Social Identity as Social Phenomenon and Scientific Concept

Author's Introduction Our article outlines the need to bring together the literatures on personal and cultural identity – which have thus far been disconnected from one another. As one develops a sense of personal identity (e.g., goals, values, and beliefs), does one also develop a sense of cultural identity (e.g., how the individual and the group are prioritized, as well as attachment to and affiliation with one's ethnic, cultural, and national group)? This question is becoming increasingly important as Western countries become more and more diverse and multicultural, and as the world becomes more and more international and global. Individuals of European descent in the United States, Canada, Western Europe, Australia, and New Zealand, for example, are no longer insulated from other cultural streams. A generation ago, White Americans, for example, held dominion over the United States and over what ‘American culture’ was. With the advent of mass immigration of ethnic and cultural minorities, as well as globalizing technologies such as email, video conferencing, instant messaging, and virtual chatrooms, we are no longer insulated by our borders. Each of us is a citizen of the world, and this is becoming truer and truer over time. Thus, cultural identity and personal identity are increasingly likely to be related – and the ways in which they influence one another needs to be studied. How does my cultural position in my society (and in the world) influence who I am as a person? How do my cultural beliefs and worldviews influence my personal goals, values, and beliefs? Author Recommends Côté, James E., and Levine, Charles G. (2002). Identity formation, agency and culture: A social psychological synthesis . Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. This book discusses personal identity within the context of culture, and it clearly sets the stage for a discussion of how personal identity is affected by cultural processes. Arnett, Jeffrey Jensen. (2002). The psychology of globalization. American Psychologist , 57 , 774–783. This article discusses the ways in which globalization affects the personal and cultural identities of people around the world. In particular, the article stresses that individuals will be exposed to various cultural streams even if they never leave their countries of origin and do not come into direct contact with people from other parts of the world. The mass exportation of Western television programs, music, dress styles, fashion, and beliefs is leading people to ‘acculturate’ to Western values and behaviors. Bosma, Harke A., and Kunnen, E. Saskia. (2001). Determinants and mechanisms in ego identity development: A review and synthesis. Developmental Review , 21 , 39–66. This article reviews the ways in which personal identity is developed in ‘individualist’ and ‘collectivist’ contexts. In more individualistic contexts, personal identity is developed through active exploration of different alternatives, commitment to one or more of these, and an in‐depth evaluation of the commitment that has been made. In more collectivistic contexts, personal identity is developed through identification with the goals, values, and beliefs of significant others. This article was one of the first to address personal identity more broadly than through a Western lens. Matsumoto, David. (2003). The discrepancy between consensual‐level culture and individual‐level culture. Culture and Psychology , 9 , 89–95. This article argues that individualism and collectivism (and related constructs such as independence and interdependence) operate differently at the between‐individual level than at the between‐culture level. When studying the interface between personal identity and cultural identity, only individual‐level conceptions of cultural identity should be used. National‐level differences in cultural identity constructs tend to be fairly small – suggesting that most of the differences are between individual people. Schwartz, Seth J., Luyckx, Koen, and Vignoles, Vivian L. (editors, forthcoming). Handbook of identity theory and research . New York, NY: Springer. This forthcoming handbook will consist of state‐of‐the‐art summaries and reviews from some of the leading identity scholars in the world. Chapters will focus on many different domains of identity, including personal and cultural identity but also including national, religious/spiritual, sexual, gender, social, and vocational identity. The book will be an important resource both for students and for professors interested in the field of identity. Sample Syllabus Please add all or a portion of a syllabus that might adopt your article and present it in a broader context to the classroom. Eg. Topics for Lecture & Discussion Week 1 – Overview (What is Identity) Cote, James E. 1996. Sociological perspectives on identity formation: The culture‐identity link and identity capital. Journal of Adolescence . 19: 417–428. A framework for understanding identity formation in an interdisciplinary fashion by addressing the relationship between culture and identity. Grotevant, Harold D. 1987. Toward a process model of identity formation. Journal of Adolescent Research . 2: 203–222. Proposes a model for conceptualizing identity formation that is developmental, contextual and life‐span in scope. Four major components are as follows: individual characteristics, contexts of development, identity process in specific domains, and interdependencies among the identity domains. Weeks 2–4 Neo‐Eriksonian Identity Perspectives (Identity Status, Identity Style, Et Cetera) Berzonsky, Michael D. 1989. Identity style: Conceptualization and measurement. Journal of Adolescent Research . 4: 268–282. A conceptualization of three styles of personal problem solving and decision making – and information orientation that actively seeks and evaluates information, a normative orientation that focuses on internalized conventions, and a diffuse orientation that avoids action until affective cues dictate behavioral reactions. This study measures a validity of a self‐report measure of these styles. Meeus, Wim. 1996. Toward a psychosocial analysis of adolescent identity: An evaluation of the epigenetic theory (Erikson) and the identity status model (Marcia). Hurrelmann, Klaus (Ed.); Hamilton, Stephen F (Ed). (1996). Social problems and social contexts in adolescence: Perspectives across boundaries . (pp. 83–104). xiv, 299 pp. Hawthorne, NY: Aldine de Gruyter. This chapter discusses Erikson's identity theory and Marcia's identity status model, with application to adolescent identity. The author evaluates their empirical validity. Weeks 5–7 Social Identity Perspectives Worchel, Stephen; Morales, J. Francisco; Paez, Dario; Deschamps, Jean‐Claude (Eds.). 1998. Social identity: International perspectives. Social identity: International perspectives. xix, 263 pp. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, Inc. This books brings together the latest empirical and theoretical findings in the field of

