This chapter focuses on social individual differences in relation to second language learning. It explores how the social, cultural, and political context that a learner is situated in affects their success of second language learning. The chapter begins by explaining how society and social interaction that second language learners encounter influence the access they have to second language education. This includes the differences between foreign vs. second language learning contexts. It then focuses on social identity theory, acculturation theory relevant to immigrant learners, and transdisciplinary framework (by Douglas Fir Group). The chapter covers other socially constructed individual differences related to intersectionality, diversity–equity–inclusion (DEI), and heritage language learning. The chapter also addresses socially constructed biases related to race and ethnicity, social class, sexual orientation, and LGBTQ+. The chapter ends with a series of pedagogical recommendations that mitigate the impacts of socially constructed biases on second language learning in the classroom.

This chapter explores theories of revolution that propose psychological factors as the main driving force for intergroup change. These theories include social identity theory, psychodynamic theory, justice theories, equity theory, and relative deprivation theory. A number of the theories that also give importance to material conditions, such as system justification theory, also give importance to psychological factors through concepts such as false consciousness. The irrationalist perspective of psychodynamic theory is also integral to a number of the other theories discussed in this chapter because of the pervasive assumption that often people are unaware of what is influencing their participation in collective action and displacement of aggression. The most influential contemporary theory is social identity theory, and the key experiment associated with this theory, the minimal group paradigm, is critically discussed. The complex role of relative deprivation and perceived justice is discussed, with reference to fraternal deprivation and equity theory.

Organizational identification might become weaker when confronted with organizational changes, such as mergers and acquisitions (M&As). Identification change in M&As has received significant attention from scholars, but the extant theoretical evidence might not apply to employees involved in Chinese M&As. Indeed, cultural characteristics (e.g., dialectical thinking, collectivism, power distance) might make Chinese employees more tolerant of contradictions and ambivalence than employees in the Western hemisphere. To address this gap, we will refer to the social identity theory and the extant knowledge on identification change in cross-border M&As. We will present a framework of organizational identification change for Chinese employees after acquisition together with factors that contribute to the success of M&As. We illustrate it with the case of a Chinese acquisition in Europe: ChinaCorp and EuroMall. We theorize on the role of identity leadership wherein a leader’s behavior has a particularly strong impact on identification processes in high power distance and collectivist cultures. We will show how acts of identity leadership matter for the transfer from pre-merger to post-merger identification in the case of Chinese acquirers.

Using a social identity approach, this research program focuses on how Eastern and Western managers make sense of mergers and acquisitions (M&As). Study 1 used online experiments to examine how people perceive intergroup criticism. We found that employees responded to criticism more negatively when it was made by an outgroup rather than by ingroup members. Building on the study 1 results, we further explored social identity processes and intergroup dynamics. We conducted interviews with European (Study 2) and Chinese managers (Study 3) involved in an acquisition of a European company by a Chinese holding. Study 2 shows that European managers’ organizational identity change is facilitated by alignment of a post-merger identity with their pre-merger historical identity, and over time, they engaged in collaboration and knowledge sharing with their Chinese counterparts. In Study 3, we found that Chinese managers leveraged an agile organizational identity to deal with status inferiority and rapid organizational changes. In summary, this research program addresses the need for a deeper understanding of social identity processes and change beyond M&A context, but also in other cross-cultural collaboration processes which involve employees who initially have various identities, practices, and cultural backgrounds.

A textbook on organizational stress and well-being wouldn’t be complete without taking a closer look at the stress and well-being of organizational leaders. Leaders’ physical and psychological health can decline, partly due to the demands of their jobs. However, while the job demands of a leadership position are higher than those of other employees, leaders typically have more access to various types of resources. This provokes the question: Is it stressful at the top? Leaders nowadays generally work in work environments characterized by volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity. However, (effective) leadership becomes even more relevant during times of crisis. This chapter therefore compares leader job demands in the non-crisis and the crisis contexts. The chapter concludes by giving some suggestions on how to cope with leaders’ job demands by looking at two potential strategies for leaders to use – mindfulness and the social identity approach.

This chapter lays down the conceptual foundations of Institutional Status Theory. It situates IST in the literature on status in world politics, and on social identity in particular. It elaborates on the concept of status as an intrinsic value and as a role that entails symbolic equality with higher-status actors, as distinct from status as a set of valued attributes. It discusses the psychological and social foundations of IST, in particular its relationship to and difference from constructivist theory. Finally, the chapter theorizes the great-power club and international institutions as sites of status struggles.

Theories of democracy all insist on some basic conditions in order for citizens to hold their elected officials accountable. One of the first ones to mention is an openness to new information about the world that might influence beliefs about a politician’s performance, character, intelligence and the like. In recent decades, BPS has discovered that this basic assumption is regularly violated. Citizens and elites often resist new and credible information in favor of their existing beliefs and viewpoints even when they would greatly benefit from updating those stands. In this chapter, we review a related set of theories captured under the umbrella of motivated reasoning that attempts to understand why, exploring the role of cognitive dissonance, self-esteem, and group identity in shaping individuals’ goals when processing information. While the field has no concrete answers yet, we at least have begun to estimate the often dire consequences of arguing from our existing attitudes to our perceptions of the world – top-down processing – instead of the other way around.

