Social and Personality Psychology Compass 2/3 (2008): 1281–1296, 10.1111/j.1751-9004.2008.00105.x
Social Identities in Childhood: When Does the Group Become a Part of the Self-Concept?
Mark Bennett* and Fabio SaniUniversity of Dundee
AbstractResearch in developmental psychology has almost invariably neglected todistinguish between categorization of the self in group terms and subjectiveidentification with a group. Methodologically, this has been exemplified ininvestigators’ widespread assumption that children’s ascription of group labels(e.g., ‘I’m a Chinese American’) reflects proper identification with the namedcategory. We argue that more subtle measures are required in order to determinewhether social groups have become assimilated to the self-concept, as would berequired in order to infer that identification (rather than mere categorization) hastaken place. Following a review of extant literature, we introduce our ownprogram of research, conducted over the last decade, which draws upon methodsfrom cognitive social psychology. Based on this research, we conclude thatgenuine identification with social groups is likely to be in place at least bythe age of five years. However, our findings suggest that cognitive aspects ofidentification are likely to antecede affective aspects.
A key insight of the social identity approach is that groups can becomepart of the self (Turner, Hogg, Oakes, Reicher, & Wetherell, 1987).When, for example, someone tells you that they are a socialist, a feminist,or a Chelsea supporter, they are not merely stating their de facto member-ship of a group: they are telling you something of their identity, the veryperson they take themselves to be. Thus, groups are not merely ‘outthere’. In an important respect, they are often ‘in the mind’ (Turner &Oakes, 1997), penetrating one’s sense of self, representing fundamentalconstituents of identity.
A cursory look at history reveals just how potent and consequentialsocial identities are: individuals’ commitments to ideological, religious,ethnic, and national groups have been at the heart of very many of themomentous events of human history, from the Crusades, to the disman-tling of the apartheid regime in South Africa, to the destruction of theWorld Trade Centre in New York. Even at a mundane level, social iden-tities impact on our daily lives: it clearly matters to most of us that we
are either male or female, and even that we are from this city or that.Plainly, groups can become integral parts of the self-concept.
Although much is understood about social identity (see Brewer &Hewstone, 2004), less is known about its development in childhood. Aswe see it, a central difficulty is that of measuring children’s identificationwith social groups. Of course, children often describe themselves in terms,for example, of national or religious group memberships. However, thecentral question posed by this paper is whether the group labels thatchildren apply to themselves indicate the assimilation of those groups tothe self-concept. The basic difference between our focus and that ofprevious researchers is caught in the distinction between mere categorizationof the self in group terms and subjective identification with a group (Turner et al.,1987). The former necessitates no more than the application of a label,whereas the latter involves commitment to an identity. This distinction isfundamental to the case that we introduce in this paper: we propose that,to date, research on children’s identities has looked almost exclusively atthe categorization of the self in group terms, and not at subjective iden-tification. Our aim is thus to bring greater clarity to the field, bothconceptually and methodologically.
In what follows, we begin by setting out the issue explicitly, looking atextant research on children’s social identities. Following this, we turn toour own research, which has sought explicitly to determine whethergroup identities have become assimilated to children’s self-concepts.
Previous Attempts to Investigate Children’s Identification with Groups
Attempts to measure children’s ‘identification’ with social groups havenearly always been based on verbal self-labeling (e.g., ‘I’m an AfricanAmerican’; ‘I’m a boy scout’) and related methods. Prior to reviewingrelevant studies, it is important to make the point that group-categoricallabels can be applied on the basis of publicly available criteria (such as skincolor, dress, etc.), without necessarily indicating subjective identificationwith a particular group. As Ruble et al. (2004) have expressed it, ‘it is notclear whether ... such identification means anything more than emptylabels’ (p. 37). Our key claim, then, is that researchers have routinelyconflated social categorization of the self and subjective identification withsocial categories.
To illustrate, a common method is to look at children’s self-descriptions.Livesley and Bromley’s (1973) classic content analysis of children’s freedescriptions of themselves revealed that many children referred to theirsocial group memberships (e.g., ‘I’m a Catholic’; ‘I’m a Boy Scout’).Likewise, McGuire and McGuire (1987) content-analyzed responses tothe request to ‘Tell us about yourself ’, noting that many references wereto ethnicity and gender. This method, very prevalent in research on
self-development and identity development (e.g., Damon & Hart,1988; Lambert & Klineberg, 1967), has more recently been refined bymeans of more directive approaches. For example, Katz and Kofkin (1997)investigated children’s ability to self-identify using race and gender labelsthat had been provided to them. Nonetheless, this method, like itsvariants, remains vulnerable to the objection that such labels may beempty with respect to genuine identification with the verbally specifiedcategory.