Drugs, sex and social science: Social science research and health policy in Australia

Social science has an important role in aviation biofuels research, yet social science methods and approaches tend to be underdeveloped and under-utilized in the broader aviation biofuels literature and biofuels overall. Over the last 5 years, social science approaches in aviation biofuels research, particularly site-selection, have made several advances. Where early site-selection models either entirely excluded social science concepts or included only a few measurements using poor proxies, current models more accurately, and more comprehensively capture key social science concepts to better examine and predict project implementation success and long-term sustainability. Despite several studies published within the last 20 years noting the need for more empirical studies of social sustainability and improvement in incorporation of social criteria, progress has remained rather stagnant in several areas. To help move the field forward, we conduct a review of the current state of social science research in aviation biofuels with a focus on sustainability, site-selection, and public acceptance research, identifying key approaches, important developments, and research gaps and weaknesses of current approaches. While several review studies already exist, they tend to focus on a single area of biofuels such as public acceptance. By broadening our review to several areas, we are able to identify several common limitations across these areas that contribute to the continued underutilization of social science approaches in aviation biofuels. This includes the preference for practical and reliable indicators for social criteria that prioritize quantitative methods over other approaches. Based on these limitations, we make several recommendations to improve social science research in aviation biofuels, including ensuring that social scientists are key members of the research team, the adoption of a mixed-methods research designs that combines quantitative and qualitative approaches that better measure some criteria and local-level impacts, and adequate resources for social science research throughout biofuel development projects as these methods are often more time-consuming and costly to implement. We argue that implementing these recommendations in future aviation biofuel development projects will improve social science approaches utilized in aviation biofuels research and address a long-acknowledged gap in the field.

Social identity research has transformed psychology and the social sciences. Developed around intergroup relations, perspectives on social identity have now been applied fruitfully to a diverse array of topics and domains, including health, organizations and management, culture, politics and group dynamics. In many of these new areas, the focus has been on groups, but also very much on the autonomous individual. This has been an exciting development, and has prompted a rethinking of the relationship between personal identity and social identity - the issue of individuality in the group. This book brings together an international selection of prominent researchers at the forefront of this development. They reflect on the issue of individuality in the group and on how thinking about social identity has changed. Together, these chapters chart a key development in the field: how social identity perspectives inform understanding of cohesion, unity and collective action, but also how they help us understand individuality, agency, autonomy, disagreement, and diversity within groups. This text is valuable to advanced undergraduate and postgraduate students studying social psychology where intergroup relations and group processes are a central component. Given its wider reach, however, it will also be of interest to those in cognate disciplines where social identity perspectives have application potential.