This chapter provides a detailed discussion of the main terms used in the books (e.g., radicalization, extremism, milieus, groups, and ideology). The core of the chapter is a review of the state of the art regarding the development and change of political attitudes in general and within extremist environments. The methodology of the book (criminological storyline approach) is explained and the most pressing gaps in the research literature regarding (extremist) side-switching are outlined. In short, the topic is highly under-researched and promises to offer fascinating insights into the relationship between extremists and their groups.

This chapter examines the role of experimentation within the social identity approach to the study of identity. The main question of interest concerns the ways in which experimental methods give particular shape to how identity is understood within this tradition. We will examine the historical, theoretical, and practical development of the social identity approach and of experimentation in psychology, and then show how the two have converged so as to create an insightful, and yet simultaneously limited and at times even problematic, understanding of identity. This particular constellation of theoretical assumptions and practical methods has produced an impressive body of important research. It has also led to the establishment and entrenchment of theoretical and methodological biases of which researchers often seem to be unaware, but which nevertheless considerably influence the study of identity within the social identity tradition. Thus, in light of the rich output of the social identity approach, the chapter examines some of the limitations of that tradition and attempts to draw researchers’ attention to the theoretical and methods-based biases of which they may not be aware. In this way, the chapter is an attempt to explore how experimental methods and theory have interacted within the social identity tradition to both the benefit and detriment of our understanding of identity.

The concept of identity has long captured the interest of scholars, and its importance in both the social sciences and in society more broadly continues to rise. As the literature surrounding identity has expanded, increased attention has been given to experimental designs that measure the concept, consequences, and correlates of identity.This chapter focuses on racial and ethnic identity withinthe context of experimental methods from both an analytical and methodological perspective. First, the chapter provides an overview of scholarship on the study of identity, highlighting the importance of social identity theory as the starting point for a long trajectory of theoretical and empirical work. Next, design challenges and opportunities are addressed, with specific attention paid to the conceptual use of identity as a variable. The following section provides examples of experimental research on racial and ethnic identity, focusing on ingroup and outgroup studies, and studies that measure political outcomes related to race and ethnicity. One common shortcoming of identity research isthe tendency to use group membership as a proxy for group identity and group consciousness, or to use the terms interchangeably when they are in fact theoretically distinct concepts. I argue that experimental designs may demonstrate the need to disentangle group membership from group identity and group consciousness, and offer a strategy for adapting measurement tools to study identity. The chapter concludes by providing recommendations and identifying areas for future research to expand our understanding of racial and ethnic identity through the use of experiments.

Chapter 2 introduces Group Empathy Theory. We define empathy as the ability to take the perspective of others and experience their emotions, combined with the motivation to care about their welfare. Outgroup empathy arises when this combination of skill and motivation is directed toward social collectives with whom one has little in common. We expect intergroup empathy to differ from interpersonal empathy and to more powerfully explain political attitudes and behavior. The theory further predicts racial/ethnic differences in group empathy due to variations in socialization patterns and life experiences (such as discrimination). Chapter 2 also discusses how Group Empathy Theory challenges one of the key tenets of Social Identity Theory (SIT) concerning ingroup favoritism and outgroup discrimination. We argue that minorities who identify more strongly with their ingroup will display higher empathy for outgroups – a prediction counterintuitive to SIT. In short, Chapter 2 lays the groundwork for unique theoretical expectations we then test in the subsequent chapters.

The second chapter of this volume focusses on crowds, both conceptually and historically. The study of crowd influence has waxed and waned over the years and has seen a resurgence of interest in topics such as identity-based social movements, street action and social media. The chapter traces this line of inquiry to the mass psychology of LeBon and Tarde, who conceived of crowds as a powerful social force that compromises Rationality and Civilisation and leads to a 'mass society' dominated by charismatic leaders. Tarde’s laws of imitation extended this inquiry of physical crowds in public spaces to that of distributed public opinion of news readers with a shared focus of attention. These notions have corollaries with contemporary theories of agenda setting, collective attention cycles, crowd sourcing and intelligence, memes and viral beliefs, stock market bubbles and social media dynamics. Much of theory of crowds oscillates between positive and negative moral assessments. The chapter concludes by considering the role of social identification in the dynamics of crowds which distributes human cognition among individual actors and determines the relationship with the leader.

Lewin (1951) recognized that it “is usually easier to change individuals formed into a group than to change any one of them separately” (p. 228). More than sixty-five years later, social identity theory (SIT; Tajfel & Turner, 1979) and self‐categorization theory (SCT; Turner et al., 1987; collectively referred to as the social identity perspective/approach) offer many insights into why and how this is the case. At the heart of the social identity perspective is a comprehensive and systematic theory of the “group,” which generated a new view of the self-process where humans are both individuals and group members with both personal (“I”) and social (“we”) identities. Importantly, social and personal identities can change and, in turn, so too can behavior. An important part of the behavior change “puzzle”, often overlooked by researchers, policy makers, and practitioners, is that it is necessary to engage not only the “I” or “me” but also the “we.” This chapter outlines the potential of social identity processes, including in-group norms and social influence, in advancing understanding of behavior change. Taken together, research and practice applying the social identity approach to behavior change demonstrate considerable promise in promoting change in group contexts and for multiple behaviors in multiple domains such as work, education, and community settings.