IDENTITYTHEORYANDSOCIALIDENTITYTHEORY.pdf

IDENTITY THEORY AND SOCIAL IDENTITY THEORY ? Peter J. Burke Jan E. Stets Washington State University ? An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Social Psychology Section Session on Theoretical Frameworks at the Annual Meetings of the American Sociological Association, San Francisco, 1998. We wish to thank Barry Markovsky for his helpful comments and suggestions. Direct all correspondence to Peter J. Burke, Department of Sociology, Washington State University, Pullman, WA 99164-4020 (email: burkep@wsu.edu). Identity9.doc: 8080 words IDENTITY THEORY AND SOCIAL IDENTITY THEORY Abstract Identity theory and social identity theory have more points of overlap than differences in their understanding of the self. For this reason, we argue that the unification of these two theories is advisable in order to both avoid redundancies in theorizing about the self and to provide a uniform approach to the multifaceted nature of identities in terms of their bases, their processes, and their outcomes. In this paper, we discuss the similarities and differences between the two theories, and then offer a unified identity theory based on 21 theoretical definitions, assumptions, and heuristics. Following this, we demonstrate how the unified theory can be used to explain somewhat anomalous findings in two recent studies, one in the tradition of social identity theory and the other in the tradition of identity theory. IDENTITY THEORY AND SOCIAL IDENTITY THEORY Identity theory1 had its beginnings in structural symbolic interactionism (Stryker 1980) and social identity theory2 began with work on social categorization (Tajfel 1978). Both are theories about the self with many overlapping concepts, but historically each has developed separate foci, agenda, and traditions of work (Hogg, Terry, and White 1995), and each generally has been uninformed by the other. Hogg and his associates’ (1995) brief comparison of the two theories led them to suggest that, given their differences, it w