Social identity complexity is an individual-difference variable, not a manipulable experimental condition.
Evidence
By focusing much more explicitly on multiple self-categorization processes than do other multiple categorization approaches, social identity complexity seeks to explain variations in out-group perceptions only with regard to in-group categories that are central and important to individuals. Thus social identity complexity cannot be thought of as conducive to experimental manipulation involving arbitrary categories. Unlike other multiple categorization approaches, the concept of social identity complexity is inherently an individual difference variable. It is thus not so much an approach in the strictest sense but more of an explanatory concept underlying multiple categorization perspectives. — Roderick M. Kramer, Geoffrey J. Leonardelli, Robert W. Livingston, Social Cognition, Social Identity, and…, 584
Categorization
Category: Definitional Content
Related
- Social identity complexity is an individual difference tied to personally central categories. (similarity 0.97)
- People differ in how they integrate their multiple group memberships into self-identity. (similarity 0.86)
- Threats to distinctiveness drive simplified views of one’s multiple group memberships (similarity 0.85)
- Multiple in-group categories can be cognitively represented in simplified or complex ways (similarity 0.85)
- People vary in how much their multiple group memberships overlap cognitively (similarity 0.84)
- Threat to distinctiveness drives more complex identity structures, but evidence is sparse (similarity 0.82)
- Improving intergroup relations requires changing identity thinking, not identity categories. (similarity 0.82)
- High identity complexity requires recognizing one’s in-groups as distinct and non-overlapping (similarity 0.81)
- Social categories vary in how much they overlap with each other (similarity 0.81)
- Social identity theory’s contribution is integrative rather than wholly original (similarity 0.81)
- People hold multiple self-categories whose relationship structures shape identification. (similarity 0.80)
- Optimal identities satisfy inclusion and differentiation needs simultaneously (similarity 0.80)
- Increasing cognitive complexity of one’s own identities reduces out-group prejudice without abandoning those identities (similarity 0.80)
- Social identity complexity splits into quantifiable overlap and perceived similarity components (similarity 0.80)
- In-group identity is defined only through contrast with out-groups (similarity 0.80)