Elsewhere, other techniques have been used to investigate children’sidentification with social groups. For example, the classic work of Clarkand Clark (1947) on ethnic identification asked children to point to thedoll or picture that ‘looks most like you’. Pointing to a stimulus of thesame ethnic group was taken to indicate appropriate identification withthe ethnic group. Other studies have asked children to judge their simi-larity to a variety of targets: ‘Who is most similar to you?’ (Aboud, 1977;Rosenthal, 1974). However, a weakness common to both methods is thatchildren may match themselves to others on the basis of perceptuallysalient attributes, but this tells us little if any about the importance of suchattributes within the self-concept. This sort of differentiation on the basisof skin color, for example, need not point to commitment to ethnicgroup membership (Holmes, 1995) and may instead reflect a mereperceptual discrimination.
Other studies have asked children a series of yes/no questions andscored them on the basis of the total number of correct answers. Inmeasuring self-identification, Aboud (2001) asked white Canadianchildren, ‘Are you a white Canadian?’, ‘Are you a black Canadian?’,and ‘Are you a Canadian Indian?’ and awarded points for each correctresponse. But even if children give correct responses to all three questions,it is appropriate only to infer that correct self-categorization has takenplace. We simply cannot say whether there is subjective identification withthe category ‘white Canadian’.
Researchers have also explored the relative extent of children’s identifica-tion with different social groups by means of rank-ordering techniques,such that they are presented with a range of identities written on separatecards and are asked to indicate the most to the least important (e.g.,Akiba, DiMartino, & Rodriquez, 2001; Alvarez et al., 2001; Barrett et al.,1997; Bennett, Lyons, Sani, & Barrett, 1998). However, these studiesmerely presuppose that the identities under consideration are internalizedand then seek to determine their relative importance.
Even among researchers who have shown sensitivity to the subtletiesinvolved in measuring children’s identification with groups, problemsremain. For example, Aboud (1987) specified three criteria required inorder to determine whether ethnic identification has taken place. First,children should describe themselves in terms of attributes that groupmembers have judged to be definitional to the identity (e.g., ancestry or
parentage, language, skin color, and the group’s label). Second, theseattributes should be taken to provide a basis for distinguishing oneselffrom members of other ethnic groups. Third, one’s identity should beconsidered to be constant (i.e., invariant over time and contexts).
Although a marked improvement on much of the work in the field, weconsider this analysis problematic. First, its basis remains self-description;the first and second criteria could be met merely by a description of theself in terms of an overt characteristic that categorically distinguishes theself from people in other groups (e.g., ‘I’m black’ or ‘I’m a ChineseAmerican’). Second, the presence of constancy does not tell us unequi-vocally that a child subjectively identifies with a particular social groupbecause, clearly, acknowledgment of the invariance of one’s ethnic identityis not equivalent to having internalized that identity. Equally, the absenceof constancy does not necessarily tell us that an identity has not beeninternalized because one could be committed to an identity and yet recognizethat the identity may change (e.g., atheist and animal liberationist), atleast in principle.
Despite the trenchant observations that we offer, we do not wish tosuggest that researchers have entirely neglected conceptual issues involvedin addressing identification with social groups. Noteworthy, for example,is Katz and Kofkin’s (1997) observation that ‘Both gender and raceidentity are complex constructs. ... One cannot say with certainty whena sense of identity begins. Part of the problem is methodological. Psychol-ogists have designed non-verbal techniques (such as habituation) to assessvisual discrimination and categorization in infants, but the measurementof identity has relied mainly on verbal techniques’ (p. 57). Surprisingly,however, despite remarking upon the complexity of identity and itsmeasurement, Katz and Kofkin seemingly capitulate, at least methodolo-gically, in that their work investigated identity by means of gender andrace labels.
Summarizing, then, this body of research purports to tell us that byearly childhood children identify with a broad range of social groups.However, it is more accurate to say that such studies speak to the catego-rization of the self in group terms. Other methods are needed in order todetermine when it is that children begin to subjectively identify withparticular groups. It is to such methods that we now turn.