Social studies in the primary and elementary schools is often rationalized as providing a foundation in content for junior and senior high students. In this study the history and social science concepts in five selected primary series are identified and analyzed by discipline, for presence, and for sequencing across series. The implications of the omissions and lack of systematic presentation of the disciplines are discussed and related to the needs of cognitive psychology, the spiral curriculum, and standardized testing.

The construction industry has one of the highest frequency levels and rates of work-related injuries, yet the evidence for successful attempts to reduce injuries is generally lacking. The motivational and (safety) behavioural implications of social identification and social categorization among construction labourer work crews were investigated to ascertain how their interactions are affected by the social structure and organization of work. Semi-structured group interviews and mini interviews during work were carried out with 13 concrete work crews (totalling 53 persons) at five large construction sites. The organization of work fosters social identification within a crew, resulting in distancing from and social categorization of site management. Social identification influences safety behaviour in the crews, where worksite safety rules may meet resistance. Future safety initiatives at large construction sites should take into account the dynamics of social identification and categorization in the implementation of safety measures, e.g. by creating an alternative organization of work, thus making it easier for a work crew to identify themselves with the site management. Site/crew managers should consider how safety can become a salient and valued group norm by altering the social structure at the sites and/or fostering dual social identity.

Social scientists of virtually all persuasions have to grapple in some way with the issue of identity. When it comes to understanding phenomena related to the collective, whether in the form of ethnicity, race, religion or the nation, there is a strong sense that identity matters. Indeed, a great many social scientists would argue that identification with a group can shape individual behavior, and that the notion of a group identity gives important meaning to collective action. The difficulty, however, lies in translating the theoretical importance of identity into the concreteness of the research process. In other words, working with the concept of identity brings significant methodological challenges. This, in turn, can lead researchers to avoid taking identity into account or simply considering it as context rather than placing it within a causal explanation. Measuring identity will help researchers make the most of this important social and political reality. This book examines various methodologies designed to incorporate identity into social science research. Together, the 12 chapters provide insight and guidance on how to approach identity and how to use it as an independent variable when conducting research on comparative politics, American politics and international relations. The first section of the book focuses on issues of definition and conceptualization. It contains three strong chapters that set the table for the subsequent discussions of the specific methodologies that can be used when working with identities. Of particular value is the first chapter “Identity as variable,” written by the editors, which defines “a collective identity as a social category that varies along two dimensions-content and contestation” (p. 19). The chapter then specifies the forms that can be taken by the content of an identity and discusses contestation in terms of degree.

In this chapter, we consider the fundamental importance of social identity both in terms of how people think about others and for personal well-being. The chapter reviews how social categorization and social identity impact people's responses to others and, drawing on our own work on the Common Ingroup Identity Model, examines how identity processes can be shaped to improve intergroup relations. This model describes how factors that alter the perceptions of the memberships of separate groups to conceive of themselves as members of a single, more inclusive, superordinate group can reduce intergroup bias. The present chapter focuses on four developments in the model: (1) recognizing that multiple social identities can be activated simultaneously (e.g., a dual identity); (2) acknowledging that the meaning of different identities varies for different groups (e.g., racial or ethnic groups); (3) describing how the impact of different social identities can vary as a function of social context and social and personal values; and (4) outlining how these processes can influence not only intergroup attitudes but also personal well-being, interms of both mental and physical health.

