Motivations To Identify With Social Groups: A Look At Their Positive And Negative Consequences

Social identity is considered a key social psychological variable to understanding intergroup behaviors. Given that social identity has been associated with both positive (e.g., well-being, helping behaviors) and negative consequences (e.g., ingroup bias, nationalism), it remains to be explained which dimensions of social identification yield these divergent consequences. To this aim, these studies apply self-determination theory to understanding the reasons why group members identify with their ingroup. We hypothesized that when group members identify with their ingroup for self-determined reasons, this should predict more positive consequences. In contrast, identifying with one's ingroup for non-self-determined reasons should predict more negative consequences. Three studies tested these hypotheses among members of different social groups, namely, University of Queensland students (n = 272), residents of Quebec (n = 196), and members of an online community (n = 278). Controlling for degree of identification, these hypotheses were supported when predicting the positive consequences, and mostly supported for the negative consequences. Results are interpreted in light of social identity theory and self-determination theory.