Self-uncertainty, social identity prominence and group identification

Drawing on uncertainty-identity theory (Hogg, 2007) and referring to the concept of social identity complexity, we conducted two experiments to test the hypothesis that people would identify most strongly with their group if they felt both self-uncertain and that their group's identity was prominent relative to other identities, either because it was distinct from other identities or because they had few other identities. Self-uncertainty was primed in both experiments after participants had been primed to consider their group's attributes to overlap with or be distinct from the attributes of other identities of theirs (Experiment 1, N=90) or to consider few or multiple other identities they had (Experiment 2, N=87). As predicted, group identification was strongest under high uncertainty and when identity distinctiveness or few other identities had been primed. Implications of this research for how we conceptualize identity complexity are discussed. ► Participants identified more strongly with a group under high than low uncertainty. ► Group identification was strongest when one's ingroup identity was made distinct. ► Group identification was strongest when few other identities were primed.