[advances in experimental social psychology] advances in experimental social psychology volume 39...

ADVANCESSOCIAL PSYDOI: 10.1016

UNCERTAINTY–IDENTITY THEORY

Michael A. Hogg

While I write this chapter, millions of people in the Darfur province of

Sudan have been terrorized oV their land; the entire population of Iraq has

little idea what the future of their country will be; survivors of hurricane

Katrina are dispersed across the United States; people in Britain are anxious

about immigration and are toying with the idea of supporting the British

National Party; people in a small town in Tasmania wait to hear if members

of their community have been found alive in a mine collapse; air travelers the

world over have no idea what new security arrangements await them when

they get to the airport; and we all wonder about the consequences of further

escalation in the price of oil and of the standoV over Iran’s uranium enrich-

ment program. The world is an uncertain place, it always has been, and these

uncertainties can make it very diYcult to predict or plan our lives and to feel

sure about the type of people we are.

In this chapter, I describe how feelings of uncertainty, particularly about

or related to self, motivate people to identify with social groups and to choose

new groups with, or configure existing groups to have, certain properties

that best reduce, control, or protect from feelings of uncertainty. I consider

this uncertainty–identity theory to be a development of the motivational

component of social identity theory. It addresses why, when, and how

strongly people identify with groups, and why groups may have particular

generic properties in certain contexts. Of particular relevance to contempo-

rary postmodern society, uncertainty reduction theory provides an account of

zealotry and the cult of the ‘‘true believer’’ in the thrall of ideology and

powerful leadership—an account of conditions that may spawn extremism,

a silo mentality, and a loss of moral or ethical perspective.

In this chapter, I describe uncertainty–identity theory and some concep-

tual elaborations and applications, review direct and indirect empirical

69IN EXPERIMENTAL Copyright 2007, Elsevier Inc.CHOLOGY, VOL. 39 All rights reserved./S0065-2601(06)39002-8 0065-2601/07 $35.00

70 MICHAEL A. HOGG

tests, and locate the theory in the context of related ideas and theories in

social psychology. I start with a historical sketch of why, when, and how

uncertainty–identity theory was developed, then go on to discuss uncertainty

reduction as a motivation for human behavior. I then detail the process by

which group identification reduces uncertainty and describe a program of

studies showing that people who feel uncertain are more likely to identify

and identify more strongly with groups. High‐entitativity groups are best

equipped to reduce uncertainty through identification—entitativity moder-

ates the uncertainty–identification relation. I discuss this idea and describe

research that supports it, and then extend the analysis to deal with extrem-

ism and totalistic groups—describing how extreme uncertainty may en-

courage strong identification (zealotry, fanaticism, being a true believer)

with groups that are structured in a totalistic fashion. Again I describe some

research supporting this idea.

The next section deals with extensions, applications, and implications of

uncertainty–identity theory. I discuss the relation between depersonalization

and self‐projection processes in uncertainty‐motivated group identification,

and then, in a subsection entitled central members, marginal members,

leaders, and deviants, I focus on the role of group prototypicality in uncer-

tainty reduction processes. The role of trust, the relation between uncertain-

ty, identity, and ideology, and the role of uncertainty in social mobilization

are also discussed. The final section, before concluding comments, discusses

other theories, approaches, and topics that deal with constructs related to those

discussed by uncertainty–identity theory. Specifically, I discuss uncertainty as a

state versus a trait, with a focus on the constructs of need for cognitive closure

and uncertainty orientation; the role played by culture in uncertainty; and the

relevance of terror management, compensatory conviction, self‐verification,and system justification.

I. Historical Background

Social identity theory has its origins in Tajfel’s early research on social

categorization and his desire to provide a cognitive explanation of prejudice

and discrimination (Tajfel, 1969)—an explanation that intentionally avoided

attributing such behaviors to aberrant personality or interpersonal process-

es. Rather, Tajfel felt that prejudice and discrimination was a reflection

of intergroup behavior in a particular social context on the part of people

who identified with one of the groups. He famously defined social identity as

‘‘. . . the individual’s knowledge that he belongs to certain social groups

together with some emotional and value significance to him of this group

UNCERTAINTY–IDENTITY THEORY 71

membership’’ (Tajfel, 1972, p. 292), and then, in collaboration with Turner

focused on the conditions that produced more or less intergroup conflict

and particular forms of intergroup behavior (Tajfel, 1974; Tajfel & Turner,

1979).

