The Union of Personal and Social Selves
SANAZ TALAIFAR AND WILLIAM B. SWANN, JR.
Imagine that you were introduced to a group of ten transgender individuals, that is, people who want to be identified with the cross-gender group. Imagine further that you were asked to predict which members of the group would undergo gender-reassignment surgery within the next two years. On what basis would you make this prediction? The age at which the individual first reported his or her gender dysphoria? Socioeconomic variables such as income or education? In our research, we have found that neither of these variables is very predictive. Instead, we discovered that a feeling of “oneness” or “identity fusion” with the cross-gender group was critical.
To put this finding in context, let us tell you a little bit about the construct of “identity fusion” that inspired it (Swann et al. 2012). Identity fusion rests on a distinction that has a long history in the behavioral sciences, the distinction between personal and social identities (for a philosophical exploration of individuation versus plurality see Lawrence Blum’s essay in this volume). Personal identities refer to the traits and characteristics that make people distinct from others. In contrast, social identities are those aspects of ourselves that link people to others, especially groups. Identity fusion involves the union of personal and social identity. In the transsexual study, we were interested in the extent to which people’s personal identities were fused with their cross-gender identity (male for natal females and female for natal males).
The transsexual study took place in Barcelona, Spain (Swann et al. 2015). A member of our research team who was a psychiatrist at a gender identity clinic collected the data. At the beginning of the study, she asked some of her transsexual patients to complete a measure of identity fusion with the cross-gender. Whereas nonfused patients indicated little overlap between their personal selves and their cross-gender identities, strongly fused people indicated that their personal identities were completely overlapping with their cross-gender identities. After patients completed the measure, they indicated what sacrifices they would be willing to make to attain their cross-gender sex. We then followed them for two years to determine whether they had gender-reassignment surgery. We discovered that those who were strongly fused with the cross-gender group at the beginning of the study were especially likely to indicate that they would sacrifice their close relationships to change their sex. More strikingly, strongly fused participants were particularly likely to have had a sex-reassignment surgery two years later, even when controlling for various socioeconomic and clinical variables.
The study of transsexuals is part of a larger program of research on identity fusion that we will be describing in this chapter. To understand how this work builds upon earlier research, we begin by placing it in historical perspective.
Historical Overview of Personal and Social Identity
The distinction between personal and social identities goes back to William James (1890), who fathered modern psychology. He devoted an entire section of his book to the self. Not long after James’s initial foray into the psychology of the self, the subarea was vanquished from the field by mainstream American psychology’s obsession with overt behavior (for example, Watson 1913). As the Second World War drew to a close, however, behaviorism lost steam and the self reemerged as a viable area of study. When it did, however, the personal self emerged alone (likely due to emphasis on individualism in America at the time). Constructs such as self-esteem, self-efficacy, and self-awareness commanded considerable attention while the social self was largely neglected.
It was not until the late 1970s that the social self regained a foothold in the psychological mainstream with the publication of social identity theory (Tajfel and Turner 1979). The primary architect of the theory, Henri Tajfel, based the theory at least partially on his experiences during the Second World War. A Polish Jew, he was fortunate to be studying in France at the beginning of the war, as it allowed him to pass as a French Jew (Polish Jews were routinely murdered). When he was captured by the Nazis in 1940, he was struck by the fact that his captors reduced him to nothing more than a member of a social category (that is, the French Jew whom they mistakenly believed he was). Tajfel noted that aspects of his personal self (related to his idiosyncratic qualities) were of no interest to his captors; his category membership was all that mattered (Turner 1996). These experiences inspired his appreciation for the power of social categories.
Tajfel’s interest in the influence of social categories motivated his classic experiments on the minimal group effect (Tajfel 1970). In these studies, he and his colleagues showed that mere group membership biased people toward members of their in-group: even though they understood that group membership was completely arbitrary and random (hence the term minimal group), they discriminated against “outgroup members.” The minimal group paradigm is a simple but powerful manipulation: even when group assignments are made on the basis of shirt color or some other arbitrary basis, people consistently display a preference for their own group. These findings and Tajfel’s wartime experiences shaped the development of social identity theory, which proposed that identity was mentally represented on a continuum that ranged from personal to social identity. The theory assumed that the two types of mental representations were mutually exclusive, so that attending to one diminished attention to the other. Social identity theory was enormously important, as it made a strong case for recognizing social identity as an important and legitimate area of scientific study.
