Context effects on Scottish national and European self‐categorization: The importance of category accessibility, fragility and relations

Abstract

Self-categorization theory (SCT) argues that self-categorization is inherently variable and tied to changes in the intergroup context (Oakes, Haslam, & Turner, 1994; Turner, Oakes, Haslam, & McGarty, 1994). Two studies were conducted to investigate SCT's claim that self-categorization is context dependent (Study 1) and to identify factors that may affect the likelihood of context effects on self-categorization (Study 2). In the first study, Scottish students self-categorized themselves at the national and European levels of abstraction in four between-participant conditions: after stereotyping the English, after stereotyping the Germans, after stereotyping the Australians and in isolation. Context effects on self-categorization were found but only at the European level of abstraction. European identity decreased significantly with the inclusion of the English and Germans in the frame of reference, but remained stable with the Australians in the comparative context. These results suggest context effects on self-categorization are not necessarily straightforward and may depend upon important factors like category accessibility, category fragility and the perceived psychological relations between categories. A questionnaire was distributed to a matched sample of Scottish students (Study 2) to investigate the importance of these factors. The findings provided empirical weight to our contention that category accessibility, category fragility and perceived psychological category relations are important to the self-categorization process.

‘Our way of life is worth defending’: testing a model of attitudes towards superordinate group membership through a study of Scots' attitudes towards Britain

“…Scottish identification: The strength of Scottish national identification (4 items); this scale was composed of a compilation of identification items which have been used in earlier research (Haslam, 2001;Rutland & Cinnirella, 2000).…”

Development of the positive–negative asymmetry effect: in‐group exclusion norm as a mediator of children's evaluations on negative attributes

“…It involved a trait evaluation task which was used to assess attitudes towards the British in-group and the German out-group (Takriti, Buchanan-Barrow, & Barrett, 2000). Germans were chosen as the outgroup since previous research suggests that within Britain they are salient comparison group (Mummendey, Klink, & Brown, 2001;Rutland & Cinnirella, 2000) and British children often hold relatively negative attitudes towards Germans (Abrams et al, 2003a;Barrett & Short, 1992;Johnson, 1973;Rutland, 1999).…”

Superordinate and Subgroup Identification as Predictors of Intergroup Evaluation in Common Ingroup Contexts

“…For example, there is much literature documenting the skepticism of the British toward the EU and European integration (e.g. Medrano, 2003;Rutland & Cinnirella, 2000). More importantly, however, previous research has established that this manipulation has identical effects to less elaborate means of making a superordinate identity salient.…”