This social identity theory of intergroup relations placed theoretical

importance on the fact that groups compete over evaluatively positive

distinctiveness because positive distinctiveness would be reflected in social

identity and thus individual group members’ self‐concept. Ultimately, self‐enhancement was considered a key motivation for social identity processes

(Turner, 1975)—a motivation that, according to Billig (1985), social identity

theory needed in order to be able to account for social change. As the

principal motivation for social identity processes, self‐enhancement and

self‐esteem became a key focus of social identity research—prompting

Abrams and Hogg (1988) to postulate the self‐esteem hypothesis as an

attempt to formalize the idea. From the outset, Abrams and Hogg warned

against too closely mapping the group level construct of positive social

identity onto the individual level construct of self‐esteem—a warning

endorsed and supported by many others subsequently (Aberson, Healy, &

Romero, 2000; Crocker & Luhtanen, 1990; Long & Spears, 1997; Luhtanen

& Crocker, 1992; Rubin & Hewstone, 1998).

As the waters surrounding the role of self‐esteem in social identity pro-

cesses became increa singl y muddy and crowded , Hogg and Abram s (1993)

wondered whether other motivations might play a key role in social identity

processes. Given that the process of social categorization was fundamental

to social identity processes—a point fully elaborated by self‐categorizationtheory (Turner, Hogg, Oakes, Reicher, &Wetherell, 1987), the social identity

theory of the group—we felt that whatever motivated people to categorize

was probably also a central motivation for social identity processes. This

prompted us to suggest that because categorization reduces uncertainty by

engaging schematic knowledge structures, uncertainty reduction might be

that motivation (Hogg & Abrams, 1993).

An epistemic motivation related to uncertainty was implicit in Tajfel’s

early discus sion of social categor ization ( Tajfel , 1972, 1974 ). Tajfel (1969 ,

p. 92) believed that people engage in a ‘‘search for coherence’’ to preserve the

integrity of the self‐image and that ‘‘This need to preserve the integrity of

the self‐image is the only motivational assumption that we need to make in

order to understand the direction that the search for coherence will take.’’

Tajfel and Billig (1974) suggested that one reason why people identify with

minimal groups might be to impose structure on intrinsically uncertain

circumstances. This idea was not pursued further—the motivational focus

shifted to positive distinctiveness.

72 MICHAEL A. HOGG

A motivational role for uncertainty is also implicit in Turner and collea-

gues’ later self‐categorization theory (Turner, 1985; Turner et al., 1987)—but

again not elaborated. More recently, social identity researchers have noted

that disagreement with fellow group members would raise uncertainty and

that conformity to group norms would reduce uncertainty by increasing

consensus (Abrams, Wetherell, Cochrane, Hogg, & Turner, 1990; McGarty,

Turner, Oakes, & Haslam, 1993; Turner, 1991). This analysis was restricted

to social influence in groups and has not been elaborated to theorize uncer-

tainty reduction as a basic motive for social identification itself and for

forms of group and intergroup behavior as a whole (Smith, Hogg, Martin,

& Terry, in press).

Research and concepts relating to the basic motivational role of uncer-

tainty reduction in social identity processes were formally integrated and

finally published by Hogg (2000a; also see Hogg, 2001a; Hogg & Mullin,

1999). Two subsequent chapters touched on cultural dimensions (Hogg,

2006a) and implications of uncertainty reduction theory for organizations

and corporate leadership (Hogg, 2007). More substantial developments

focused on the types of groups and identities best suited to uncertainty

reduction through group identification—discussing the role of entitativity

and some implications for zealotry, ideology, and group extremism (Hogg,

2004, 2005a). Integrative statements and reviews of contemporary social

identity theory incorporate uncertainty reduction as a motivational compo-

nent, along with positive distinctiveness and self‐enhancement (Abrams,Hogg,

Hinkle, & Otten, 2005; Hogg, 2003, 2005b, 2006b; Hogg & Abrams, 2003).