Collective Responsibility for Ingroup Members’ Actions
As adults, it is clear that we routinely feel shame (and related emotions)at actions for which we could have no direct responsibility (Branscombe& Doosje, 2004). For example, for decades following the Second WorldWar, many Germans expressed shame at the atrocities that were commit-ted by their compatriots. The vast majority of these people had no personalinfluence over such events, and their sense of shame can be understood
only in terms of their social identity (i.e., as Germans). As Doosje,Branscombe, Spears, and Manstead (1998) note, a striking consequenceof a social identity is that many aspects of self-related cognition andemotion result not from one’s own actions but from those of otherswith whom category membership is shared. In exploring children’s socialidentities, our initial studies drew upon this idea of responsibility foringroup members’ actions.
We found that not until around 7 years of age did children recognizethat they may be evaluated negatively through their close association witha wrongdoer; prior to the age of 7 years, children asserted that they couldbe judged only on the basis of their own actions (Bennett, Yuill, Banerjee,& Thomson, 1998), not those of a close friend or relative. This studysuggested the possibility that fully-fledged social identities might be aconsiderably later development than has been previously assumed. How-ever, because it looked only at interpersonal contexts, our subsequentstudies examined the intergroup contexts required properly to examinesocial identity.
Using the same method as that of Bennett, Yuill et al. (1998), we lookedat whether 5-, 7-, and 9-year-old children would feel compromised bythe moral transgressions of unknown ingroup members (Bennett & Sani,2008a). In particular, children were asked to consider hypothetical scenariosin which (i) they were personally responsible for a particular negativeoutcome (personal condition), or (ii) a member of the same social categorycommitted a transgression (social condition). Specifically, they considereda context in which, during a sports event at another school, either theyor another (unknown) child from their school committed a moral trans-gression, such as hurting an outgroup child or smashing a pane of glassthrough carelessness. Following this, they were asked about their likelyresponses to the events depicted, such as emotional reactions, whether theywould want to apologize for the transgression, and judgments of outgroupmembers’ perceptions of the child’s ingroup.
The findings indicated that feelings of responsibility for ingroup mem-bers emerge at around 7 years. In neither the personal condition (selfcommits violation) nor the social condition (other ingroup member com-mits violation) did 5-year-olds consider that their school might be viewednegatively. Only among older children was there acknowledgement ofthe implications of an individual’s actions for the group.
Unsurprisingly, in the personal condition, all of the children reportedthat they would want to apologize for the transgression they had commit-ted. However, in the social condition, the findings differed. Here, it wasonly among the 7- and 9-year-olds that apologies were seen as necessary.Interestingly, though, the actions of transgressing ingroup members didnot seme to prompt strong emotional responses: although childrenreported that they would be embarrassed by their own transgressions,relatively few children reported that they would be embarrassed by a
fellow ingrouper’s transgression. Conceivably, then, these relatively nascentsocial identities may lack the potency of adults’ social identities.
Overall, our findings suggest that the youngest children have an essen-tially individualistic perspective and see actions as reflecting only upontheir perpetrators rather than upon the groups to which those perpetratorsbelong. Moreover, we replicated these findings in a further study in whichthe relevant in- and outgroups were based on another form of socialidentity (i.e., age groups). Thus, one may question the widely heldassumption that young children’s references to social group membershipscarry the same meaning as those of older children and adults. Together,these findings appear to lend support to the idea that fully-fledged socialidentities may be a relatively late development. However, in the absenceof convergent data from studies using other methods, it would be rash toconclude that this is necessarily so. For this reason, in our subsequentresearch, we examined children’s subjective identification with groups bymeans of techniques derived from cognitive social psychology.
Children’s Self-Stereotyping as Group Members
Thus far, we have conceived of social identification with groups in termsof notions of guilt by association. Although we consider that this is auseful way of addressing the issue at the heart of this paper, in our morerecent work, we have set the issue of group identification within a moreexplicitly articulated theoretical framework. In particular, we have drawnupon self-categorization theory (Turner et al., 1987) and specifically itsproposals concerning the process of self-stereotyping. Our recent studieson children’s self-stereotyping address the age at which children begin tostereotype themselves in group-relevant ways.
