0000000000206416
AUTHOR
Fabio Sani
Perceived collective continuity and ingroup identification as defence against death awareness
"Perhaps unique among the animal species, humans are aware that they will ultimately die. Terror management theory (TMT) posits that investing in a social group helps people to manage paralysing anxiety stemming from death awareness. In line with this proposition, research to date has shown that when reminded of their own mortality, people increase their identification with a relevant group and defend its beliefs, values, and practices. In the reported study, we demonstrate that a mortality salience induction enhances people’s perceptions of group temporal endurance—or perceived collective continuity (PCC), as we define it. Enhanced PCC leads, in turn, to enhanced group identification. This…
Child maltreatment is linked to difficulties in identifying with social groups as a young adult.
Subjective feelings of disconnectedness from social groups have been found to be detrimental to mental health. However, little is known about the factors determining people's ability to attach to groups. We contend that child maltreatment will impair people's ability to group identification across the lifespan, and present a cross-sectional study involving 396 young adults from Spain, aimed at testing this hypothesis. Results reveal that, as expected, a greater degree of maltreatment received before the age of 14 is linked to a lower number of social groups one identifies with, even after controlling for current levels of depression, anxiety, and borderline personality. Statement of contrib…
Perceived collective continuity: seeing groups as entities that move through time
This paper presents two studies, conducted in two different countries, investigating perceptions of ingroups as enduring, temporally persistent entities, and introduces a new instrument measuring ‘perceived collective continuity’ (PCC). In Study 1 we show that perceptions of ingroup continuity are based on two main dimensions: perceived cultural continuity (perceived continuity of norms and traditions) and perceived historical continuity (perceived interconnection between different historical ages and events). This study also allows the construction of an internally consistent PCC scale including two subscales tapping on these two dimensions. Study 2 replicates findings from the first study…
Perceived collective continuity and social well-being: exploring the connections
Research has shown that people tend to perceive the groups to which they belong (e.g., national groups) as temporally persistent. In this paper we argue that enhanced perceptions of collective continuity lead to lower levels of anomy and misfit, and to higher levels of social well-being (SWB). Furthermore, we argue that the effects of perceived collective continuity (PCC) on SWB are mediated by collective self-esteem (CSE). Finally, we contend that PCC has positive effects on perceived group entitativity (PGE), which in turn has a positive influence on CSE. This model is tested by means of a cross-sectional study using a sample of Spanish nationals (N = 145) drawn from the general public. R…
Percepción de continuidad e identificación grupal: implicaciones para el bienestar social
ResumenLa investigacion sobre los grupos en general y sobre la percepcion grupal en particular ha tendido a analizar los grupos como entidades a-temporales, sin tener en cuenta su continuidad. En este trabajo se presentan tres estudios en los que se demuestra la relevancia de un nuevo constructor la ‘percepcion de continuidad colectiva’ (PCC), y su relacion con la identificacion grupal y el bienestar social. El primer estudio muestra que la PCC correlaciona positivamente con la percepcion de entitatividad grupal y con diversas medidas relacionadas con la identidad social, como la autoestima colectiva y la identificacion grupal. El segundo estudio revela que la percepcion de continuidad cole…
Comparing social contact and group identification as predictors of mental health
Current research on social integration and mental health operationalizes social integration as frequency of interactions and participation in social activities (i.e., social contact). This neglects the subjective dimension of social integration, namely group identification. We present two studies comparing the effect exerted by social contact and group identification on mental health (e.g., depression, stress) across two different groups (family; army unit), demonstrating that group identification predicts mental health better than social contact.
Why Does Ingroup Identification Shield People from Death Anxiety?
Research to date guided by terror management theory has demonstrated that mortality salience increases ingroup identification. However, the process that leads from death reminders to group investment has remained underinvestigated. We tested a model in which mortality salience increased the perceived continuity of the group while at the same time strengthening the perception of group entitativity. In turn, higher perceived group entitativity led to enhanced ingroup identification. Three-path mediation analysis showed that mortality salience transmitted its effects onto ingroup identification indirectly, progressing first through perceived collective continuity and then through ingroup enti…
Greater family identification-but not greater contact with family members-leads to better health: Evidence from a Spanish longitudinal study
We investigated the effect of family identification (one's subjective sense of belonging to and commonality with the family) on self-reported ill-health in 206 Valencian undergraduates, with eight months between T1 and T2. While greater family identification T1 predicted lower ill-health T2, ill-health T1 did not predict family identification T2. family contact T1 (one’s intensity of interaction with family) was unrelated to ill-health T2. This shows that family identification impacts positively on health over time (rather than health impacting positively on family identification over time), and this is not reducible to effects exerted by family contact. These findings indicate that encoura…
Perceived family continuity: Implications for family identification and psychological well-being
AbstractResearch has shown that people tend to perceive the national and regional groups to which they belong as temporally persistent. In this paper we conducted two studies to investigate that the family may also be perceived as having different degrees of continuity through time, and that those perceptions have implications on family identity and psychological well-being. In the first study (N = 149; with a mean age of 23, SD = 5.7), we found that perceived family continuity was positively correlated with several family related variables (e.g., family functioning, perceived family entitativity) and with psychological well-being. Our second study (N = 152; with a mean age of 40.80, SD = 1…
Greater university identification - but not greater contact - leads to more life satisfaction: evidence from a Spanish longitudinal study
Background: A growing body of literature has highlighted the relationship between group identification (a subjective sense of belonging to one’s social group, coupled with a subjective sense of commonality with the group’s members) and wellbeing. However, little of this work is longitudinal, and few studies address reciprocal causality or control for intensity of contact with fellow group members.\ud \ud Method: We investigated the effect of university identification on satisfaction with life (SWL) over time (and vice versa) in 216 Spanish undergraduates, with seven months between T1 and T2. \ud Results: While greater university identification T1 predicted higher SWL T2, SWL T1 did not pred…