It is important to note that uncertainty–identity theory was originally

formulated with the circumscribed goal of developing a better understanding

of the motivational underpinnings of social identity processes, in particular

the fundamental process of identifying with a group in the first place. Con-

ceived as a development of social identity theory, the focus was narrowly on

the relation between feelings of uncertainty and group identification. Only

subsequently were the wider implications of uncertainty–identity theory for

the structure of groups and the nature of people’s membership in and attach-

ment to groups explored. These implications locate uncertainty–identity the-

ory in a wider literature on the consequences of uncertainty and on the causes

of social extremism.

Although in earlier publications I have referred to the ‘‘uncertainty reduc-

tion hypothesis’’ or to ‘‘uncertainty reduction theory,’’ uncertainty–identity

theory is, in retrospect, a more accurate label as it correctly specifies the

scope of the theory—a focus on the link between subjective uncertainty and

group identification. It also avoids confusion with Berger and Calabrese’s

(1975; see Bradac, 2001) interpersonal communication‐focused uncertainty

reduction theory.


II. Uncertainty

Uncertainty–identity theory rests on the motivational tenet that feeling uncer-

tain about ones perceptions, attitudes, values, or feelings is uncomfortable. At

best it is an exhilarating challenge to be confronted and resolved—uncertainty

is exciting and makes us feel edgy and alive, and delivers us a sense of satisfac-

tion and mastery when we resolve such uncertainties. Meeting new people,

going to parties, backpacking in exotic lands all raise uncertainty, but in a

‘‘good’’ way.Atworst, uncertainty is highly anxiety provoking and stressful—it

makes us feel impotent and unable to predict or control ourworld andwhatwill

happen to us in it. Being lost in a dangerous place, socially isolated, unclear

about who we are, or how we fit in all raise uncertainty, in a ‘‘bad’’ way.

Although we strive to resolve, manage, or avoid feeling uncertain, we do

not do this all the time—some uncertainties we simply do not care about.

For example, you may be profoundly uncertain about the rules of cricket but

simply not care because none of your friends know any better or place much

value on the game—in which case there is no motivation to resolve this un-

certainty. However, if youmoved to live in India or Australia where people are

obsessedwith cricket, your uncertainty about cricket would suddenly become a

dramatically more serious aVair—you would now be highly motivated to

resolve your uncertainty. Consistent with the cognitive miser or motivated

tacticianmodels of social cognition (Gollwitzer&Bargh, 1996;Nisbett &Ross,

1980), we only expend cognitive energy resolving those uncertainties that are

important or matter to us in a particular context.

The cricket example suggests one factor that imparts motivational impetus

to feeling uncertain, and that is self‐relevance.We are particularly motivated to

reduce uncertainty if, in a particular context, we feel uncertain about things

that reflect on or are relevant to self, or if we are uncertain about self per se;

about our identity, whowe are, howwe relate to others, and howwe are socially

located. Ultimately, people like to know who they are and how to behave and

what to think, and who others are and how they might behave and what they

might think.

An important caveat about uncertainty reduction is that it is certainly more

appropriate to talk about reducing uncertainty than achieving certainty. There

is no such thing as absolute certainty—you cannot feel completely certain but

only less uncertain (Pollock, 2003). This is reflected in the way that formal

science rests on probability judgments, confidence intervals, and the quantifi-

cation of uncertainty. In social psychology, we only feel ‘‘certain’’ that some-

thing is true if the probability of it occurring by chance is less than 1 in 20. For

ordinary people very much the same thing holds. We act to some extent like

naive scientists (Heider, 1958) and cognitive misers (Nisbett & Ross, 1980)

74 MICHAEL A. HOGG

in making a judgment that we are ‘‘suYciently’’ certain about something to

desist from dedicating further cognitive eVort to uncertainty reduction. That

uncertainty reduction requires work is consistent with the way that uncertainty

is woven into the fabric of natural systems—natural systems tend toward

entropy and chaos (i.e., uncertainty and disorganization), and it requires

‘‘work’’ to reduce entropy (Lorenz, 1993). Hence, uncertainty–identity theory

is about reducing uncertainty rather than achieving certainty.

