Group Identity and Political Cohesion
LEONIE HUDDY
Abstract
This entry examines the conditions under which group identities become politicized,
the psychology underlying this process, and the consequences of political identities
for political cohesion and engagement. The political consequences of membership
in various demographic and religious groups played a central role in the earliest
voting studies and these ndings have been theoretically and empirically enriched
by an active research focus on social identities within social psychology. Founda-
tional research has identied the underpinnings of cohesive group political behavior
in the existence of chronic strong group identities, an established link between the
group and politics, and the emergence of group norms fostering a distinct politi-
cal outlook and political action. Recent research has focused on dynamic aspects of
group political cohesion, including threats to the group’s status, the convergence of
distinct identities, and factors that arouse strong emotions likely to foster collective
action. Numerous questions remain unanswered about the conditions under which
group political cohesion emerges. One set of questions concerns the origins of chron-
ically strong identities in personality factors such as agreeableness and extraversion.
Another set of questions touches on the origins of group identity in situational con-
texts that promote uncertainty. Finally, the degree to which group leaders can elicit
cohesion and conformity, and the situational elements that promote such inuence,
is a very promising avenue for future research.
INTRODUCTION: THE COLLECTIVE FOUNDATIONS
OF POLITICAL BEHAVIOR
Democratic politics is a group exercise, involving organized political parties,
interest groups, grassroots activists, and ethnic, racial, and religion-based
voting blocs. The political cohesion evinced by members of similar demo-
graphic and political groups is more than the combined beliefs and actions
of similar individuals; it involves collective factors such as conformity, group
defense, and shared norms. The existence of subjective group identity is cen-
tral to the development of political cohesion. Understanding the strength of
group identities, their stability, the conditions under which they change, and
the factors that heighten their salience can shed light on a range of politi-
cal behavior including the powerful emotions felt by strong Democrats and
Emerging Trends in the Social and Behavioral Sciences. Edited by Robert Scott and Kosslyn.
© 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. ISBN 978-1-118-90077-2.
1
Stephen
2EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES
Republicans, concerted political action by members of underrepresented eth-
nic groups, and the avid defense of a nation under external attack.
Past political behavior research has been dominated by a view of citizens as
atomized individuals with unique preferences, values, and interests (Huddy,
2013). From this perspective, grounded in economic rationality, citizens vote
for a candidate who protects their material economic interests or endorses
their cherished beliefs and values (Chong, 2013). In contrast, a group perspec-
tive on political behavior elevates collective factors such as the protection of
shared economic interests and the defense of group status as a basis for candi-
date support. Groups factors such as the defense of group status can unleash
forces of group loyalty, generate powerful emotions such as anger, and lead to
biased reasoning that do not t neatly within the economic rationality model,
even among politically knowledgeable group members.
The psychology of group identities is well understood thanks to a prolic
research agenda that has been pursued for decades under the auspices of
social identity theory (Tajfel, 1981; Turner, Hogg, Oakes, Reicher, & Wetherell,
1987). The application of this research grounded in social identity theory to
political behavior is a more recent and ongoing endeavor. The emergence of
collective action is especially dependent on the existence of strong identi-
ties among group members (Klandermans & van Stekelenburg, 2013). In the
extreme, a strong group identity is central to activist behavior.
However, the link between a group and politics is not automatic. The
Democratic and Republican parties are inherently political and partisan
identities obviously inuence political beliefs and action. Likewise, the
political cohesion of certain racial, ethnic, and religious groups within
specic polities such as African-Americans in the United States or religious
Jews in Israel is chronically salient. But most social groups do not cohere
politically, or do not do so to any great degree. The conditions under
which group identities become politicized, the psychology underlying this
process, and the consequences of political identities for political cohesion
and engagement are the subject of this entry.
FOUNDATIONAL RESEARCH: SOCIAL AND POLITICAL IDENTITIES
In the earliest American voting studies, an internalized sense of group mem-
bership was far more central than objective membership to the emergence of
political group cohesion. Even weak subjective group identities had a more
powerful inuence on political behavior than objective group membership
such as being black, female, or Catholic. Within contemporary American
politics, African-Americans are politically cohesive, in part, because black
Americans have especially strong subjective racial identities. Blacks who
identify strongly with their race are more likely than other blacks to support
Group Identity and Political Cohesion 3
the Democratic Party, and adopt a pro-group, liberal position on a variety
of racial and social welfare issues. The greater political power of subjective
identity than objective membership extends to other groups as well.