In their zeal to highlight the unique qualities of social identities, Tajfel and Turner (1979) emphasized the ways in which social identities competed with personal identities. We suggest that it is also possible to conceive of the two forms of identity as complementary aspects of self-knowledge. This is one of several ideas that inspired the development of identity fusion theory. “Identity fusion” occurs when someone’s personal identity unites with a social identity. When such a union occurs, the personal identity remains salient despite being thoroughly integrated with the social identity. In contrast to the scenarios highlighted by social identity theory, here there is no subjugation of the personal self by the social self, as may occur in the case of people who are brainwashed by cults. Rather, in identity fusion, the personal self remains a potent force that combines synergistically with the social self to motivate behavior.
One of the defining features of identity fusion is a visceral sense of union, or oneness, with a group. These feelings of oneness are marked by a perception that the self and group members are kindred spirits who share deep essential qualities and strengthen one another. The perception of shared essence motivates strongly fused persons to make extreme sacrifices for the in-group “family.”
Recent research has established that people who are strongly fused with their country are more likely to endorse extreme pronational behaviors (for example, fighting and dying for the country) in more than ten countries across six continents (Swann et al. 2014a). Moreover, strongly fused persons do not merely say that they will engage in extreme behavior; they actually enact these extreme behaviors in the real world. In a study of 179 Libyan revolutionaries working to oust the Gaddafi regime during the revolution in 2011, we found extremely high levels of fusion with the battalion among members actively engaged in the conflict (Whitehouse et al. 2014). In fact, some of the front-line fighters were more strongly fused to their battalion than to their own families. By contrast, a comparison group of revolutionaries who volunteered to provide logistical support (a less dangerous role than fighter) was more strongly fused with their natural families than to their battalion.
In light of this evidence that identity fusion motivates extreme actions, it is imperative to understand some of the mechanisms that underlie it. In what follows, we examine the emotional and cognitive processes that give rise to extreme behavior. Specifically, we will discuss how the moral reasoning of strongly fused individuals may differ from that of other individuals and how such reasoning influences behavior.
Fusion and Moral Decision-Making
How do fused individuals make moral decisions? Many past analyses of group processes have emphasized the role of cognitive processing and cost-benefit, utilitarian principles in morality-related decision-making (for example, Kohlberg 1969). Recently, however, some have challenged the emphasis on cognitive, utilitarian reasoning in moral decision-making, arguing instead for the importance of intuitive, emotional processes (Graham et al. 2013, Haidt and Kesebir 2010, Iyer, Jetten, and Haslam 2012). In this same vein, others have argued that consequential moral decisions are based on other “intuitive” mental structures such as “sacred values” (Sheikh, Ginges, and Atran 2013) or “moral mandates” (Skitka 2010).
We acknowledge the existence of both “deliberative” and “intuitive” pathways to moral behavior, but suggest that strongly fused persons are particularly inclined to follow the path of intuitive, deontological reasoning in their moral decision-making (see also Greene et al. 2001, Greene et al. 2004). Consider analyses of retrospective reports of extreme behaviors ranging from the efforts of combat troops to save their compatriots (Cashman 2014, Junger 2010, State of Israel 2010) to the self-sacrificial behaviors of Carnegie hero medal recipients (Rand and Epstein 2014). Note that all of these individuals are likely to be strongly fused to their group. Their commentaries regarding their actions reveal that systematic assessment of the costs and benefits of their actions played little role in motivating their actions. Instead, such individuals report that in the moments leading up to their heroic acts, they knew intuitively what to do and acted spontaneously. When reflection did occur, it occurred when they attempted to analyze their behavior later on rather than before the action.
Our research on intragroup versions of the trolley dilemma (Swann et al. 2014b) likewise casts doubt on the primacy of conscious reasoning as the exclusive cause of endorsement of self-sacrifice. In one study, participants responded to a dilemma in which five in-group members would die unless they sacrificed themselves (a train was approaching five Spanish workers and would kill them unless the participant self-sacrificed by summoning the “death” train to his or her own track). While most people acknowledged that the “correct” or “moral” course of action was to sacrifice him- or herself, only strongly fused persons reported that they would sacrifice themselves. Therefore, almost all of our participants appeared to know what was the “right” or moral thing to do, but it was only the strongly fused participants who actually endorsed doing it. This finding is consistent with research showing that empathic concern increases altruistic helping only through empathy’s relation to perceived oneness (Cialdini et al. 1997). Moreover, it was not that strongly fused people lacked regard for their own lives. To the contrary, a follow-up study demonstrated that the presence of a concern with saving group members, rather than the absence of a concern with self-preservation, motivated strongly fused participants to endorse sacrificing themselves for the group.