A second important caveat is that the pursuit of uncertainty reduction does

not rule out the possibility that individuals or groups sometimes embark on

courses of action that in the short term increase uncertainty. One example is

when the individual or group is confident that the experience of short‐termuncertainty is necessary to resolve more enduring contradictions and uncer-

tainties that have arisen. This idea has parallels with the way that formal

science progresses—periods of ‘‘normal science’’ where uncertainty is low and

small contradictions accumulate but are concealed, punctuated by ‘‘scientific

revolutions’’ where contradictions and uncertainties burst to the fore to

sponsor a ‘‘paradigm shift’’ and subsequent reduction of uncertainty (Kuhn,

1962; Popper, 1959). Another example is when a current state of aVairs inone’s life or the society in which one lives is unbearable and a measured risk

must be taken to improve things—change is risky and uncertain and therefore

not undertaken lightly (Jost & Hunyady, 2002).

A third caveat is that it is useful to distinguish between epistemic and

aVective dimensions of uncertainty—knowing that you are uncertain about

something, and feeling uncertain. The epistemic dimension is relatively

focused, whereas the aVective dimension is more diVuse—thus we can feel

generally uncertain, but not be sure exactly what about. The implication is

that measures of feelings of uncertainty may remain relatively unchanged

despite the fact that specific uncertainties are being epistemically resolved.

A. UNCERTAINTY AS A HUMAN MOTIVATION

The idea that uncertainty plays a key role in motivating human behavior is

certainly not new (Fromm, 1947), and there is evidence that uncertainty about

one’s attitudes, beliefs, feelings, and perceptions, as well as uncertainty about

oneself and other people, is aversive (Lopes, 1987; Sorrentino &Roney, 1986)

and may be associated with physiological arousal in the hypothalamic‐pituitary‐adrenal axis of the brain (Greco & Roger, 2003). Uncertainty about

one’s relationships with others in a group may even provoke mistrust and

paranoia (Kramer & Wei, 1999)—a process with profound consequences

when transposed to intergroup relations.


More than 50 years ago, Festinger (1954a,b) maintained that there is a

‘‘motivation to know that one’s opinions are correct and to know precisely

what one is and is not capable of doing’’ (Festinger, 1954b, p. 217). Knowing

one is correct is a critical human motivation that drives people to reduce

their uncertainty by checking the validity of their perceptions against physical

reality, or if physical reality checks are not possible by comparing their percep-

tions, beliefs, and attitudes with those of similar others or by calibrating their

abilities through comparison with slightly dissimilar others (Suls & Wheeler,

2000). Uncertainty motivates a search for information to reduce uncertainty,

though this search may be biased in the service of self‐enhancement (Wills,

1991).

Although uncertainty can be reduced by making physical reality checks, for

example touching the stove to confirm it is hot, our subjective certainties and

thus knowledge of the world are overwhelmingly based on social consensus.

Almost all nontrivial knowledge rests on social comparisons (Moscovici, 1976)

that reflect agreement from fellow in‐group members and, depending on con-

text, disagreement from out‐group members (Turner, 1975; also see Hogg,

2000b). The implication is that uncertainty reduction is an overwhelmingly

social motivation that may be related to group membership.

Epistemic motives related to uncertainty also have a high profile in con-

temporary social psychology. For example, they make an appearance in the

recent explosion of research on the self and self‐motives (see Baumeister,

1998; Leary & Tangney, 2003; Sedikides & Gregg, 2003), which considers

the quest for self‐definition to be a persistent and central feature of human

existence (Gaertner, Sedikides, & Graetz, 1999; Sedikides & Strube, 1997).

Uncertainty‐related motives are particularly central to research on uncertainty

orientation (Sorrentino & Roney, 1999), compensatory conviction (McGregor

& Marigold, 2003; McGregor, Zanna, Holmes, & Spencer, 2001), and cog-

nitive closure and closed mindedness (Kruglanski, 1989, 2004). There is also

a possible role for uncertainty‐related motives in terror management theory

(Pyszczynski, Greenberg, & Solomon, 1999, 2004). Many of these theories and

constructs are discussed later in this chapter.

