Social Identity Lab

The social identity lab, directed by Dr. Michael Hogg and managed by David Rast, provides an intellectually stimulating and scientifically productive forum for collaborative student and faculty research on a wide range of social identity processes and phenomena. Current research includes a focus on social identity theory, uncertainty-identity theory, leadership processes within and between groups, uncertainty and extremism, community identification, vicarious cognitive dissonance, culture and identity, uncertainty and political violence, religion and orthodoxy, and intergroup anxiety. There are currently 16 students in the group:

Janice Adelman spent summer 2007 in Israel conducting an integrated program of four large field studies with Israeli Jews and Palestinian Muslims investigating the role of self-uncertainty and religious and national identification in endorsement of political violence. She is returning to Israel to collect more data during Spring 2009. Adelman, J. A., Hogg, M. A., & Levin, S. (2008, July). Israeli and Palestinian national and religious identities: What roles in political action and violence? Paper presented at the 31st annual conference of the International Society of Political Psychology. Paris, France. July 9-12, 2008.

Robert Blagg is studying the conditions under which members of religious organizations endorse or reject religious leaders who adopt a more extreme or a more moderate ideological position within their religion. Blagg, R. D., Omoto, A. M., Adelman, J. R., Schlehofer, M. M. (2007, May). Religion, volunteering, and sense of community. Paper presented at the Western Psychological Association Conference. Vancouver, Canada.

Danielle Blaylock is studying the extent to which intergroup anxiety is elevated or reduced by structured or unstructured interactions with an outgroup member.

Amber Gaffney is studying the effect of ingroup and outgroup social support on vicariously experienced dissonance relating to pro-environmental behavior. She has been collecting much of her data in Arcata in Northern California.

Liran Goldman is studying the conditions under which people may decide to join or support terrorist groups or remain members of such groups.

Fiona Grant is studying identity complexity. How does having a multifaceted and complex social identity affect the relationship between uncertainty and group identification?

Justin Hackett is studying how self-uncertainty may influence community identification as a function of the perceived value or attitude homogeneity of the community. Hackett, J. D., & Hogg, M. A. (2008, February). Uncertainty and sense of community as a function of perceived intragroup attitude and value similarity. Poster presented at the Group Processes and Intergroup Relations Pre-conference at the annual meeting of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology. Albuquerque, NM.

John Haller is studying how uncertainty and economic threat may influence the extent to which people endorse political ideologies that promote hierarchy and inequality between groups in society.

Lindsay Harris is studying social identity and stereotype-threat variables that might influence the academic aspirations and achievements of African American men and women.

Zachary Hohman is studying the way that political leaders may use a rhetoric of uncertainty to strengthen national and party identification, and thus consolidate their leadership position. He has completed a study using speeches delivered by George W. Bush. Hohman, Z. P., Hogg, M. A., & Bligh, M. C. (in press). Identity and intergroup leadership: Asymmetrical political and national identification in response to uncertainty. Self and Identity.

Monique Matelski is studying the role of intergroup anxiety and self-uncertainty processes in collective guilt and shame in interracial contexts.

Namrata Mahajan is studying how culture and associated independent and interdependent self-conceptual orientations may affect the relationship between self-uncertainty and group identification. Over summer 2007 she collected data from Indians and non-Indians living in Los Angeles, and spent summer of 2008 in India collecting data on how self-construal, uncertainty and group status may interact to affect identification. Namrata is also conducting research on the cult of celebrity.

David Rast is studying how group identification is affected by uncertainty associated with group leaders who vary in how prototypical of the group they are perceived to be.

Jason Rivera is studying the extent to which people endorse or reject political leaders who make speeches that are consistent or inconsistent with their political party’s ideological position. Hogg, M. A., Hohman, Z. P., & Rivera, J. E. (2008). Why do people join groups? Three motivational accounts from social psychology. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 2/3, 1269-1280.

Shirley Samson is visiting (for 08/09) from the University of Kent, where she works with Dominic Abrams. She is studying language in intergroup relations within conflict situations, and how it is affected by social identity and uncertainty.

Heather Stopp is studying the way that identity symbols, specifically language as a core ethno-cultural symbol, influence intergroup anxiety and associated intergroup attitudes. She was collecting data in Pennsylvania over summer 2008.