Perhaps social identities satisfy a type of Goldilocks principle: They offer a basis to build coalitions large enough to prevail in political struggles but small enough to maximize the material payoffs for group members ( Bates 1974, Posner 2005). This persistence may be because smaller collectivities formed around common traits are simply better positioned to overcome the problem of opportunistic free-riding through the administration of selective material benefits ( Olson 1965). Laitin (1995), for example, explains the persistence of small minority groups, such as Romani in Spain or Jews in medieval Europe, in terms of a straightforward cost–benefit calculation undertaken by the group's members when considering whether to assimilate to the dominant cultural group.
Yet some instrumentalist accounts go further, elaborating how social identity is little more than a metaphoric fig leaf that masks efforts to further the material interests of the people who mobilize around them ( Chandra 2006, Rabushka & Shepsle 1972). The reduction of uncertainty can be intrinsically beneficial at the level of individual psychology, as uncertainty can lead to feelings of unease and fear ( Hogg & Mullin 1999).
Seen this way, social identity is a kind of social radar or simplifying mechanism to reduce uncertainty about the world ( Hale 2004). The argument of this scholarship is that the truth of social identities derives less from their substantive content and more from their relative usefulness. On the other end of the spectrum is more recent scholarship, which has favored instrumentalist accounts according to which social identities are epiphenomenal and adopted or invoked in the pursuit of material self-interest. Toward the hard end of the spectrum, there are those who hold that social identities derive their power from the emotional satisfaction they generate for their members by virtue of the bonds of belonging ( Connor 1993, Horowitz 1985, Shils 1957). Different perspectives on these questions can be arrayed along a continuum from hard to soft. Understanding the mechanisms through which social identities motivate behavior and understanding the relative durability of specific identities as such are two of the major goals driving scholarship, as well as the principal axes of divergence among contending schools of thought. We identify commonalities but also differences in the ways in which identities are analyzed across literatures that cover different domains. Although identity is often understood as referring to group membership based on ascriptive characteristics ( Chandra 2006), in this review, we take a broader view and consider how the process of identifying with any social group (class, party, gender, ethnicity, religion, etc.) could affect behavior. Social identities inform how networks arise between people who frequently choose to associate with others on account of such similarities while, conversely, often choosing to avoid interactions with those who are different from themselves.
More precisely, the idea that has fueled this research output is the social component of identity: the part of one's self-concept that is informed by one's membership in groups defined by some shared attribute, such as language, religion, or race. The concept of identity has offered something of an organizing principle to unify a vast amount of research in the social sciences that spans a range of political phenomena, from voting and economic redistribution to intolerance and intergroup violence. CONCEPTS AND FIRST PRINCIPLES Explaining Social Identity We clarify how social identities may affect individual behavior by means of tangible or material payoffs derived from instrumental considerations, just as these identities can motivate action by means of nonmaterial payoffs through psychic or expressive channels. In particular, we lay the groundwork to employ the concept of social identity, in various theoretical guises, as a foundation for incorporating the influence of group-based aspects of identity into models of individual behavior within a rational choice framework. This review explores how thinking about social identity has evolved in recent scholarship in political science.
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