B. UNCERTAINTY REDUCTION AND THE PURSUIT

OF MEANING

What is the relation between uncertainty reduction and the pursuit of mean-

ing? Many scholars believe that the primary human motive is the search

after meaning (Bartlett, 1932). For example, existentialist philosophers

76 MICHAEL A. HOGG

(e.g., Kierkegaard, Heidegger) and other existentialists (Camus, Sartre) be-

lieve that the key feature of the human condition is a search for meaning in

life. People are meaning‐makers who seek to construct a coherent worldview.

In his overarching account of human motivation, Maslow (1987) places

meaning‐making at the apex of the hierarchy of needs. However, others do

not aVord such status to meaning. For example, Sedikides and Strube (1997)

feel that self‐esteem has greater impact as a human motive, and Vignoles

and associates (Vignoles, Regalia, Manzi, Golledge, & Scabini, 2006) aVordequal status, specifically in the area of identity construction, to five other

motives—self‐esteem, continuity, distinctiveness, belonging, and eYcacy.

In their meaning maintenance model, Heine, Proulx, and Vohs (2006)

argue that people are meaning‐makers driven to establish associative frame-

works that (1) tie together elements of the world, (2) tie together elements of

themselves, and (3) most importantly bind self to the world. This view of

meaning seems, however, to focus less on meaning than on associative links

that one has confidence in and one is certain about, suggesting that reduced

uncertainty is critical and may motivationally underpin meaning.

Uncertainty and meaningfulness are closely associated and are generally

inversely related. To the extent that one feels less uncertain about something,

its meaning is clearer, and vice versa. This relation begs the questions of

which is motivationally primary. Do we pursue meaning and if things are

meaningful feel certain, or do we pursue certainty and if things are certain

feel a sense of meaningfulness? Instead of uncertainty reduction should we

actually be talking about the pursuit of meaning?

Uncertainty reduction is probably more basic, in an evolutionary and

comparative sense—animals are more likely to experience and act on certain-

ty than meaningfulness. Only humans engage in a discourse of meaning.

However, general models of human motivation, such as Maslow’s (1987)

hierarchy of needs, place meaning at the apex—most people do not have the

luxury of pursuing meaning much of the time, and are more involved on a

day‐to‐day basis in feeling certain about themselves and their place in the

world. Reduction of uncertaintymay also bemore proximally associated with

human social cognition. To the extent that we approach life as naive scientists,

cognitive misers, or motivated tacticians (Taylor, 1998; also see above),

context‐specific feelings of reduced uncertainty about aspects of our life

require less cognitive eVort than the construction of a meaningful subjective

world. In addition, the causal attribution processes that we can use to make

the world more meaningful rest ultimately on judgments, albeit often inaccu-

rate, of certainty about a causal association (Trope &Gaunt, 2003). Certainty

and meaning are associated, but it is the feeling of uncertainty that motivates

us, rather than the knowledge that something has little meaning.


C. TYPES OF UNCERTAINTY

Uncertainty is a feeling that can be very wide ranging and diVuse, for

example feeling uncertain about one’s future, or very specific and focused,

for example feeling uncertain about what to wear to a party. Uncertainty can

also vary in the degree to which it reflects on or relates to self‐conception in a

particular context. As mentioned earlier, uncertainty about or related to self

is likely to have the greatest motivational force because the self is the critical

organizing principle, referent point, or integrative framework for percep-

tions, feelings, and behaviors. It is this self‐uncertainty that is most directly

implicated in social identity processes.

Uncertainty is triggered by the social context in which one finds oneself—

we all feel uncertain at diVerent times. However, there is no doubt that some

of us tend to feel more uncertain about more things more often and that

some of us simply feel more uncomfortable with uncertainty than others. This

can be an enduring disposition (e.g., authoritarian personalities—Adorno,

Frenkel‐Brunswik, Levinson, & Sanford, 1950), a cultural form (e.g., uncer-

tainty avoidance—Hofstede, 1980), or a passing phase in our lives (e.g.,

adolescence, bereavement). Uncertainty–identity theory focuses on uncertain-

ty as a context‐induced state. It is produced by contextual factors that chal-

lenge people’s certainty about their cognitions, perceptions, feelings, and

behaviors, and ultimately, certainty about and confidence in their sense of self.

