Beliefs about group boundary permeability shape whether individual or collective strategies are adopted

Evidence

Individuals who perceive social group memberships as flexible and changeable and the boundaries between groups to be permeable hold a social mobility belief system (Tajfel and Turner 1979). Within this belief system, change can be achieved individually by changing one’s group membership. On the other hand, individuals who perceive social group memberships to be fixed and unchangeable, and group boundaries to be impermeable, hold a social change belief system. In such a belief system, individual mobility strategies are perceived to be impossible or undesirable and may even be punished (Tajfel and Turner 1979). — Anna X. Huang, Jacqueline M. Chen, and Juliane Degner, Being One or the Other, Both or Neither, 77

Categorization

• DEFINE: Clear definitional contrast between social mobility and social change belief systems, central to SIT strategy selection.
• XREF: The ‘may even be punished’ clause under a social change belief system is a mechanism by which refusal of individual mobility among mixed members could invite enforcement — relevant to the reader’s question. — connects to: Perceiving group boundaries as impermeable and status as illegitimate boosts ingroup favoritism — John F. Dovidio, Peter Glick, Laurie A. Rudman, On the Nature of Prejudice: Fifty Years…, 974; Beliefs about social permeability, not objective structure, shape whether people pursue mobility or change — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology: Key Readings, 2680; the MOC “The Enemy-Making Machine: How Ourselves, the True, and Every Other Are Built from War”

Related

• Perceived permeability of group boundaries dictates whether status change is sought individually or collectively. (similarity 0.91)
• Beliefs about social permeability, not objective structure, shape whether people pursue mobility or change (similarity 0.87)
• A social-mobility belief system assumes individuals can exit their group through personal effort. (similarity 0.84)
• Easy individual mobility weakens subordinate-group solidarity and collective action (similarity 0.81)
• Freedom to choose groups makes people abandon failing groups for higher-status ones. (similarity 0.79)

Broader Connections

• Beliefs about social permeability, not objective structure, shape whether people pursue mobility or change #corroborates (0.95) — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 2680
• Perceiving group boundaries as impermeable and status as illegitimate boosts ingroup favoritism #expands (0.80) — John F. Dovidio, Peter Glick, Laurie A. Rudman, On the Nature of Prejudice, 974