Self-categorization theory and the idea of self-stereotyping
Self-categorization theory (SCT; Turner et al., 1987, 1994) postulates thatthe self is defined in terms of self-categories, and that the self-categorythat becomes cognitively salient at a given point in time depends on thenature of the social context. In particular, the context determines whetheran individual will categorize the self in terms of personal and idiosyncraticcharacteristics (‘happy’, ‘competitive’, ‘father of X’), or in terms of agroup, or collective (‘British’, ‘black’, ‘catholic’). Importantly, the categor-ization of the self in terms of a group (i.e., in terms of ‘we’ and ‘us’)accentuates both the similarities between the self and other groupmembers and the differences between the self and members of othergroups. This accentuation effect produces ‘self-stereotyping’ (i.e., a senseof being identical or similar to the other members of the group ongroup-defining dimensions). Because self-stereotyping implies a focuson shared attributes at the expenses of more individual and personal
features, it is also conceptualized as ‘depersonalization’. SCT considers thephenomenon of depersonalization as the perceptual and cognitiveunderpinning of subjective group identification.
From the perspective of SCT, the question of children’s subjectiveidentification with a group is the question of whether they engage inself-stereotyping. That is, when thinking of themselves in terms of agroup, can they conceive of themselves as essentially similar to, andinterchangeable with others in that group?
Social psychologists (e.g., Hogg & Turner, 1987; Lorenzi-Cioldi, 1993;Simon, Pantaleo, & Mummendey, 1995) have extensively exploredself-stereotyping. Thus, participants have been asked to make judg-ments about themselves in contexts that enhance the cognitive salience ofspecific group identifications, typically as a result of contriving specificintergroup contrasts. For example, in an early study, Hogg and Turner(1987) created situations in which gender identity was either salient (i.e.,in an intersex collective encounter) or not salient (i.e., in an intrasexdyadic encounter) and then assessed how participants described them-selves. They found that self-descriptions were more gender-stereotypicalwhen gender identity was salient than when gender identity wasnot salient. Within the social psychological literature, this is now awell-established finding (see Abrams, 1999).
We decided to investigate children’s stereotyping of the self in terms ofgender categories, for the very obvious reason that gender is a funda-mental aspect of identity throughout childhood and adulthood (Powlishta,2004; Ruble & Martin, 1998; Zemore, Fiske, & Kim, 2000). We wereespecially interested in the age at which children would spontaneouslystereotype themselves as members of the gender ingroup.
Our first study (Bennett & Sani, 2008b) addressed self-stereotyping bylooking at children’s judgments of their similarity to and differencefrom same-sex peers in two different contexts: one in which there wereonly same-sex peers to consider, and another in which there were peersof both sexes. In the first condition, because children considered onlysame-sex peers, we expected that they would focus on their own idiosyn-cratic personal attributes, accentuating their differences from others. Thequestion of interest was whether, relative to this condition, there wouldbe depersonalization of the self in the follow-up condition in which bothgirls and boys were considered. In particular, we wanted to know at whatpoint in development would the setting-up of an intergroup context resultin a specific change in judgment (i.e., a heightened perception of similarityto other category members).
The study was conducted over a 17-day period, such that on the firsttime of testing, we asked children to consider their similarity to, anddifference from, named same-sex classmates. On this occasion, we con-sidered it likely that same-sex peers would likely be conceived in anintragroup context (i.e., seen not as exemplars of the group but as
individuals). On the second occasion of testing, children were asked firstlyto judge their similarity to five gender outgroup members of the class.Then, they did exactly what they had done 17 days earlier and withreference to the same same-sex peers. In this latter condition, given an abilityto depersonalize the self, we predicted that, relative to the former condition,the perception of withingroup differences would be minimized; that is,children would see themselves as more like their same-sex peers and lessdifferent from them. Thus, our interest is not in the particular content ofjudgments, but change in judgments over contexts.
For all three age groups (5-, 7-, and 10-year-olds), we found thatchildren perceived greater similarity to the identical same-sex peers in thesecond condition, in which gender had been made salient, than in thefirst, in which it had not. Moreover, children perceived a smaller degreeof difference from same-sex targets in the second condition than in thefirst. Crucially, these findings show that even young children are capableof stereotyping themselves in gendered terms. Thus, when thinking ofthemselves in group terms, they spontaneously conceive of themselves asessentially similar to others in that group, and hence reveal a categoricalidentification.
In a subsequent study (Bennett & Sani, 2008b), we went further andasked whether children would stereotype themselves in terms of thesorts of characteristics commonly associated with their gender (e.g.,bravery for boys and kindness for girls). Again, we did this by comparingtheir self-ratings (on masculine, feminine, and neutral traits) in a neutralcontext with a context in which (2 weeks later) we made gendersalient.
