Journal article
Exploring the pathways between transformative group experiences and identity fusion
- Abstract:
- A growing body of evidence suggests that two distinct forms of group alignment are possible: identification and fusion (the former asserts that group and personal identity are distinct, while the latter asserts group and personal identities are functionally equivalent and mutually reinforcing). Among highly fused individuals, group identity taps directly into personal agency and so any attack on the group is perceived as a personal attack and motivates a willingness to fight and possibly even die as a defensive response. As such, identity fusion is relevant in explaining violent extremism, including suicidal terrorist attacks. Identity fusion is theorized to arise as a result from experiences which are (1) perceived as shared and (2) transformative, however evidence for this relationship remains limited. Here, we present a pre-registered study in which we examine the role of transformativeness and perceived sharedness of group-defining events in generating identity fusion. We find that both of these factors are predictive of identity fusion but that the relationship with transformativeness was more consistent than perceived sharedness across analyses in a sample of Indonesian Muslims.
- Publication status:
- Published
- Peer review status:
- Peer reviewed
Actions
Access Document
- Files:
-
-
(Preview, Version of record, 1.8MB, Terms of use)
-
- Publisher copy:
- 10.3389/fpsyg.2020.01172
Authors
- Publisher:
- Frontiers Media
- Journal:
- Frontiers in Psychology More from this journal
- Volume:
- 11
- Article number:
- 1172
- Publication date:
- 2020-06-03
- Acceptance date:
- 2020-05-06
- DOI:
- EISSN:
-
1664-1078
- Language:
-
English
- Keywords:
- Pubs id:
-
1103970
- Local pid:
-
pubs:1103970
- Deposit date:
-
2020-05-11
Terms of use
- Copyright holder:
- Kavanagh, CM et al.
- Copyright date:
- 2020
- Rights statement:
- © 2020 Kavanagh, Kapitány, Putra and Whitehouse. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
- Licence:
- CC Attribution (CC BY)
If you are the owner of this record, you can report an update to it here: Report update to this record