S
OCIAL IDENTITY THEORY AND THE MINIMAL INTERGROUP SITUATION
The political consequences of group membership played a central role in the
earliest academic political surveys (Campbell, Converse, Miller, & Stokes,
1960). But interest in the group-based origins of political behavior has waxed
and waned in the intervening decades. As political behavior research drifted
toward a focus on individual preferences and interests, social psychologists
in Europe and more recently the United States developed a rich set of ndings
and evidence on social identities that held immediate implications for polit-
ical behavior. Social psychologist Henri Tajfel developed what he viewed
as a uniquely European and collective approach to social behavior. Tajfel
combined his early research on cognitive categories with research on moti-
vational factors such as the protection of group status to craft social identity
theory. The earliest versions of the theory placed key emphasis on the need
among group members to positively differentiate their own groups from oth-
ers (Turner et al., 1987, p. 42).
Tajfel documented the astonishing effects of simple social categorization,
which are quite well known by now. Blue eyes, a preference for the painter
Kadinsky over Klee, calling some people dot over estimators and others
underestimators, were sufcient to produce a preference for fellow group
members and elicit discrimination against outsiders (for a summary, see
Brewer, 1979). The experimental situation popularized by Tajfel and his
followers in which groups were designated by nothing other than a common
label became known as the minimal intergroup situation. In these studies,
subjects allocated rewards to group members by choosing how much to
give ingroup and outgroup members from a prearranged matrix with
options that varied the degree to which the ingroup was rewarded over the
outgroup, and the outgroup was punished at the ingroup’s expense. In this
setting, group members typically allocated somewhat more to ingroup than
outgroup members.
Tajfel’s insight that group members are driven to positively distinguish
their group from others holds important political consequences. It means,
for instance, that group identity and ingroup bias emerge readily among
members of high-status groups such as the middle class, white males, and
those descended from European stock because membership confers posi-
tive distinctiveness on a group’s members (Bettencourt, Dorr, Charlton, &
Hume, 2001). In contrast, the development of group identity is less certain
among members of low-status groups, such as racial and ethnic minorities,
4EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES
who need to additionally develop an identity around alternative, positively
valued group attributes (social creativity) or ght to change the group’s nega-
tive image (social change) before membership can enhance their status (Tajfel
& Turner, 1979).
C
HRONIC GRADATIONS IN IDENTITY STRENGTH
Social identity was not enough, however, to reveal the full political power
of groups. In the minimal intergroup situation, group membership is effec-
tively treated as an objective assignment rather than a subjective identica-
tion (Huddy, 2001). But feeling subjectively attached to a group is critical to
the development of group-based political behavior and this sense of identity
varies dramatically in strength among members of the same group, some-
thing that went unmeasured in the minimal intergroup situation. Additional
research has demonstrated the greater political power of strong than weak
group identities in diverse groups including the nation, political parties, and
ethnicities (Huddy, 2013).
Research on American partisanship (Democratic or Republican) and ide-
ological (liberal or conservative) proclivities provides especially good evi-
dence of the political power of strong identities. In survey data, strong parti-
sans are more likely than weak partisans to exhibit bias in their evaluations of
a president and current economic and social conditions (Bartels, 2002). When
leaders of the major political parties differ in their support of a specic policy,
strong well-informed partisans are the most likely to be exposed to these dis-
agreements and fall in step with party leaders (Green, Palmquist, & Schickler,
2002). These ndings of political bias and conformity are most pronounced
among those with the strongest group identities.
Political action is also more common among strong than weak group
identiers. Strong partisans are more likely than weak partisans to have
given money or volunteered their time to work for a political candidate or
political party, voted, or engaged in other political activities (Fowler & Kam,
2008; Huddy, Mason, & Aaroe, 2015). Strong identities also fuel collective
action and related forms of group-based political activity (Klandermans &
van Stekelenburg, 2013; van Zomeren, Postmes, & Spears, 2008). In general,
the link between identity strength and political action is larger for explicitly
political identities such as feminist, conservative, and pro-environment than
for nonpolitical identities.
L
EADERSHIP AND GROUP NORMS
In general, group leaders play a powerful role in forging political cohesion.