Strikingly even 5-year-olds provided evidence of gender self-stereotyping.Boys in all age groups rated themselves as bigger, stronger, and braver,having just considered girls than in the neutral context in which nooutgroup had been mentioned. The girls showed less clear-cut evidenceof gender self-stereotyping, although they rated themselves significantlyquieter in the gendered context than in the neutral context. This sexdifference may reflect the greater pressures on boys than girls to conformto gender norms (Fagot & Hagan, 1991). That is, having made gendersalient in the second condition, boys may have been more stronglyinclined than girls to adhere to normative expectations associated withmasculinity. Nonetheless, although the data for girls were less convincing,because an effect emerged for boys, we take it that a capacity for subjec-tive identification with social categories is present in children by the ageof 5 years.
As we see it, a striking feature of these findings is that they wereobtained using a method in which children’s own gender-related self-conceptions had been indirectly activated (i.e., merely by thinking aboutthe gender outgroup). The studies are therefore not subject to responsebiases associated with many studies of gender identity.
In sum, the present studies show that children have internalized this keyform of social identity, at least by 5 years. This is rather earlier than similarevidence presented in our studies of guilt through collective responsibility.Clearly, one reason for this discrepancy is that different identities wereexamined over the two types of method – and perhaps gender is internal-ized earlier than other identities. In our next round of studies, to addressthis possibility, we looked at various identities including gender, using asingle method derived from cognitive social psychology.
Confusing the Self and Ingroup
Consistent with the claims of SCT, a considerable body of social psycho-logical research has shown that representations of self and ingroups showa substantial degree of overlap (e.g., Aron & McLaughlin-Volpe, 2001;Mashek, Aron, & Boncimino, 2003; Smith & Henri, 1996; Smith, Coats,& Walling, 1999). More particularly, it has been found that the characteristicsof the ingroup tend to be cognitively confused with the characteristicsof the individual self, thereby showing that the ingroup is included in theself. For example, Mashek et al. (2003) found that people are much morelikely to confuse traits rated for the self and the ingroup than traits ratedfor the self and psychologically relevant outgroups – indicating thatingroup attributes are represented within the self-concept. Extending thisline of research, we conducted three studies aimed at determining whenchildren begin to confuse their unique and idiosyncratic characteristicswith those of the members of the ingroup.
In three separate studies (Sani & Bennett, forthcoming), we examinedthree ingroups: gender, the family, and the age group. The first studyinvestigated gender and required children to consider three sets of fourcards, each with a trait adjective written on it. In considering card set A,children were asked, ‘Do you think you are not at all/quite/very [X]?’This procedure was repeated for all three remaining cards in set A. Thisprocedure was repeated with card set B, but this time, the questionsconcerned the gender ingroup (i.e., ‘Do you think boys/girls are not atall/quite/very [X]?’). The procedure was again repeated with card set C,and the questions concerned the gender outgroup. (The order in whichthe different card sets was presented was randomized.) At this point,participants were given a brief distraction task. Finally and crucially, theywere asked: ‘In the first game we played, we asked you a question aboutbeing [X]. Can you remember whether we asked you that question aboutyourself, about [the ingroup], or about [the outgroup]?’ This was repeatedfor all of the trait terms that had been considered.
A higher degree of confusion between traits rated for self and thoserated for the ingroup than between traits rated for self and those rated forthe outgroup would be indicative of the cognitive inclusion of theingroup in the self. We therefore compared the number of self/ingroup
errors (i.e., either traits rated for self but wrongly attributed to ingroup ortraits rated for ingroup but wrongly attributed to self ) with the numberof self/outgroup errors (i.e., either traits rated for self but wrongly attributedto outgroup or traits rated for outgroup but wrongly attributed to self).Across all age groups, children made significantly more self/ingroup errorsthan self/outgroup errors.
In two subsequent studies, we replicated the procedure of our firststudy and looked at the child’s family and age group as ingroups. Thestudies were identical to the first study in looking at 5-, 7-, and 10-year-oldchildren. In both cases, the results of the previous study were repli-cated; that is, self/ingroup confusions significantly exceeded self/outgroupconfusions. In our view, it is striking that this effect is replicated intwo very different types of group: the family (a highly exclusive groupthat comprises intimates) and the child’s age group (a highly inclusivegroup that comprises peers linked to the self in terms of just oneattribute).
