Understanding Cultural Identification

The intersubjective approach was developed to gain a better understanding of the influence of culture on individuals (Chiu, Gelfand, Yamagishi, Shteynberg, & Wan, 2010). A main premise of the approach is that perceived intersubjective realities are important in predicting psychological outcomes. The approach also highlights that intersubjective cultural representations are created and maintained through dynamic interactions among individuals. Extending this to understanding cultural identification, it is assumed that collective cultural representations are meaning systems that exist in the collective mind, influencing and affecting individuals’ knowledge to construct their cultural selves.

However, what remains underspecified in the intersubjective approach is how these intersubjective cultural representations are formed, and how and when they shape personal values and behaviors. In particular, the intersubjective approach is relatively silent on the group-level processes that determine the likelihood that individuals will reproduce these intersubjective representations and adopt them, and why or when individuals participate actively in the creation and reproduction of such representations. We argue that the social identity approach (Tajfel, 1978; Tajfel & Turner, 1979; Turner, Oakes, Haslam, & McGarty, 1994), with its focus on the interaction between individual and collective levels of influence (e.g., social influence processes), offers scope to develop a better understanding of the way intersubjective representations have the power to influence individuals. Specifically, we draw on social identity theorizing that has developed frameworks on how individuals’ behavior is shaped by group processes and group norms (i.e., intersubjective realities), as well as how groups are shaped by individuals (see Postmes, Haslam, & Swaab, 2005).

The social identity approach (comprised of social identity theory; Tajfel & Turner, 1979, and self-categorization theory; Turner et al., 1994) takes as a starting point that collective phenomena cannot be adequately explained in terms of isolated individual processes or interpersonal interaction alone. It proposes that social group membership informs our self-understanding, and along with that membership comes knowledge of the characteristics that define the group and appropriate normative behavior (e.g., content of identity; Hogg, 2003; Turner et al., 1994). The principles and values that come to define us as individuals are thus the ones that we derive from the social groups to which we belong and identify with. Self-categorization theory takes this further to explain the conditions in which particular social identities become salient, meaningful, and self-defining (whereby the group becomes “self”). It postulates that when a person self-categorizes in terms of a particular group membership, the individual incorporates the group’s defining values. This suggests that acting in accordance with the content of identity reflects the fact that the individual has taken on the group identity as an important part of self (Turner & Oakes, 1989).

Culture can be conceptualized as a specific social identity with collectively shared notions of normative group behaviors (i.e., cultural expectations; Wan, Dach-Gruschow, No, & Hong, 2010). We propose that social identity theorizing can complement the intersubjective approach because it can help explain the likelihood that individuals will accept and reproduce these intersubjective representations. Specifically, from social identity theory, we predict that culture influences one’s belief and behavior to the extent that the individual identifies with the culture, explaining how and when culture in the form of intersubjective cultural representations become part of individuals’ cultural selves. Individuals will therefore only participate actively in the reproduction of the intersubjective representation to the extent that they identify with the culture. After all, it is through sharing a sense of identification with others that we can influence and be influenced by others (Turner, 1991). Our argument is consistent with research showing that individuals who identify strongly with their culture are motivated to act in accordance with the expected normative characteristics of the group (e.g., Chang, Jetten, Cruwys, & Haslam, 2015; Heaven, 1999; Jetten, Postmes, & McAuliffe, 2002).

This can explain why, as many researchers in the intersubjective approach have demonstrated (see Chiu et al., 2010; Wan, 2015), personal values and perceived collective at times overlap and at times are distinct and different. In contrast to the intersubjective approach though, while from social identity theorizing, it is argued that identification explains the degree of overlap between the two (while recognizing a dynamic mutual relationship between this degree of overlap and identification), researchers in the intersubjective approach traditions argue that identification is the consequence of the correspondence between personal and collective values and knowledge (Chiu et al., 2010; Wan et al., 2007).

There is a second way in which the social identity approach can shed light on processes hypothesized in the intersubjective approach. The intersubjective approach emphasizes that shared cultural representations are the main driver of cultural influence, providing an important basis to understand how a certain set of values and beliefs becomes shared cultural representation (which is argued to emerge when there is social consensus in the culture that they are widely shared; Chiu et al., 2010). However, the question which groups and communities individuals want to engage with to create a consensual group representation and what motivates individuals to become engaged in this process remains.