When George W. Bush identied Osama bin laden and al Qaeda as the
Group Identity and Political Cohesion 5
enemy after 9/11, he went out of his way to make clear that Muslims and
Muslim Americans were not the target of US military action. His position
was generally adopted by Americans and serves as a marked contrast to the
vilication and internment of Japanese Americans after the attack on Pearl
Harbor (Schildkraut, 2002). Leaders can also directly mobilize members
by manufacturing and shaping group grievances (Klandermans & van
Stekelenburg, 2013).
CUTTING-EDGE RESEARCH: POLITICAL IDENTITIES IN ACTION
Foundational research on political identities among ethnic, racial, and parti-
san groups has emphasized the origins of political cohesion in stable factors
such as chronically strong group identities and the stable link between
the group and politics. But these are relatively static factors that help to
explain the stability of American politics but do less to account for political
change. Social identity theorists have always taken a dynamic approach to
group behavior and nd that identities fuel cohesion when they are salient,
something that varies dramatically across social contexts. It has taken time,
however, for political research to more fully investigate a dynamic view
of political behavior. Recent research has begun to rectify this imbalance
by examining factors such as an external threat, especially threats to status
which increase political cohesion, and emotions which provide the substrate
for cohesive action among group members.
S
TATUS THREAT
Threats to group status can be challenging at a very basic level. In an innova-
tive study, Scheepers and Ellemers (2005) measured blood pressure among
participants assigned to a group with low or high status who were then told
that their status could change in a second round of the study. As expected,
those assigned to a low-status group experienced an increase in blood pres-
sure, indicative of increased stress, after learning of their low status, whereas
blood pressure declined among those in the high-status group. When sub-
jects were told that their group status could change, blood pressure increased
among the high-status group and declined among the low. A possible decline
in high status was just as stressful in this study as being assigned a low
status. Strong group identiers react even more powerfully than those with
weaker identities to status threat (Voci, 2006; Tausch, Hewstone, Kenworthy,
Cirns, & Christ, 2007). Moreover, such reactions may be benecial. Haslam
and Reicher (2006) nd suggestive evidence that a strong group identity
reduces stress as measured by cortisol levels in response to a threat to group
status.
6EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES
EMOTION AND COLLECTIVE ACTION
Emotions play an important role in conveying and amplifying the political
effects of strong group identities. Positive emotions linked to group success
increase group commitment, whereas negative emotions associated with
group threat have divergent effects: Anger motivates an active response
to group threat, whereas anxiety leads to the avoidance of action and may
dampen group commitment. Intergroup emotions theory (IET; Mackie,
Devos, & Smith, 2000) lends insight into the conditions most likely to
generate anger and anxiety. From an IET perspective, threat is most likely
to produce anger among strongly identied group members who view their
group as likely to prevail over a threatening outgroup. In contrast, members
of a weaker group feel anxiety in response to a threat from a stronger
outgroup.
There is growing support for the predictions of IET. Strongly identied
group members react more angrily to group threat (Rydell et al., 2008).
Research ndings support a second prediction from IET—that anger will
be more pronounced among members of a group seen as strong in the face
of threat. Mackie et al. (2000) sorted subjects into those for and against gay
rights and then manipulated the group position by exposing members to a
mix of news headlines that largely supported (strong) or opposed (weak)
the group position. In the “strong” group condition, group members felt
angrier at outgroup members than those in the “weak” condition and were
more action-oriented, wanting to engage in an argument with an outgroup
member.
There is also considerable support for IET’s prediction that group-based
anger increases a commitment to action, whereas anxiety decreases it.
Consider reactions to terrorism. Americans who felt angry toward Saddam
Hussein and anti-American terrorists were more supportive of war in
Iraq before the war’s onset and less inclined to see it as risky. In contrast,
terrorism-related anxiety led Americans to view war in Afghanistan and
Iraq as risky and decreased war support overall (Huddy, Feldman, &
Cassese, 2007). Self-reported fear and anxiety after the 2004 Madrid terrorist
bombings increased avoidant behaviors such as staying at home, avoiding
air travel, and avoiding contact with Muslims among Spanish respondents
(Conejero & Etxebarria, 2007). Similar ndings have been observed in
research that experimentally arouses anger or anxiety (Lambert et al., 2010;
Lerner, Gonzalez, Small, & Fischhoff, 2003).
