Our Students in Action

Alexis Alebastro

Janice Adelman

Fiona Grant:
Exploring Allegiances to Multiple Identities

Doctoral student Fiona Grant grew up in a very diverse and interesting environment. With a Scottish father and French mother, Fiona was raised in Mauritius. She studied in France and the U.S. and after receiving her undergraduate diploma in Psychology, Fiona worked in Paris, Spain, and also in the UK. Naturally, all of this cultural exposure led to an interest in social identity and why people join different groups. She wondered whether multiple identities could be simultaneously salient in the same context. "Can I be Mauritian and Scottish at the same time?" asks Fiona. This, in turn, led her to CGU, and the Social Identity Lab of Dr. Michael Hogg.

If it is possible to have multiple social identities, Fiona asks, how do people with these identities experience uncertainty? Would they rely on their dominant or most relevant identity or utilize all identities to reduce uncertainty? That is precisely what Fiona aims to find out.

In her current study, 87 international students from Claremont Graduate University completed a survey. They were primed to think about a single identity (their nationality) or multiple social memberships (such as their nationality, being a graduate student and being a member of the Claremont community). In addition, participants were made to feel uncertain about themselves, their future and their place within society. They were randomly assigned to be in the low or high uncertainty condition. Results show that under the high uncertainty condition participants will identify more strongly with their national group when primed to think about a single identity versus multiple identities Thus, reverting to one identity is predicted to give participants the most comfort or guidance in situations of uncertainty. These results may explain why during times of uncertainty (such as an economic downturn or war), groups tend to strongly represent one identity at the time. This can have negative effects such as riots or intergroup conflict. Fiona believes that one of the future directions for her research could be to better understand how to reduce intergroup conflict in times of uncertainty. Indeed, previous research addressing social identity complexity demonstrates that having multiple identities may be a means to reduce intergroup conflict.

Fiona explains: "The Northern Ireland conflict can be used as an example to illustrate this point. The long-term causes of the conflict lie in the division between Protestants and Catholics in Ireland. During the early settlement, Protestants were given land and political privileges; advantage that was maintained over the centuries. This caused resentment among the Catholics and consequently riots and conflict between these two groups. Rioters may see themselves only as disadvantaged persons at the time of the riot, and fail to tap other identities that may deter rioting behavior. At that time, they only think about one dominant identity (being Protestant or Catholic) and fail to acknowledge that they also share common attributes such as being Irish or fans of the same rugby tea One way of diffusing intergroup conflict may be to prime individuals to think about their multiple identities and the common qualities they share with one another. I acknowledge that this is a very simplistic explanation of the Northern Ireland Conflict and various factors need to be considered, but this is what my research would tell us."

Fiona is very excited about her research and the work she does at CGU. She says that she knows she has a lot more work to do, but she could not be happier.

Marian Liu