland) as a rhetorical device anchoring the nation in filial qualities (e.g. belonging) is discussed. In the first study, establishing the general prevalence of family metaphors and aiming to test their use as a means of mobilisation, the content of language corpora, speeches, parliamentary debates and national anthems is analysed. The results demonstrate frequent use, especially in connection to mobilisation (e.g. in speeches). Study II tests whether merely linking a stimulus to a family metaphor will elicit a positive response and increase national identification. It does so by presenting a student sample (n = 149) with a neutral picture stimulus with different titles including family terms and family metaphors; no effects of any particular picture title on national identity emerged, but a considerable share of participants provided negative Nazi-related associations when primed with ‘fatherland'. Given the apparent relevance of meaning, the third study employed a word association task to provide a more in-depth account of German (n = 119) and British students' (n =138) common associations for family metaphors, confirming that some participants associate them with a negative past (e.g. WW II) or negative politics (e.g. nationalism). In an attempt to avoid the impact of said negative associations, Study IV draws on brotherhood – the metaphor seen as most positive – adding a call for ‘working in unity as volunteers', i.e. a context matching the metaphoric use in anthems, contrasting it with a) a call to work ‘as citizens' or b) a non-matching context (‘being devoted'). While it was assumed that such a fitting mobilisation context (i.e. ‘working together') would be buttressed by a family metaphor, similar results emerged. In a sample (n = 102) matched to the overall population, the brother metaphor did not have an effect on national identification and participants reported lower agreement with a statement presented together with a family metaphor, often providing associations of nationalism or Nazism. The fifth study responded to the frequent associations of the Second World War by providing British (n = 109) and German (n = 113) students with a distant past (1830s) or WW II context prior to presenting a text that was either using family metaphors or not. It aimed to test whether avoiding a link to the Second World War would alleviate the negative associations. However, the results pointed in the opposite direction, i.e. German participants were more likely to invest in their nations if family metaphors and the 1930s occurred together, albeit the negative understanding of family metaphors provided in the previous studies remained, which can be interpreted as an expression of collective guilt. In the last study, a fictitious nation was presented to a general student sample at the University of St Andrews (n = 198) as either trying to achieve independence through militant struggle or building cultural institutions. As in the previous studies, the majority of participants saw family metaphors as negative, and only a small minority from countries with a higher acceptance of power-distance described them in a positive light. This thesis argues that, in the light of the results, the family metaphor has to be understood as evoking historically situated meanings and is seen as essentialising nationhood, a notion predominantly not matching the understanding participants had of their nation and consequently being rejected. It suggests that a) (national) identity research needs to be aware of context and b) other frameworks for exalted attachment should be investigated.

Thesis advisor: Stephen P. Borgatti / This study was an investigation of the effects of social identity on career progression and career resilience. Particular attention was given to the predictive impact of social identity of membership in an identifiable professional sub-grouping. Using NCAA basketball coaches as an empirical setting, quantitative and qualitative analyses were conducted to predict the status of next employer for job seekers who voluntarily changed jobs (n = 282), and the employability resilience of job seekers who were fired (n = 151). Job seekers with the social identity of membership in an identifiable professional sub-grouping (in this empirical setting, defined as membership in a coaching family or coaching tree) were hired for positions with employers of higher status, and exhibited greater employability resilience than was the case for job seekers without such a social identity. Because membership in an identifiable professional sub-grouping signals concise information about the social identity of an individual above and beyond prior performance, network connectivity and status affiliations, it is theorized that individuals with such a social identity are more easily understood, more predictable, and are therefore more valuable in the labor market. Additional career benefits are accrued by individuals who claim their ascribed identity, and by individuals who have social identities characterized as relational actors. Recommendations for future research on social identity of membership in an identifiable professional sub-grouping are offered. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2009. / Submitted to: Boston College. Carroll School of Management. / Discipline: Organization Studies.