Author’s Introduction In our globalized world individuals are frequently confronted with intergroup encounters. Some of them pass by more smoothly than others. Understanding group members’ motivational dynamics provides the key for positive intergroup encounters and the creation of environments fostering such positive events. For a long time, research on motivation in the domain of intergroup behavior mainly focused on needs and motives such as the need for self‐esteem in social identity theory and the need to reduce uncertainty in uncertainty‐identity theory. In contrast, approaches to motivation in many other domains of psychological research have switched from such need‐based approaches to self‐regulation approaches (i.e., theories and models focusing on the processes underlying motivated action). This change of focus from the content of motivation (i.e., need and motives answering the question what motivates behavior) to studying the motivational processes (i.e., self‐regulation approaches answering the question how motivation translates in to action) has led to an enormous progress. To give just one example, this approach allows for much more precise predictions of behavior. Only recently research on intergroup behavior has adopted this change of paradigms in research on motivation. The current article summarized one line of research within this domain, namely the work applying regulatory focus theory (one of the dominant self‐regulation theories) to intergroup behavior. Author Recommends Tajfel, H., & Turner, J. C. (1979). An integrative theory of intergroup conflict. In W. G. Austin & S. Worchel (Eds.), The Social Psychology of Intergroup Relations (pp. 33–47). Monterey, CA: Brooks/Cole. This is a seminal publication on social identity theory and offers important and fundamental information about what intergroup behavior is. At the same time, it presents the first need‐based approach to intergroup behavior. Otten, S., Sassenberg, K., & Kessler, T. (Eds.) (2009). Intergroup relations: The role of motivation and emotion. New York: Psychology Press. This book provides an up‐to‐date overview of research on motivation in the field of intergroup behavior. It provides a good understanding of a variety of intergroup phenomena and explanations for them based on motivational approaches and social cognition approaches to emotions. Carver, C. S. (2004). Self‐regulation of action and affect. In R. F. Baumeister & K. D. Vohs (Eds.), Handbook of Self‐Regulation: Research, Theory, and Applications (pp. 13–39). New York, NY: Guilford. The whole book provides an excellent overview of self‐regulation research in a variety of domains. The particular chapter is an excellent, comprehensive, and concise introduction to the basic ideas of self‐regulation. Higgins, E. T. (1997). Beyond pleasure and pain. American Psychologist , 52, 1280–1300. This is a seminal publication on regulatory focus theory and offers the fundamental information on what regulatory focus is, what its basic principles are, and outcomes it leads to. Higgins, E. T. (2008). Regulatory fit. In J. Y. Shah & W. L. Gardner (Eds.), Handbook of motivation science (pp. 356–372). New York: Guilford. This chapter provides a summary of the more recent developments that followed regulatory focus theory. Its main focus is on regulatory fit (i.e., the fit between an individual’s behavioural strategy and the options provided by the environment). Sassenberg, K., & Woltin, K.‐A. (2008). Group‐based self‐regulation: The effects of regulatory focus. European Review of Social Psychology , 19, 126–164. This article offers a more extensive analysis and overview of the research on regulatory focus and intergroup behavior. It presents a comprehensive narrative review of this research and how regulatory focus and self‐discrepancies operate at the group level. Levine, J. M., Higgins, E. T., & Choi, H.‐S. (2000). Development of strategic norms in groups. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes , 82, 88–101. This article presents the first study applying regulatory focus theory to the group level. It assesses how regulatory focus – manipulated as part of the instructions for a group task – affects small group decision making. Sassenberg, K., Kessler, T., & Mummendey, A. (2003). Less negative = more positive? Social discrimination as avoidance and approach. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology , 39, 48–58. The research presented in this article is the first in applying regulatory focus theory to intergroup behavior. In studies making use of the minimal group paradigm, it demonstrates how regulatory focus can help to make more precise predictions about intergroup behavior – in this case social discrimination. Seibt, B., & Förster, J. (2004). Stereotype threat and performance: How self‐stereotypes influence processing by inducing regulatory foci. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology , 87, 38–56. This article explains another prominent intergroup phenomenon based on regulatory focus theory, namely stereotype threat. Sassenberg, K., Jonas, K. J., Shah, J. Y., & Brazy, P. C. (2007). Regulatory fit of the ingroup: The impact of group power and regulatory focus on implicit intergroup bias. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology , 92, 249–267. This article connects socio‐structural variables of the intergroup context and regulatory focus by studying how the social power of a group and the regulatory focus of an individual predict whether individuals are interested to become a member of a particular group and how much they like a group they are a member of. Online Materials http://gpi.sagepub.com This is a link to the journal Group Processes and Intergroup relations . Volume 13 will contain a special issue on Self‐regulation within and between groups providing an overview and more examples how self‐regulation approaches allow for a better understanding of (inter)group behavior. In addition, this is a nice place to find some of the current issues being researched in the field of intergroup behavior. It is also a journal to refer students to who are having trouble locating recent articles for class. http://jonathan.mueller.faculty.noctrl.edu/crow/socialidentityassignment.htm This link leads to a small assignment by Michel Schmitt that illustrates the idea of social identity. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWyI77Yh1Gg This link leads to the video “A girl like me” which illustrates that from early childhood on group members (here African‐Americans) internalize the characteristics of their group in comparison to ot