These findings extend those of our previous studies and further confirmyoung children’s capacity to represent ingroups within the self-concept.The fact that the social group is experienced as an aspect of the self hasvarious implications, one of which we explored in our next study. Wereasoned that because the social group is represented as an aspect of theself, children should process information concerning the ingroup in muchthe same way as information related to the personal self (Smith & Henri,1996). Thus, for example, it is plausible to argue that that because even5-year-olds show the self-reference advantage in memory (Sui & Zhu,2005), a corresponding advantage should also emerge for children’singroups. In our final study, we address this hypothesis by means of anextension of the self-reference effect (STE) to the level of groups.
Self- and Group-Reference Effects
In a seminal study, Rogers, Kuiper, and Kirker (1977) found that infor-mation encoded with reference to the self is remembered better thaninformation encoded with reference to other entities. In their studies,adult participants were presented with a list of words, each one pairedwith an encoding question that participants had to answer. There werefour different types of encoding questions: structural (‘Is the word in bigletters?’), phonemic (‘Does the word rhyme with [X]?’), semantic (‘Doesthe word mean the same as [Y]?’), and self-reference (‘Does the worddescribe you?’). Following presentation of these different question types,participants were given a surprise free-recall test and had to remember asmany of the words as possible. Recall was highest for those words pairedwith the self-reference encoding questions. This finding is commonlyreferred to as the SRE and is now well established (Symons & Johnson,1997).
Drawing upon models that view the group as cognitively representedwithin the self-concept, Johnson et al. (2002) have suggested that a similarmemory advantage should occur in group-reference conditions. Johnsonet al. (2002) confirmed this hypothesis empirically. Specifically, partici-pants encoded adjectives with reference to the self, a group, or (in thecontrol conditions) semantic, phonemic, and structural properties of thoseadjectives. Then they were asked to recall as many of the words as theycould. In two experiments (in which the participants’ university or familyserved as the ingroups), strong evidence was found for a group-referenceeffect: the level of recall of adjectives was as high in the group conditionas in the self-condition, and in both conditions, recall was significantlygreater than in the control conditions.
In our own work (Bennett & Sani, forthcoming), we have replicatedJohnson et al.’s study in a large sample of children between 5 and 10 yearsof age. Our study looked in particular at their ability to treat threeforms of social identity as aspects of the self: identity derived fromgender, family, and age. Based on the findings from our work on self-stereotyping, we predicted the early appearance of self- and group-reference effects.
Participants encoded adjectives with reference to the self and threedifferent groups (gender ingroup, family, and age group). In addition, weused two control conditions [in which (i) children were required to judgewhether the target word meant the same as another specified word, and(ii) whether it was applicable to a familiar non-self-category, dogs]. Overallrecall was found to increase with age, as one would expect. Importantlyfor the present purposes, however, recall was significantly greater in theself-reference condition than in the controls. Moreover, a group-referenceeffect was evident: as in the Johnson et al. study, no recall differences werefound between the self- and group-reference conditions; however, recallin the group conditions was higher than in the controls. Thus, in children,as in adults, there are effects of self- and group-reference on recall.
Conclusions
Most broadly, it is important to note that the findings summarised hereare part of a burgeoning contextual approach to social identity and devel-opment. During the past decade, developmental research has increasinglytaken an intergroup approach and has provided invaluable findings onchildren’s social behavior and identity. For example, Abrams, Rutland, andCameron (2003) have shown that children are more supportive of ingroupnorms expressed by members of outgroups than when such normsare rejected by members of ingroups. In a similar study, Killen (2007)has shown that age, context, and target variables contribute to children’sidentification of, and rejection of, group norms. Thus, the field is nowmoving beyond mere rhetoric about the ‘child as a social actor’ and
illuminating the reality (see Levy & Killen, 2008 for an excellent exposi-tion of such work.).
The findings reported in this review speak specifically to the matter ofchildren’s identification with social groups and significantly augment thoseof previous research: taken together, they provide strong evidence thatchildren do indeed assimilate groups to the self-concept. In this respect,we can take it that, even by 5 years of age, their social identities reflectgenuine identification with social groups. However, this is not to say thatimportant developments do not take place subsequently.
