Improving intergroup relations requires changing identity thinking, not identity categories.

Evidence

More importantly, however, strategies that seek to change variations in social identity complexity should not require individuals to change categorizations; they should merely seek to influence the way they think about their in-group memberships in a more complex, differentiated manner. Individuals need not thus forsake any valued identities they may hold (a key criticism surrounding the common in-group identity model, see Brewer & Gaertner, 2001), nor do they need to attend closely to others’ multiple group memberships (as is required in crossedcategorization approaches). Merely achieving variations in social identity complexity surrounding individuals’ multiple in-group categories may thus be sufficient to yield positive out-group variations. — Roderick M. Kramer, Geoffrey J. Leonardelli, Robert W. Livingston, Social Cognition, Social Identity, and…, 587

Categorization

• SEED: Angle: reducing prejudice without asking anyone to give up their identity — an intervention that works by teaching more complex self-perception rather than demanding re-categorization or cross-cutting memberships.
• XREF: connects to: Integration should reduce bodily visibility as a measure of social worth, not change identities. — Sivamohan Valluvan, Conviviality and Multiculture: A…, 39; Transformation happens by assuming shared categories rather than questioning them. — Farhan Samanani, Conviviality and its others: for a…, 47; Activist identities must be reinvented as practice, not inherited as belief — Nina Eliasoph, Avoiding politics: how Americans…, 1269 (+2 more)