Introduction to Social Identity Theory

An introduction to Social Identity Theory: Reflections on attending a Coaching Conference on the Theme of Identity. 

Identity is a topic close to my heart and my coaching practice.  I have spent years incorporating areas of research, theory and practice that have identity at their core. One specific area of research from which I have personally gained is Social Identity Theory.  By attending the conference on Identity in coaching, I was hoping to learn more about this topic, how the coaching community made sense of it, and how coaches incorporated it into their practice.  

I came away from the conference energised by what I experienced and also by what I hadn’t experienced.  I had experienced some profound insights into my own understanding of identity topics such as racism and how I can make a difference within my coaching.  And I had not experienced any recognition of social identity theory.  It seemed that as the conference explored identity, it seemed to focus wholly on the individual.  This is in contrast to Social Identity Theory.  

Professors Alexander Haslam, Stephen Reicher and Michael Platow in their book The New Psychology of Leadership: Identity, Influence and Power stress their interest is on the “we” of identity, not the “me” (Haslam, Reicher, & Platow, 2011).  During the conference I’d felt that many topics would have benefitted from shifting from an individual perspective to a collective perspective when exploring identity.

In the final plenary one conference speaker asked the question, “how do we develop our collective identity?”  I’d been waiting for this question, yet it landed as hypothetical - there was actually no time to explore this as we came to a close.  

Yet, as I looked on, I couldn’t help but think that the conference itself, the speakers, the part played by the organisation sponsoring it and the venue itself all contributed to crafting a collective identity - all explained through the lens of Social Identity Theory. 

By the end of the conference I was energised.  I could see so many benefits to those who were attending the conference in learning about Social Identity Theory in order to appreciate how their collective identities were being crafted during the conference itself.

So I feel compelled to write this reflective paper, to help engage my fellow coaches into this important area of identity-making.  

SOCIAL IDENTITY THEORY

By way of introduction to Social Identity Theory I’ll focus on seven areas:

1. Self-categorisation
2. Levels of abstraction
3. Comparative fit
4. In-group favourability
5. Normative fit
6. Self-stereotyping
7. Prototypicality
   

As I introduce each in turn I will illuminate with an example of it that I experienced during the conference.

Self-Categorisation  

As I arrived at the conference I wasn’t sure I would know anyone except some senior people in the sponsoring organisation.  I was a late-comer to the organisation and from speaking to other delegates I was aware that sub-groups of people existed, who’d used the conference as an opportunity to meet up.  There was laughter as people saw each other for the first time in ages.  There were small groups of people animatedly talking to each other.My own sub-group wasn’t in attendance; and I felt different and somewhat “out of it.”  

I experienced further “difference” during plenary sessions when people mentioned a common “experience” with the sponsoring organisation - as if everyone present shared the same reference point.  Because I was a late-comer, I felt my lack of “common experience” left me as an outsider, compared to everyone else. Furthermore, my professional membership was with a different coaching institute than most of the people at the conference - the sponsoring organisation was accredited with a different institute.  I experienced further differences in the first conference session which was on anti-racism and the Black Lives Matter movement.  It was plain for me to see that the speaker, Isha, was a black woman and I was one of many white male faces in the audience.  Her point was clear to me - how could I understand her experience of everyday racism?  

All this difference.  Yet similarities too. We were all coaches.

Already you can see I am creating categories of identity.  This is called self-categorisation.  

Self-categorisation is the formation of identity categories through the process of comparison with others.  Am I more or less like them? Are “they” one of “us?”  Are “we” in this together?  Do I belong here?  Where do I fit in?  We subconsciously self-categorise based on how we identify ourselves compared to others.  We decide the categories because we decide the differences and similarities we wish to attend to.  These categories work at multiple levels simultaneously from visual to non-visible similarities and differences.

Fascinatingly, the first session on anti-racism struck a chord with me when Isha highlighted that, “the result of racism is silence.”  I recognised that I was too often being silent on everyday racism because I identified as a white man - the identity category associated with the chief protagonists in racism in the UK - and I felt unable to help because of my colour.  Yet whilst I had focused initially on our gender and skin colour differences, I started to recognise a similarity in my experience of racism.  My silence.  I asked her directly what she would encourage me to do, as a white man, so I wasn’t silent.  She said, “you’re already doing it by speaking up.”  At that moment, I felt my identity shift towards Isha and the Black Lives Matter movement. Whilst I remained a white man, her invitation to speak up helped me self-categorise with Isha.  I had started to compare myself with Isha and see myself as one of us.  

My colour hadn’t changed, but my identity had shifted.         

Levels of Abstraction. 

Despite my focus on how different I felt compared to my fellow coaches at the conference, I was a coach, and therefore similar to them.  I was qualified and credentialled, albeit most likely with a different institute.  I started to allow myself to identify as part of the in-group of coaches. I did belong.  

This highlights the nature of abstraction when it comes to self-categorisation.  The in-group and out-group self-categorisation process works at different levels, abstracted from the individual level of self.  The notions of “us,” “we,” and “you,” and “them” which is evidence of self-categorisation is applied differently depending on the context.  At a professional level and compared to non-coaches, I was one of “us” yet with regards to my professional coaching membership, I was one of “them.”  

Levels of abstraction help us define our unique selves whilst we simultaneously identify with others we see as similar to us.  Similarities allow us to be part of something, to belong to something bigger - we are in the in-group.  Comparisons with the out-group helps us to know what makes us different.

Comparative Fit.  