Although the locus of uncertainty is to be found overwhelmingly in the

social context, and therefore anyone is prone to uncertainty, biographical

factors may have some influence on people’s general orientation toward

uncertainty and the reduction of uncertainty. It is this latter personality

and individual diVerences perspective that has tended to dominate the social

psychology literature on uncertainty.

The idea that some people are less tolerant of uncertainty than others is an

old one, for example Adorno et al.’s (1950) description of the authoritarian

personality and Rokeach’s (1960) notion of a dogmatic or closed‐minded

personality. There is also evidence that people vary in their need for structure

or closure and their fear of invalidity. People who need structure or closure are

more concerned to reduce uncertainty quickly than to be correct, whereas

people who fear invalidity are able to tolerate uncertainty while they engage in

a prolonged search for validity (Kruglanski, 1989; Kruglanski & Webster,

1996; Neuberg & Newson, 1993; Webster & Kruglanski, 1998; also see

Kruglanski, 2004). Relatedly, Sorrentino and associates have explored indi-

vidual diVerences in uncertainty orientation (Sorrentino, Hodson, & Huber,

2001; Sorrentino & Roney, 1999; Sorrentino & Short, 1986). Uncertainty‐oriented people seek out information that may raise uncertainty, and work

78 MICHAEL A. HOGG

on the resolution of uncertainty to satisfy a self‐assessment motive. These

people are ‘‘need to know,’’ scientific, or investigative types. Certainty‐oriented people are concerned with self‐verification and the maintenance of

existing beliefs; they avoid situations of uncertainty and if confronted by

uncertainty, they defer to others or use heuristics to resolve uncertainty

quickly.

Finally, there are more broadly related constructs that describe individual

diVerences in the complexity and number of explanations people have of

other people (attributional complexity; Fletcher, Danilovics, Fernandez,

Peterson, & Reeder, 1986), in how much people like to think deeply about

things (need for cognition; Cacioppo & Petty, 1982), and in the complexity

of people’s cognitive processes and representations (cognitive complexity;

Crockett, 1965). People also diVer in self‐concept clarity, the extent to which

self‐beliefs are clearly and confidently defined, internally consistent, and

stable (Campbell, 1990; Campbell et al., 1996); self‐complexity, the number

of diVerent or independent dimensions that underlie self‐conception (Linville,1987); and compartmentalization of the self (Showers, 1992).

In contrast to these individual diVerence perspectives on uncertainty,

perspectives in communication and organization sciences treat uncertainty as

context contingent. From a communication perspective, people communi-

cate to reduce uncertainty, and eVective communication requires a degree

of interpersonal certainty (Berger, 1987; Berger & Calabrese, 1975; Ford,

Babrow, & Stohl, 1996; see Bradac, 2001). Uncertainty in interpersonal (and

cross‐cultural—Gudykunst, 1985) communicative contexts is maladaptive

and can produce adverse reactions.

Uncertainty reduction is also an important motivational element in the-

ories of organizational socialization (Lester, 1987; Saks & Ashforth, 1997).

Organizational newcomers experience uncertainty that motivates them to

seek information, through interaction and communication with superiors

and peers, to reduce their uncertainty. Many organizations implement for-

mal induction procedures to achieve this socialization goal. One situation in

which uncertainty may be particularly elevated is when there is an organiza-

tional merger or acquisition; employees are uncertain about their employ-

ment future, their role in the new organization, and their organizational

identity. One way in which employees may reduce this uncertainty is by iden-

tifying strongly, often more strongly than before, with their premerger

organization. This reduces self‐related uncertainty, but it may also inhibit

identification with and commitment to the overarching new organization.

Mergers and acquisitions are notoriously unsuccessful from an organiza-

tional identity point of view (Terry, Carey, & Callan, 2001). Uncertainty

may play a key role in this. More generally, the contemporary world of work


may be a particularly potent and enduring source of uncertainty (Hogg,

2007).

III. Social Identity

Feelings of uncertainty have diVerent causes and diVerent foci. Uncertainty–

identity theory focuses on context‐induced feelings of uncertainty that are

about self or things that relate to, reflect on, or matter to self. To the extent

that a particular context that induces uncertainty endures, for example a

long‐lasting economic crisis, uncertainty and attempts to reduce or fend

oV uncertainty may endure. There may be individual diVerences in how

much uncertainty people feel in a given context and in how people respond

to uncertainty; however this is treated, to use a statistical metaphor, as error

variance—it is not the focus of uncertainty–identity theory. This orientation

toward personality and individual diVerences is consistent with the group‐focused metatheory that informs social identity theory (Abrams & Hogg,

2004; Turner, 1999; Turner & Onorato, 1999; see Hogg, in press).