Another follow-up experiment examined the thoughts and feelings of people while they were in the process of making moral decisions. To this end, we had people think aloud as they responded to a moral dilemma involving their in-group (the “summoning the death train” scenario described earlier). Analyses of audio recordings of their verbalizations suggested that for strongly fused participants, the thought of their compatriots being endangered triggered strong distress reactions. Specifically, as strongly fused participants navigated the psychological path leading to possible endorsement of self-sacrifice, they displayed signs of tension, distress, and anxiety. In contrast, weakly fused persons appeared to be relatively unemotional and were instead compelled by utilitarian considerations (“better that I should die rather than five others”) in the (relatively rare) instances in which they endorsed self-sacrifice.
The results of yet another experiment tested our assumption that the immediate, emotional responses of strongly fused persons shape their responses to the dilemma (see also Suter and Hertwig 2011). We reasoned that if the immediate reactions of strongly fused persons are critical, hurrying the responses of strongly fused persons should increase self-sacrifice. In contrast, among weakly fused persons, self-sacrifice presumably grew out of conscious reflection. As a result, hurrying the responses of weakly fused persons decreased self-sacrifice (Swann et al. 2014b). When under time pressure, 100 percent of participants were willing to self-sacrifice, up from 67.9 percent in the control condition. By contrast, only 6.7 percent of weakly fused participants were willing to self-sacrifice under time pressure, down from 48.5 percent in the control condition.
A final set of studies indicated that identity fusion influenced the degree to which participants were sensitive to identity-based versus utilitarian manipulations. We discovered that the moral decisions of strongly fused persons were acutely sensitive to activating their personal identity (by having them write down what they were personally like) but immune to a utilitarian manipulation (whether self-sacrifice would save five as compared to one in-group member). That is, activating the personal identities of strongly fused persons by asking them to think about their personal selves increased their endorsement of self-sacrifice, but the utilitarian manipulation had no impact. In contrast, among weakly fused persons, activating their personal identities had little impact on their endorsement of self-sacrifice but telling them that self-sacrifice would save five as compared to one person increased their endorsement rates. This supports the notion that in their moral decision-making, weakly fused individuals rely on utilitarian thinking while strongly fused individuals rely on intuitive, identity-driven reasoning in the group-related moral decision-making paradigms we have investigated.
What processes give rise to the reflexive reactions that motivate strongly fused persons to endorse self-sacrifice? As noted earlier, one key factor appears to be the tendency for strongly fused individuals to think of the group as family. There is a widely shared consensus in many if not most societies that family ties transcend all other human connections. For example, the US legal system accords privileged status to family loyalty by stipulating that spouses cannot be compelled to testify against each other in court. As such, when a moral dilemma involves the in-group “family,” fused persons become highly emotional—much as if their own personal fate were on the line. These emotional reactions motivate them to display unquestioned allegiance to those considered family (that is, “family comes first,” “family is special”). The allegiance of strongly fused persons to in-group members makes perfect sense when the group includes genetically related kin. After all, evolutionary theory states that people should sacrifice themselves for genetic relatives—those for whom they develop familial ties (Hamilton 1964). Less obvious is why strongly fused individuals in large groups would make the ultimate sacrifice for group members with whom they have little or no contact. How can such “extended fusion” exert powerful effects in the absence of relational ties?
We proposed that individuals who are strongly fused project the relational ties they feel toward group members they do know onto those with whom they are unacquainted, thereby transforming members of large groups into fictive kin (Vázquez et al. In press). To test this reasoning, we conducted a series of studies. In the initial investigation, we asked participants if they would be willing to die to save members of their family versus members of relatively large groups (for example, nation or religious group). Regardless of the country they came from, family was the group for which most people endorsed dying (Swann et al. 2014a).