The tourist has long been a common but often demeaned figure of modern popular culture. Only from the 1970s did social scientists such as Erik Cohen, Valene Smith and particularly Dean MacCannell treat the tourist seriously as a conceptual figure. The past 40 years has seen both the proliferation of numbers and types of tourists on the move and a much more fine‐grained conceptualisation of the figure of the tourist, who can be examined in terms of both embodied performances and inner, mental voyages rather than objective classifications. Many tourists are competitive about their travel destinations, their experiences, their tastes and the care with which they treat both their hosts and the destination environment, and tourism researchers have their own moralisations, using measures of social and cultural impact and environmental sustainability. Anthropologists are challenged to apply their ethnographic research methods to these temporary sojourners, on the move, often focused on their social and bodily pleasures. Such conditions and the often cosmopolitan research milieux promote a convergence of anthropological and other social science research methods and concepts, with some productive multidisciplinary results. Anthropologists' research on ethnic tourism, trekking and rites of passage tourism, volunteer tourism, medical tourism and many other specialised forms of travel including couch surfing and philanthropy demonstrate the continuing leading position of the discipline under very different and often difficult circumstances.

Research on helping and altruism has been revitalized by the shift in focus from individual and interpersonal processed to group processed in the last decade. In particular, the social identity approach (Tajfel & Turner, 1979; Turner, 1985; Turner, Hogg, Oakes, Reicher, & Wetherell, 1987), which ahs been increasingly applied to helping situations, has provided a valuable group perspective on helping behaviour. The significance of social groups and shared identity for altruism has also been suggested (e.g., Monroe, 1996; Sober & Wilson, 1998). Although helping and altruism are typically undifferentiated, central to altruism is the issue of motivation, which as additional theoretical and applied implications. The eight studies reported in this thesis aimed to build upon current social identity research on helping behaviour and to extend the social identity approach to altruism. In line with the social identity perspective, factors associated with group membership were expected to have important implication for individual helping decisions, especially among high identifying group members. Studies 1 to 3 tested the combined effects of target group membership and group identification on individual helping intentions. In all three studies, participant completed an ingroup identification scale and reported their intentions to help the target, who was either an ingroup or an outgroup member. Consistent with expectations, high identifiers were willing to offer more help to a more ingroup-like target in study 1 (N = 141). However, in Study 2 (N = 93). High identifiers offered more help to an outgroup than to an ingroup target. In an attempt to clarify these conflicting finding, Study 3 (N = 138) examined group members’ helping responses in a group-relevant and a group-irrelevant helping situation. Results indicated that high identifiers were more willing to help an outgroup target when the helping situation was group-irrelevant rather than group-relevant. The helping intentions of low identifiers were largely unaffected by the group membership of the target or the group-relevance of the helping dimension. In a further analysis of the impact of target group membership on helping behaviour, Study 4 considered the moderating effects of perceived need on intergroup helping decisions. Using a realistic helping paradigm, participants (N = 94) heard a voice recording of a request for help from either an ingroup or an outgroup target, who expressed either a high or a low need for help. Where as people were more likely to help the ingroup than the outgroup target when there was a high need for help, the group membership of the target did not affect helping decisions when the need for help was low. While Studies 1 to 4 elaborated on the role of social identity factors in intergroup helping contexts, Studies 5 and 6 Focused on helping with intragroup contexts by considering how the intragroup position of the target can also influence people’s helping intentions. In Study 5 (N = 166), social identity salience was manipulated, whereas ingroup identification was measured in Study 6 (N = 118). Participants in both studies were then presented with a profile of either a prototypical or a non-prototypical target and were asked to indicate their helping intentions. As predicted, people who perceived their ingroup identity to be more salient (Study 5) or identified more highly with the ingroup (Study 6) were willing to offer more help to the prototypical than to the non-prototypical target. In addition, concern for the target was found to be a mediator in predicting individual helping intentions. The final two studies investigated social identity processed in field settings. Study 7 (N =618) assessed both helping intentions and behaviour in the context of a charity door-knock appeal. Respondents in both studies completed a survey, which included measures of group identification, concern, and helping intentions. Greater identification with the group was associated with increased willingness to contribute to the community (Study 7) and intentions to donate more money to the door-knock appeal (Study 8). Further more, the relationship between group identification and individual helping intentions was mediated by concern. Together, these eight studies highlighted the complexities of social identity influences on helping behaviour as well as the contributions that the social identity approach can make to the study of helping and altruism.