Possible developments are suggested by the disparity between the find-ings of our initial studies on collective responsibility and those derivingfrom our later studies (i.e., on self-stereotyping, self/ingroup confusions,and the group reference effect). Our early studies showed that it is notuntil around 7 years that children feel compromised (e.g., embarrassed) byingroup members’ actions, whereas our more recent work, using methodsfrom cognitive social psychology, provided evidence of earlier identifica-tion. Crucial here is the distinction between affective and cognitive aspectsof social identity (e.g., see Jackson, 2002): our initial work pertainedclosely to the former, whereas later studies addressed the latter. In ourview, a plausible conjecture is that early identification with groups may beessentially cognitive (‘I am a member of this group’), and gradually, per-haps through processes of ingroup socialization, identification becomesaffectively laden (‘The welfare of this group matters to me’).
Other likely developments concern the conceptualisation of the defin-ing features of social identities. Elsewhere, we have proposed that youngerchildren may conceive of identities largely in terms of particular beha-viours, practices, and dispositions, and that only later do they come toconsider socially shared beliefs, values, and traditions (Sani & Bennett,2004). However, much remains to be done to explore this possibility.Furthermore, it seems likely that the range of identities embraced byyoung children is much more limited than that found in older childrenand adolescents. Among 5-year-olds, gender, ethnicity, age group, andactivity interests provide the types of groups that children think about.However, it seems likely that children will increasingly take on not merelyascribed identities but chosen ones, such as the sub-cultural groups thattypify adolescence (Eckert, 1989). Other than such developments, it isclear that older children acquire a social ‘face’ (Miller, 1996) and recognisethat others make expectations in line with that face. The increasingimportance of the peer group, too, will more pointedly call attention tosocial identities: although social identities may be relatively taken forgranted (or even invisible) within the family, they are likely to be subjectto extensive negotiation and even contestation within the peer group.Thus, future research should direct attention at developments in children’ssocial identities, their behavioural consequences, and how they areimpacted by relationships and contexts.
It is important too that developmentalists look to advances within socialpsychology. For example, throughout this paper, we have made the SCT-derived assumption of functional antagonism between the personal and thesocial self. That is, we have taken it that only one form of identity canbe psychologically salient in a given situation and at a given point in time.It should be noted however that various scholars have recently challengedthe idea that the personal and social self are functionally antagonistic andhave argued instead that these two self-dimensions may be more inte-grated and interwoven than previously assumed (see Postmes & Jetten,2006, for current debate on the interplay between personal and socialselves). Thus, future research might look at the reciprocal relationshipbetween children’s personal and social selves.
Finally, it is important to make the point that our critique of earlierwork (i.e., work that has failed to distinguish categorization from subjec-tive identification) is not meant to suggest that we see categorisation ofthe self in group terms as trivial. On the contrary: future research shouldaddress the relation between the categorisation of the self in social groupterms and subsequent subjective identification with social groups becausetheories of schematic processing (see Durkin, 2005; Powlishta, 2004) pre-dict that initial self-categorization serves to direct attention to thoseaspects of the environment that facilitate the elaboration of knowledgeabout an identity, and conceivably, too, subsequent internalisation of anidentity. In short, categorisation processes are likely to play a role indirecting identification processes.
Short Biographies
Mark Bennett is currently Professor of Developmental Psychology at theUniversity of Dundee, Scotland. He has published widely in the area of socialdevelopmental psychology. Currently, he is Editor of the journal Infant &Child Development. In 2005, he was elected to the Academy of Social Sciences.
Fabio Sani is Reader in Psychology at the University of Dundee. Hereceived his PhD in 1996 from the University of Exeter. After one year atthe University of Surrey, as Research Fellow, he joined the Departmentof Psychology at the University of Dundee, where he has been workingever since. His empirical and theoretical work has been published in manysocial and developmental journals, as well as in numerous book chapters.Sani has also co-authored the textbook Experimental Design and Statisticsfor Psychology: A First Course (Blackwell, 2006), co-edited The Developmentof the Social Self (Psychology Press, 2004), and edited Self-Continuity:Individual and Collective Perspectives (Psychology Press, 2008). His research,funded by the Economic & Social Research Council and the BritishAcademy, so far has focused on social identity and its implications forgroup processes. He has recently developed an interest in the psychosocialdeterminants of well-being and health.
* Correspondence address: University of Dundee, Perth Road, Dundee DD1 4HN, Scotland,UK. Email: [email protected]
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