C
ONVERGENT IDENTITIES
Political cohesion may be especially likely when multiple identities, one
of which contains strong political content, converge. Roccas and Brewer
Group Identity and Political Cohesion 7
(2002) develop the concept of identity overlap, measuring it as the degree to
which groups share similar members or attributes, and expect it to generate
stronger and less complex identities. Partisan and ideological identities
have converged in this way in American politics in recent years, producing
stronger partisan identities. Mason (2015) has examined this process and
nds that convergent partisan and ideological identities lead to greater
political activism and more cohesive political attitudes. Moreover, threat can
enhance identity convergence. For example, threat reduced social identity
complexity in Northern Ireland, leading to increased overlap between an
identity as Catholic and Irish, and Protestant and British (Schmid, Tausch,
Hewstone, Hughes, & Cairns, 2008).
KEY ISSUES FOR FUTURE RESEARCH: PERSONALITY, CONTEXT,
AND THE LIMITS TO ELITE INFLUENCE
One intriguing set of questions yet to be addressed sufciently within polit-
ical behavior research concerns an ongoing interest in the origins of strong
group identities. A second important line of research inquiry is needed on
the conditions under which group members follow or ignore the inuence of
group leaders.
T
HE ORIGINS OF STRONG GROUP IDENTITIES
One of the crucial ingredients in the development of political cohesion is
the existence of a strong, internalized subjective group identity which raises
an important but as yet unanswered question: What drives an individual’s
decision to chronically identify as a group member? Possible candidates
from social psychological research include high group status, the inability
to leave a group with impermeable boundaries, and smaller group size
(Huddy, 2013). But there are still many remaining questions about the
situational and dispositional characteristics that incline some but not others
to join groups and identify strongly as a group member.
Personality and Stable Individual Differences. Are there certain kinds of people
who develop a sense of group identication more readily and hang on to
this identity more rmly than others, and to what extent do genetic and bio-
logical factors underlie this process? There is nascent evidence from political
behavior research that partisan identity strength is a stable individual differ-
ence grounded in genetic differences and personality traits (Dawes & Fowler,
2009; Gerber, Huber, Doherty, & Dowling, 2012). But search research is in its
infancy and there is ample room for further investigation.
8EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES
There is also growing evidence that stable personality traits such as
extraversion and agreeableness may strengthen group identication. Gerber
et al. (2012) analyze data from the 2007–2008 Cooperative Campaign Analysis
Project which included measures of the ve personality factors (neuroticism,
extraversion, openness to experience, agreeableness, and conscientiousness)
in the Big Five Factor Model. They examine the origins of partisan identity
strength and nd that highly agreeable individuals exhibit the strongest
partisan identities, attesting to its social and emotional motivational basis.
They also nd stronger partisanship among extraverts. Gerber et al. (2012)
also report higher levels of partisanship among individuals low in openness
to experience, suggesting that strong partisanship may provide greater
cognitive certainty and coherence.
These studies raise important questions about the existence of a general
tendency for individuals to afliate strongly with groups. To date, there is
little research examining identity strength across multiple groups but it may
be a promising avenue for future survey research. Of course, belonging to a
group is not just an individual choice but depends on context and opportu-
nity. To conduct this kind of research, it may be necessary to place a person
in context before asking about specic groups and identities. For example,
different individuals will have an opportunity to identify with a work organi-
zation, religious group, race, ethnicity, fraternal organization, or sports team.
A survey that included measures of personality traits, the strength of several
relevant nonpolitical, and one or two political identities, such as ideology and
partisanship, would go a long way to assessing the existence of a chronic
group afliation tendency. Experimental research would complement such
efforts by providing an opportunity to individuals with different personality
traits to identify with a novel political group. In such laboratory studies, the
nature of political groups could be systematically varied to assess the degree
to which social interaction, group member similarity, and internal discord
appeal or repel individuals with differing personality traits such as extraver-
sion and agreeableness.
S
ITUATIONAL FACTORS
In social psychological research, the situational factors that inuence identity
strength have received greater attention than personality traits, especially
situational factors that increase identity salience. According to Oakes (in
Turner et al., 1987) salience is heightened by any factor that increases the
“separateness” and “clarity” of a category, and one of the factors most likely
to increase a category’s clarity is minority status, when a group’s members
are outnumbered by members of an outgroup. Abrams (1994) found, for
example, that support for a minority political party in the United Kingdom
Group Identity and Political Cohesion 9
(e.g., the Liberals or Greens) is more central to young people’s identity than
support for one of the two major parties (Labor or Tory). This is in line with
expectations that minor parties are more salient and provide their supporters
with a more distinctive social identity than do large political parties.
