Attitudes in social context: A social identity perspective

Abstract

Research on attitudes and attitude phenomena occupies a central place in social psychology, but tends to focus mainly on cognitive, intra-individual, and interpersonal dimensions. The normative, group membership, and identity dimensions of attitudes tend to attract less attention. This article approaches attitudes from the perspective of research on group processes, intergroup relations, and social identity, and conceptualises attitudes and attitude phenomena in terms of their group normative properties and dynamics. Our perspective is explicitly framed and focused by contemporary social identity theory—a theory that has a great deal to contribute to attitude research, but often does not talk directly about attitudes. We discuss attitudinal influence and change, how people perceive normative attitudes, and how attitudes relate to action.

Acknowledgments

We would like to acknowledge the valuable empirical and conceptual contributions made over the years by our colleagues and collaborators in the Centre for Research on Group Processes at the University of Queensland to the development of some of the ideas presented in this article. Their work is liberally cited in the article.