Individual and Collective Identity 489involved in a zero-sum competition for resources with nonim-
migrants (Esses et al., 1998, 2001; Jackson & Esses, 2000).
Discrimination can serve less tangible collective functions
as well as concrete instrumental objectives. Blumer (1958a)
acknowledged that the processes for establishing group posi-
tion may involve goals such as gaining economic advantage,
but they may also be associated with the acquisition of intan-
gible resources such as prestige. Taylor (2000), in fact, sug-
gested that symbolic, psychological factors are typically
more important in intergroup bias than are tangible resources.
Theoretical developments in social psychology, stimulated by
social identity theory (Tajfel & Turner, 1979), further high-
light the role of group categorization, independent of actual
realistic group conflict, in motivations to achieve favorable
group identities (“positive distinctiveness”) and consequently
on the arousal of intergroup bias and discrimination.
Collective Identity
Human activity is rooted in interdependence. Group systems
involving greater mutual cooperation have substantial sur-
vival advantages for individual group members over those
systems without reciprocally positive social relations (Trivers,
1971). However, the decision to cooperate with nonrelatives
(i.e., to expend resources for another’s benefit) is a dilemma of
trust because the ultimate benefit for the provider depends on
others’ willingness to reciprocate. Indiscriminate trust and al-
truism that are not reciprocated are not effective survival
strategies.
Social categorization and group boundaries provide a basis
for achieving the benefits of cooperative interdependence
without the risk of excessive costs. In-group membership is a
form of contingent cooperation. By limiting aid to mutually
acknowledged in-group members, total costs and risks of non-
reciprocation can be contained. Thus, in-groups can be de-
fined as bounded communities of mutual trust and obligation
that delimit mutual interdependence and cooperation. The
ways in which people understand their group membership
thus play a critical role in social harmony and conflict.
Models of category-based processing (Brewer, 1988; see
also Fiske et al., 1999) assume that “the mere presentation of a
stimulus person activates certain classification processes that
occur automatically and without conscious intent.... The
process is one of ‘placing’ the individual social object along
well-established stimulus dimensions such as age, gender,
and skin color” (Brewer, 1988, pp. 5–6). We have further
hypothesized that “a primitive type of categorization may also
have a high probability of spontaneously occurring, perhaps in
parallel process. This is the categorization of individuals as
members of one’s ingroup or not” (Dovidio & Gaertner, 1993,
p. 170). Because of the centrality of the self in social per-
ception (Higgins & Bargh, 1987; Kihlstrom et al., 1988), we
propose that social categorization involves most fundamen-
tally a distinction between the group containing the self (the
in-group) and other groups (the out-groups) between the
“we’s” and the “they’s” (see also Tajfel & Turner, 1979; Turner
et al., 1987). This distinction has a profound influence on
evaluations, cognitions, and behavior.
Social identity theory (Tajfel & Turner, 1979) and, more
recently, self-categorization theory (Turner, 1985; Turner
et al., 1987) address the fundamental process of social catego-
rization. From a social categorization perspective, when peo-
ple or objects are categorized into groups, actual differences
between members of the same category tend to be perceptually
minimized (Tajfel, 1969) and often ignored in making deci-
sions or forming impressions. Members of the same category
seem to be more similar than they actually are, and more sim-
ilar than they were before they were categorized together. In
addition, although members of a social category may be dif-
ferent in some ways from members of other categories, these
differences tend to become exaggerated and overgeneralized.
Thus, categorization enhances perceptions of similarities
within groups and differences between groups—emphasizing
social difference and group distinctiveness. This process is not
benign because these within- and between-group distortions
have a tendency to generalize to additional dimensions (e.g.,
character traits) beyond those that differentiated the categories
originally (Allport, 1954, 1958). Furthermore, as the salience
of the categorization increases, the magnitude of these distor-
tions also increases (Abrams, 1985; Brewer, 1979; Brewer &
Miller, 1996; Dechamps & Doise, 1978; Dion, 1974; Doise,
1978; Skinner & Stephenson, 1981; Turner, 1981, 1985).
Moreover, in the process of categorizing people into two
different groups, people typically classify themselvesinto
one of the social categories andout ofthe other. The insertion
of the self into the social categorization process increases the
emotional significance of group differences and thus leads to
further perceptual distortion and to evaluative biases that
reflect favorably on the in-group (Sumner, 1906), and conse-
quently on the self (Tajfel & Turner, 1979). Tajfel and Turner
(1979), in their social identity theory, proposed that a person’s
need for positive identity may be satisfied by membership in
prestigious social groups. This need also motivates social
comparisons that favorably differentiate in-group from out-
group members, particularly when self-esteem has been chal-
lenged (Hogg & Abrams, 1990). For example, Meindl and
Lerner (1984) found that experiencing an esteem-lowering
experience (committing an unintentional transgression) moti-
vated people to reject an opportunity for equal status contact
between the in-group and an out-group in favor of interaction