This study focuses on the usage and effect of the ‘primitive’ concept in social sciences. This concept, which is used to express both people who lived in the deep past and people who did not come into contact with modernity, has a rather ambiguous world of meaning. It is possible to say that non-Western societies are coded as ‘primitive’ in this approach, which is basically based on the Western and other dichotomy. The Western mind, which sees itself at the top of the line of progress, people who did not come into contact with modernity as irrational, unaware of his surroundings, and lacking many values and institutions. It can be said that the ‘theory of primitive society’ plays a dominant role in the background of transferring democracy and prosperity to ‘developing societies’. This article also discusses the transformation of the ancient human, coded as barbarian and savage, under the influence of the progressive approach, into a creature with knowledge and wisdom, with the effect of romance over time. The concept of ‘primitive’, which continues to find a place for itself in the literature despite some criticisms, has a influence of domain beyond what is thought. The criticism of the ‘primitive’ contributes to the correct understanding of both the ancient human and the traditionally expressed contemporary societies.

Translating social science concepts into medical education: a model and a curriculum.

Learning materials for Science (IPA) in elementary school possibly touch and can be integrated with Islamic values so that it can increase the value of faith or belief on Islam especially for the learners. However, it has not been implemented yet in teaching learning process of Science in elementary level. In relation to the institutions which inherently possessed stong religious characteristics, the integration of science learning materials with Islamic values is very crucial. Beside the goal of cognitive aspect, the learning can keep the faith values of learners as well as to increase knowledge which leads to the development of learners' affective aspect early in cope with the natural environment. While the learning material for IPS (Social Sciences) is a subject that comes from the social life of the community who were selected by using social science concepts used for the sake of learning. Key word: learning development, integration-interconnection

Interpretivism is a research paradigm that is associated with qualitative research.A tradition of Interpretivism can be linked to the ethnographies of non-western peoples in the 19th century and continues to be a popular way to explain human behaviour and social phenomenon today.The interpretivist view invites the researcher to investigate meaning behind the understanding of human behaviour, interactions and society.This involves the researcher attempting to develop an in-depth subjective understanding of people's lives.The difference between the natural sciences and social sciences is that the natural sciences requires the researcher to observe and interpret natural processes but the social sciences requires the researcher to observe a phenomenon and understand the interpretations that individuals have already made.Social work research aims to explain human behavior and social phenomenon and not to focus on isolating and objectively measuring variables or on developing generalizations.Social work research requires a focus on gaining an empathic understanding of an individual's feelings and the meaning that they give to everyday life with the goal to gaining greater understanding of the individual's behavior.For this reason, interpretive research is well suited to social work research.In this introductory paper, the authors present the validity of interpretive research and the value of using it in social work research.