What happens as we compare ourselves to others at different levels of abstraction is called comparative fit.  How well do I fit-in compared to those around me?  Am I more or less like them?  Because we are all unique individuals, this is about comparative fit, not absolute match.  We choose categories with which we can identify.  Visual categorisations are more easily defined - skin colour for example.  Deeper comparisons can also be made when we pay attention to them.  This is where my brief dialogue with Isha helped me to re-calibrate my own fit as more like her and less like the racist white-men I feared to be associated with.  

In-Group Favourability

As we compare ourselves as more alike to the in-group and less like the out-group, we look on others in the in-group with greater favourability.  We identify with the in-group because it represents factors we value and therefore favour.  This was clearly at work during the conference.  During a session on developing professional identity as coaches, it was easy for us in the room to talk favourably about how “we” had higher standards of practice as coaches over “them” who called themselves coaches, yet hadn’t gone through professional coaching development.  Throughout the world increasing numbers of people call themselves coaches and for “us” who have undergone rigorous professional development, we were seeing ourselves more favourably than those who have not.  In the session we all nodded knowingly to each other, all in agreement that we were “better” than them.  The fact that we were all in the conference was proof that we took our profession seriously.  What was noticeable with Social Identity Theory was that, In that moment, we were crafting a collective identity around shared values in our coaching practice.  

We see this elsewhere in the world too.  When we identify with our nationality we choose the things we view favourably compared to other nations.  The opposite is also true: when we don’t identify with our nationality, we view other nations’ values as favourable to our own.  For instance, whatever your view about Brexit, it highlighted the nature of in-group and out-group favourability through self-categorisation.  

As we negotiate our own identity, it is not just about comparing in-group with out-group.  There are some interesting processes at work as we look at ourselves as part of the in-group.  These are normative fit, self-stereotyping and prototypicality.  

Normative Fit

Meeting new coaches is part of the fun and value of conferences.  I met some fascinating people with varied backgrounds.  Everyone was different.  Yet they were all coaches.  They dressed smart yet casual, talked about contracting, listening, awareness, curiosity, TA drivers, presence, and sat attentively during conversation asking plenty of great questions.  We might expect this of any coach.  In terms of Social Identity Theory, this is normative fit.  We imagine what it takes to be in the in-group - the minimum standards, a expected set of behaviours, what might constitute uniform dress, or knowing the jargon of the in-group.  We expect a certain level of normative fit with our fellow coaches.  

Normative fit is essentially informal, but it is strengthened when it is formalised.  One way of formalising it is through professional institute which require qualifications to join, which prove a set of minimum standards, associated with several professional “levels”, all of which help to formalise an individual’s normative fit relative to the in-group. The epitome of this is the use of post-nominal letters to overtly demonstrate your fit and belonging to the in-group.

Self-Stereotyping.  

We typically think of stereotyping as a negative term.  Yet Social Identity Theory recognises that we all choose to self-stereotype.  Self-stereotyping is the process of changing our behaviours, dress, language, style, and anything else that’s important to better match the normative fit of the in-group identity to which we have favourability.  For instance, as coaches we work hard at improving our questioning skills in the knowledge that all great coaches ask great questions.  Of course great questions can be important in coaching.  Yet we find ourselves thinking “what question would a great coach ask?” an indication that we are trying to become a better coach through self-stereotyping rather than perhaps responding to the client themselves.   

Similarly, we might stop wearing a business suit and replace it with smart casual clothes. We might add picture cards to our hand bags too, because it's the sort of thing that professional coaches carry around.  All these are small acts of self-stereotyping: we are deliberately becoming more and more like the normative fit of the in-group to which we desire to be part.  

Prototypicality

Our relationship with the in-group goes further still.  Not only do we have an idea of normative fit, we also have a sense of what “best” fit might be.  This is an ideal version of what it is to be in the in-group.  This is prototypicality.  At the conference I watched the faculty at the front demonstrating what it is to be a master coach.  I marvel at the wisdom, the presence, the humility and the gentleness in each and all of them.   However much I try to self-stereotype, I feel I’ll never really get that good.  But it helps me to know what good looks like.  Prototypicality is unique to each of us - we decide what our ideal is.  Yet within the coaching conference, for all the attention to diversity and difference, the faculty showed us some consistent features of prototypical coaches.  It’s also possible that no-one might match our idealised version - no-one is good enough, or you have yet to work out what “ideal” is for you.  We might have a tight or loosely defined, or yet-to-be-defined prototype to compare ourselves against.  Whatever we use, prototypicality is our benchmark - it provides a source of idealised comparison from which we compare ourselves and others within the in-group.  

Why this matters

We are building our identity all the time - consciously and unconsciously.  It is a collective process that we individually experience, yet we can’t do it alone. It’s a group process, an organisational process.  Leadership is embedded in it.  Professions select for it. Indeed whole nations are built around it.   

And it was happening at this coaching conference - whether the coaches were aware of it or not.  

I hope, as a coach, or as a leader, this paper resonates with you and you are able to recognise how identity is a core process going on within our lives.  And with this appreciation, you might use the power that comes from it, carefully, skillfully and wisely.  

What new thinking does this stimulate for you?  What reflections are coming to mind as you read this paper?  What questions remain unanswered for you as you reach the end?  

Reference:

Haslam, S. Alexander; Reicher, Stephen D; Platow, Michael J The New Psychology of Leadership: Identity, Influence and Power 2011, Psychology Press, Hove.