Greater social identity complexity predicts reduced in-group bias in conflict settings

Evidence

In our first study, involving a sample of 221 students at two Northern Irish universities, we confirmed a positive relationship between similarity complexity and tolerance and a negative relationship between similarity complexity and in-group bias. Our second study, based on a sample of 1,948 adult respondents, also yielded a negative relationship between both similarity and overlap complexity and in-group bias, providing further support for the hypothesized relationship between social identity complexity and out-group attitudes, as put forward by Roccas and Brewer (2002). Social identity complexity has also been found to correlate not only with explicit but also with implicit attitude measures. Miller, Brewer, and Arbuckle (2009) found that overlap complexity correlated significantly with scores derived from the affect misattribution procedure (see also Payne, Cheng, Govorun, & Stewart, 2005). — Roderick M. Kramer, Geoffrey J. Leonardelli, Robert W. Livingston, Social Cognition, Social Identity, and…, 535

With regard to our own research program, we carried out two survey studies that allowed us to examine the relationship between social identity complexity and out-group attitudes in Northern Ireland (Schmid, Hewstone, Tausch, Cairns, & Hughes, 2009), a setting in which categorization and identification processes are pivotal to the dynamics of conflict. Although the conflict in Northern Ireland is, broadly speaking, a conflict between those who wish to see Northern Ireland united with the Republic of Ireland (predominantly Catholics) and those who want Northern Ireland to remain part of the United Kingdom (predominantly Protestants; Moxon-Browne, 1991), it is often described as a conflict between the Catholic and Protestant communities. Although there remains extensive segregation between these communities, they are more accurately referred to as ethnopolitical than religious groupings. Moreover, the vast majority of people in Northern Ireland readily identify with being Catholic or Protestant, for which reason the typical focal categories are those surrounding ethnopolitical group membership. There does exist, however, a range of national (British or Irish) categories, that are also commonly endorsed as selfdescriptive, and that play an equally central role in the conflict (see, e.g., Trew & Benson, 1996). Thus, there is room to explore the notion of social identity complexity in this context. … In our first study, involving a sample of 221 students at two Northern Irish universities, we confirmed a positive relationship between similarity complexity and tolerance and a negative relationship between similarity complexity and in-group bias. Our second study, based on a sample of 1,948 adult respondents, also yielded a negative relationship between both similarity and overlap complexity and in-group bias, providing further support for the hypothesized relationship between social identity complexity and out-group attitudes, as put forward by Roccas and Brewer (2002). Social identity complexity has also been found to correlate not only with explicit but also with implicit attitude measures. Miller, Brewer, and Arbuckle (2009) found that overlap complexity correlated significantly with scores derived from the affect misattribution procedure (see also Payne, Cheng, Govorun, & Stewart, 2005). — Roderick M. Kramer, Geoffrey J. Leonardelli, Robert W. Livingston, Social Cognition, Social Identity, and…, 534

Categorization

• XREF: Empirical evidence for a claim in the social-identity literature the reader follows on intergroup conflict and tolerance.
• corroborated: 3 independent passages support this claim — Roderick M. Kramer, Geoffrey J. Leonardelli, Robert W. Livingston, Social Cognition, Social Identity, and…, 535; Roderick M. Kramer, Geoffrey J. Leonardelli, Robert W. Livingston, Social Cognition, Social Identity, and…, 534