Activated needs for inclusion versus differentiation shift which nested group members identify with.

Evidence

Leonardelli and Joseph (2009) predicted that dueling identities would occur when the subgroup was extremely small, but that as the subgroup’s inclusiveness increased, group members would be more likely to identify with the subgroup and the superordinate group to similar degrees. Finally, to make this a particularly strong test of the prediction and allow for greater predictive validity of optimal distinctiveness theory, the researchers also experimentally manipulated the needs for inclusion and differentiation. It was predicted that when the need for inclusion is activated, group members are particularly likely to identify more with the superordinate group than with the subgroup, but as the subgroup’s inclusiveness increases participants are just as likely to identify with the subgroup as the superordinate group. By contrast, under the need for differentiation even extremely small subgroups should be perceived as a source of distinctiveness, and thus group members should be likely to identify with the superordinate and subgroup categories, regardless of how exclusive the subgroup is perceived to be. — Roderick M. Kramer, Geoffrey J. Leonardelli, Robert W. Livingston, Social Cognition, Social Identity, and…, 720

Categorization

• XREF: Plausibly connects to Berreby’s Us and Them and social identity theory experiments; also to Vignoles’ work on the motives underlying identity. — connects to: Broad inclusion in decisions improves outcomes and fairness — Rebecca A. Martusewicz, Jeff Edmundson, and John Lupinacci, EcoJustice Education: Toward Diverse,…, 330
• QUESTION: Worth chasing: does the need-for-differentiation condition reflect chronic personality differences (need for uniqueness, Snyder’s scale) or only situational primes?