Social Identity Lab

The social identity lab, directed by Dr. Michael Hogg and managed by Heather Stopp, provides a research focus and scientific 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.

We have active collaborative research links with the University of Kent in the UK (Dominic Abrams and Richard Crisp), the Rotterdam School of Management in the Netherlands (Daan van Knippenberg and Steffen Giessner) and Stanford University (Jon Krosnick). We also have periodic joint lab meetings with Brenda Major’s lab at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

For photos of the lab in action, click here.

There are 17 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 Summer 2009.

Adelman, J. A., Hogg, M. A., & Levin, S. (2009, July). Does uncertainty breed support for political violence? A study of Israeli Jews and Palestinian Muslims. Paper presented at the 32nd annual conference of the International Society of Political Psychology. Dublin, Ireland. July 14-17, 2009.

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., & Hogg, M. A. (2009, April). Exploring religious identity & ideology. Paper presented at the 89th annual meeting of the Western Psychological Association. Portland, OR.

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. (2009, April). The “diversity paradox”: The role of diversity and value similarity in community identification. Paper presented at the Western Psychological Association Conference. Portland, OR.

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.

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.

Mahajan, N., & Hogg, M. A. (2009, April). Group Identification under Uncertainty: Moderation by entitativity and self-construal. Paper presented at the meeting of the Western Psychological Association, Portland, OR.

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.

Rast, D. E. III, & Hogg, M. A. (2009, February). The effects of prototypical leadership and uncertainty on leader support: Can leaders utilize uncertainty to enhance in-group member support for the leader? Paper presented at the 10th annual meeting of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology. Tampa, FL.

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.

Stopp, H. T., & Hogg, M. A. (2009, February). Languages Collide: Does interpersonal or group contact best predict Latino Attitudes? Poster presented at the Group Processes and Intergroup Relations Pre-conference at the annual meeting of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology. Tampa, FL.

Dana Turcotte is studying the social identity functions of gossip, including the extent to which gossip may be used to increase group entitativity and reduce uncertainty.

Mahajan, N., Clevering, J. B., & Turcotte, D. C. (2007, August). Celebrity gossip consumption as a form of downward social comparison. Poster presented at the annual meeting of the American Psychological Association, San Francisco.