Even so, additional studies demonstrated that people project familial ties onto large, heterogeneous groups insofar as they believe that group members share core characteristics. That is, encouraging strongly fused persons to focus on shared core characteristics of the people from their country increased their endorsement of extreme sacrifices for their country (Swann et al. 2014a). Respondents from China, India, the United States, and Spain displayed this effect whether the core characteristics were biological (genes) or psychological (core values). We also discovered that priming shared core values increased the feeling of oneness among strongly fused group members and these feelings, in turn, mediated the influence of fusion on endorsement of extreme sacrifices for the country. Apparently, for strongly fused persons, recognizing that other group members share core characteristics makes larger extended groups seem “family-like” and worth dying for.
Clearly, researchers are just beginning to understand the relationship of identity fusion to moral behavior. One of the most important remaining issues is how strongly fused persons walk the line between loyalty to the group as a whole versus to the individual members of the group. For example, analyses have attributed the Enron debacle to the enormous pressure that management placed on employees to conform to group norms of turning a blind eye to malpractice and irregularities (for example, Sherman 2002, Tourish and Vatcha 2005). Conceivably, fused individuals may resist such pressure from individual group members and blow the whistle in an effort to do what they believe is in the best interest for the group as a whole. For example, in one study university undergraduates witnessed a fellow student engage in unethical conduct that was personally beneficial to the student but might damage the university (Buhrmester 2013). Those who were strongly fused to the group reported the unethical conduct to university officials. Nevertheless, at other times strongly fused persons may engage in morally dubious progroup action such as covering up evidence of wrongdoing (Besta, Gómez, and Vázquez 2014). One key moderator may be whether the moral action (reporting wrongdoing) risks destroying the “family” that strongly fused persons are striving to protect. If so, this phenomenon may offer an important example of the ways in which contextual factors (that is, the anticipated consequences of various actions for the fate of the in-group) interact with characteristics of identity (for example, strength of fusion) to shape moral action.
Concluding Thoughts: Transcending Tribalism
The case studies of transsexuals with which we opened this chapter offered compelling testimony to the sacrifices people make in the service of their identities. It also provides an example as to how fusion may thus satisfy several crucial needs at once, including personal agency (Ryan and Deci 2000), affiliation and belongingness (Baumeister and Leary 1995, Williams 2007), and meaningfulness and epistemic certainty (Kruglanski et al. 2002). Fusion may help individuals pursue a meaningful existence and a high quality of life (Jetten, Haslam, and Haslam 2011, Jones and Jetten 2011). In these ways and related ones, fusion may represent an asset to individuals as well as the group. Nevertheless, the powerful connections people form to social groups can be costly. Witness, for example, the carnage wrought by terrorists and modern warfare.
While it is overly simplistic to argue that fusion is either good or bad (see also Putnam 2000), we believe that social connections become costly primarily when the quest for feelings of oneness fosters exclusiveness rather than inclusiveness. While exclusivity may seem to some to be inevitable, other researchers have argued that humans actually have an intrinsic motivation to expand the self to include others (Aron and Aron 2001). In addition, advocates of social categorization theory (Turner et al. 1987) extended social identity theory by adding the superordinate category of the self as a human being (Hornsey 2008) to personal identity and social identity (cf. Gaertner and Dovidio 2000). We would add that it is not only membership in the human category that is important but also the idea that the personal self remains a potent force even as it becomes one with the superordinate human group.
Fusion may take two forms: local and extended. Local fusion refers to oneness with small groups comprising members we know well, while extended fusion refers to oneness with much larger groups of people, the vast majority of whom we can never meet. While local fusion and extended fusion are certainly not mutually exclusive (and may in fact be mutually reinforcing), fusion with humanity is the ultimate form of extended fusion. An unexplored but intriguing possibility is that the desire for oneness becomes more and more expansive, with fusion with humanity being the logical extreme. As the group becomes more expansive and divisions less salient, individuals may find that they have fewer reasons to fight with one another and more reason to work together toward mutually beneficial goals. In fact, this was partly the logic behind the creation of supranational entities like the United Nations and the European Union. While such institutions are far from perfect and the notion of oneness based on our shared humanity may seem idealistic, striving for fusion with humanity seems a more likely pathway to peace than fueling the flames of tribalism. This makes it a worthy, if lofty, goal.
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