If you don’t know who you are, how can you figure out what to do, what attitudes to express, and how to interact with others?
That’s why uncertainty-identity theory is significant, says Michael Hogg, professor of social psychology, chair of CGU’s social psychology programs, and head of the university’s Social Identity Lab. “It’s not very adaptive if you wander through life constantly unsure of who you are or how you fit in?” he says.
Hogg's research focuses on self and identity, group processes and intergroup relations, and influence and leadership, and looks at what motivates people to join groups and identify with certain social categories (national groups, political groups, and ethnic groups, for example).
Uncertainty-identity theory states that being a member of these groups, and being identified with them reduces people’s feelings of uncertainty about who they are in the world, he explains. When this uncertainty is reduced, it makes it easier for people to determine how they should behave.
“So, it’s very good for society. It’s very good for people because it allows people to belong,” Hogg continues. “If you don’t belong to a particular group, then those group goals that allow human beings to achieve the things they do-like sending people to space, cleaning up the environment-they wouldn’t exist.”
But if identifying with and organizing your whole life around just one single group-extremism-is “bad if this is all you do.”
www.cgu.edu/people/michael-hogg/
www.socialidentitylab.com/
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