Perceiving one’s own multiple group memberships as non-overlapping fosters generalized tolerance

Evidence

Social identity complexity, however, limits its focus to multiple selfcategorization of individuals, and therein, we believe, lays its strength in aiding understanding of intergroup phenomena. It is assumed that cognitive complexity surrounding one’s own multiple in-groups should in and of itself evoke more differentiated intergroup perceptions. Importantly, such more differentiated intergroup perceptions should not only be limited to the corresponding out-group categories (although they are likely to be stronger for these). In other words, social identity complexity is thought to be associated with greater tolerance more generally, and not only in relation to the categories in question. A striking example of this can be found in Brewer and Pierce’s study (2005), in which they measured social identity complexity with regard to three of their respondents’ self-chosen categories and included “American” as a fourth category for all respondents. They obtained significant relationships between social identity complexity and a variety of social attitudes relating to race and religion, even when removing the category “American” from some analyses, and even for individuals who did not include race and/or religion among their three most important social categories. Thus, one may assume that mere cognitive awareness of the complexity and nonoverlapping nature of one’s own social categories translates into greater awareness of the complexity of the social world more generally. — Roderick M. Kramer, Geoffrey J. Leonardelli, Robert W. Livingston, Social Cognition, Social Identity, and…, 539

Categorization

• XREF: This claims a cognition-of-self generalization effect — correlates with and complicates the reader’s preconceptions about Islamophobia/outgroup cognition from the Allport thread, and with contact-hypothesis-style generalization mechanisms.
• QUESTION: How far does this spillover generalize — does social identity complexity rooted in any salient categories reduce prejudice toward groups entirely unrelated to one’s own categories, and is the effect driven by cognitive skill or by self-exception?
• SEED: A possible essay angle: whether structural/identity ‘diversity of the self’ is a reliable lever against prejudice, or whether mere overlap-awareness is a weak substitute for intergroup contact.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Roderick M. Kramer, Geoffrey J. Leonardelli, Robert W. Livingston, Social Cognition, Social Identity, and…, 539