The social identity perspective is able to provide us with an understanding of how these intersubjective representations are formed. In this conceptualization, it is argued that social representations do not arise spontaneously from any social interaction. Social identity theory specifies that only interactions in the context of a shared identity have the capacity to shape collective perceptions, attitudes, and norms (e.g., content of identity; Brewer, 2001; Postmes et al., 2005). This is because shared identity and social identification is a basis for mutual social influence (Turner, 1991), motivating individuals to engage in a process of persuasion, negotiation, and argument so as to reach a consensual representation (Haslam, Turner, Oakes, Reynolds, & Doosje, 2002; Reicher, Hopkins, & Condor, 1997). In line with this reasoning, Haslam, Oakes, Reynolds, and Turner (1999) demonstrated in a series of studies that when social identification (compared with personal identity) was made salient, there was more collective consensus on what the shared beliefs of the group were.

Conjointly, from the social identity approach, we predict that the ability to think in terms of “we” and “us” (i.e., identification) is what makes group behavior possible; enabling individuals to engage in meaningful and collaborative behavior, and contribute to shared representations (Haslam et al., 2002; Turner, 1982). Importantly though, it is the intersubjective approach that offers insight into the contents of these representations (i.e., values and beliefs that most people in the culture perceive others to hold) and how they become culturally shared. We therefore propose that there is merit in building a bridge between the intersubjective approach and social identity theorizing because both theories offer insight into different but complementary processes that will help to further understand the nature of cultural influence.

The inherently complementary nature of these two theories enables integration. In fact, they share several other similarities. For example, both frameworks emphasize that it is shared representations (or consensual views that constitute social reality) that shape psychological processes. Indeed, even though the terminology differs, intersubjective approach’s concepts such as intersubjective representations (i.e., shared common perceptions) resonate with social identity’s terms such as group prototypes and group norms (i.e., attributes of a group that are widely shared within particular social groups; Haslam, 1997; Hogg & Reid, 2006). Furthermore, in both theories, there is an implicit assumption that individuals are not passive recipients of cultural representations. Instead, individuals are active agents in how they live out their culture (Herman, 2001). As such, both frameworks are open to the notion that individuals may either accept or reject normative characteristics of the culture. Mere belonging to a culture and even knowledge of a culture therefore does not mean that one will automatically endorse and act in accordance with the normative expectations of that culture (Spiro, 1992). This is because it is only when individuals identify with the culture, that cultural identity and knowledge matter, and have the power to shape beliefs and behaviors (that are congruent with collective representations), thereby illustrating the dynamic nature of cultural influence. For example, Chang et al. (2015) found among Asian participants, that normative expectations relating to collectivism interacted with identification with the Asian culture to influence the extent to which somatic depressive symptoms were reported. Endorsement of collectivism as a cultural value was associated with more reporting of somatic symptoms only when Asian participants identified highly with the Asian culture. What is more, there is evidence that identification is essential in the rejection of group norms and behaviors (which is consistent with the intersubjective approach). At times, it is precisely because individuals care for the group that they decide to challenge group norms and practices in an attempt to instigate positive change (Jetten & Hornsey, 2014).

However, it is also important to acknowledge the differences between these two frameworks. For example, cultural identity is not the same as social identity (e.g., culture is defined in terms of shared knowledge traditions whereas social identification can be based on mere shared categorization). Furthermore, it has been argued that collective cultural representations (as defined in the intersubjective approach) differ from the group prototype concept put forward in social identity research (see Zou et al., 2009). Whereas prototypes emerge as a result of intergroup comparisons (and are thus highly variable across contexts), cultural representations are more stable and may, or may not, result from intergroup comparisons. It is worth noting though that recent theorizing in the social identity tradition has relaxed some of the classic reasoning, bringing its theorizing closer and more in line with the intersubjective approach. For instance, it has been argued that group prototypes can be established in intragroup contexts where there are no intergroup comparisons (Postmes et al., 2005). In addition, social identity researchers have acknowledged and recognized the important role of history in shaping collective identity (Jetten & Wohl, 2012).

In sum, to understand the influence of culture on psychological processes, we argue that a perspective that ties the individual to the collective and the collective to the individual is needed. To develop such an understanding, we argue for an integration of the intersubjective approach and social identity theorizing.