But not all salient identities, such as ethnic minority status, necessarily lead
to a chronically strong identity. Hogg argues that group members’ “need
to feel certain that their perceptions, attitudes, and behaviors are correct”
pushes them to identify with a group and levels of uncertainty can vary
across situations (Grieve & Hogg, 1999, p. 927; see also Hogg, 2007). In a
politically relevant example, Hohman, Hogg, and Bligh (2010) manipulate
certain or uncertain feelings by assigning research participants to read and
mark sections in a speech on the environment by President George W. Bush.
Some participants were randomly assigned to mark passages that made them
feel certain about their place in the world and others were assigned to mark
sections that made them feel uncertain. Both Democrats and Republicans
reported stronger partisanship in the uncertain than in the certain condition.
Far more could be done, however, to understand the role played by dif-
ferent situational factors in shaping identity strength. External threat from a
known outgroup may be an important factor in this process because it typi-
cally enhances ingroup solidarity and tightens ingroup boundaries in direct
proportion to the degree of threat. The rise in American patriotism after the
9/11 terror attacks provides a compelling example of this process at work.
Existential threats to the self can also intensify group attachment and iden-
tity (Pyszczynski, Solomon, & Greenberg, 2003). For example, Greenberg et al.
(1990) found that Christians who were asked to form an impression of a Jew-
ish and Christian individual evaluated the Christian more positively and the
Jew more negatively when their mortality had been made salient. In other
studies, mortality salience heightens ingroup identication (Castano, Yzer-
byt, Bourguignon, & Seron, 2002).
L
EADER INFLUENCE
Another promising area for future research concerns the role of political lead-
ers in forging a collective viewpoint and fostering political cohesion among
group members. There is ample evidence that political leaders shape and
inuence public opinion (Zaller, 1992). By doing so, they bring about group
political cohesion within the nation or their specic political party. Such con-
formity around prototypical group members is well established in social psy-
chology (Hogg & Reid, 2006). But there is also growing evidence that group
leaders do not always succeed in shaping opinion or bringing about confor-
mity among their followers (Bullock, 2011; Chong & Druckman, 2007).This
research raises a number of pressing questions: When are citizens able to
10 EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES
scrutinize messages emanating from their leaders and see through what may
be a naked attempt at inuence? Under what conditions is information more
powerful than political party (or group cues)? When will group members
simply ignore the entreatments of their leaders and adopt viewpoints and
positions that potentially undermine group cohesion?
Some answers have emerged from recent research. One key inuence on
partisan cue-taking in research by Bolsen, Druckman, and Cook (2014) is
the existence of internal party discord. In their experiment conducted with
roughly 1600 online respondents, they varied partisan support for provi-
sions of the 2007 Energy Independence and Security Act. They nd lowered
support for the Act when party support is not unanimous. The existence of
internal party discord appears to drastically reduce partisan defensiveness
and leads to a more accurate evaluation of the Act’s provisions. The impli-
cations for group life are clear. Murky, unclear, or divided signals from a
group’s leaders weaken their political inuence. This may seem trite at one
level, but it points clearly to the negative effects of internal group divisions
on leader inuence and group cohesion.
The experimental designs employed by Bullock and Bolsen et al.areideal
settings in which to vary factors likely to enhance or mitigate leader inuence
and such designs can be readily executed within internet surveys. In a basic
experiment, respondents are given a group cue in support of a specic policy
or not, and provided with weak or strong arguments in favor of the policy.
Additional factors can then be added to the design to test the limits of leader
inuence. These might include a high or low stakes setting, the presence or
absence of a task that inhibits careful processing of information, the existence
or absence of group threat, policy support from a typical or atypical group
leader, and the existence of internal conict among group leaders. Studies
along these lines should ideally be conducted in tandem with research on
real-world groups, especially those engaged in collective action, to deter-
mine the degree to which similar factors predict group cohesion outside the
laboratory.
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LEONIE HUDDY SHORT BIOGRAPHY
Leonie Huddy is a Professor of Political Science and Director of the Center
for Survey Research at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. Her
general eld of interest is the psychological origins and dynamics of public
opinion and intergroup relations. She is the coeditor (with David O. Sears and
Jack Levy) of the 2nd edition of the Oxford Handbook of Political Psychology,
served as coeditor of the journal Political Psychology from 2005 till 2010, and
is past-president of the International Society of Political Psychology (ISPP).
Huddy has written extensively on social and political identities, reactions to
terrorism, gender and politics, and race relations.
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