Feelings of uncertainty about or reflecting on self can be resolved in many

diVerent ways. However, the crux of uncertainty–identity theory is that

group identification is one of the most potent and eVective ways to do this.

From a social identity perspective (for overviews see Hogg, 2003, 2005b,

2006b), group identification is produced by self‐categorization (Turner et al.,

1987). Human groups are social categories that we cognitively represent as

prototypes—prototypes that embody all and any attributes that define the

category and distinguish it from other categories in a specific context. One’s

prototype of a group can describe members’ perceptions, beliefs, attitudes,

values, feelings, and behaviors. The prototype of a group we belong to has

prescriptive properties in describing how we ought to behave as a group

member. Prototypes obey the metacontrast principle—they maximize the

ratio of intergroup diVerences to intragroup diVerences, and thus perceptu-

ally accentuate similarities within groups and diVerences between groups

(cf. Tajfel, 1959). This principle ensures that the prototype we have of a

specific group is influenced, more or less dramatically, by what group it is

being compared to and for what purpose.

When we categorize someone as a member of a specific group, we assign

the group’s attributes to varying degree to that person. We view them

through the lens of the prototype of that group; seeing them not as unique

individuals but as more or less prototypical group members—a process

called depersonalization. When we categorize others, in‐group or out‐groupmembers, we stereotype them and have expectations of what they think

80 MICHAEL A. HOGG

and feel and how they will behave. When we categorize ourselves, self‐categorization, exactly the same process occurs—we assign prescriptive in‐group attributes to ourselves, we autostereotype, conform to group norms,

and transform our self‐conception.In this way, group identification very eVectively reduces self‐related un-

certainty. It provides us with a sense of who we are that prescribes what we

should think, feel, and do. Because self‐categorization is inextricably linked

to categorization of others, it also reduces uncertainty about how others

will behave and what course social interaction will take. It also provides

consensual validation of our worldview and sense of self, which further

reduces uncertainty. Because people in a group tend to have a shared proto-

type of ‘‘us’’ and a shared prototype of ‘‘them,’’ our expectations about the

prototype‐based behavior of others often tend to be confirmed, and our fellow

group members agree with our perceptions, beliefs, attitudes, and values and

approve of how we behave.

Clearly, identification can eVectively reduce uncertainty, and can protect

one from uncertainty. The implication is that uncertainty reduction moti-

vates group identification—we identify with groups in order to reduce or

protect ourselves from uncertainty. When people feel uncertain about them-

selves or things reflecting on self, they ‘‘join’’ new groups (e.g., sign up as a

member of an environmental group), identify with or identify more strongly

with existing self‐inclusive categories (e.g., one’s nation), or identify with or

identify more strongly with groups that they already ‘‘belong’’ to (e.g., one’s

work team).

Uncertainty reduction provides a motivational context and impetus for

making specific social categorizations contextually salient as the basis of

social identification. Uncertainty reduction directly frames the way in which

we draw on chronically and situationally accessible categorizations and

investigate their comparative and normative fit (Oakes, 1987) in order to

render a particular social categorization psychologically salient. The very

notion that an accessible categorization needs to fit implies that it reduces

feelings of uncertainty about the social context and our place within it.

The uncertainty–identity theory conception of the relation between uncer-

tainty and group identification represents a relatively hydraulic model of

group motivation. Uncertainty, however induced, mobilizes one to psycho-

logically identify and is reduced by identification. However, feelings of

uncertainty are multiply determined and can be addressed in many diVerentways. Identification is only one way to address uncertainty, but one that

is particularly eVective in the case of self‐related uncertainties. Feelings of

uncertainty can also be fleeting. As soon as one uncertainty is reduced,

one’s mind is assailed by new uncertainties or we seek out new ones to


resolve. The epistemic/aVective disjunction described above is relevant here.

Epistemic resolution of uncertainty through identification may not map

directly onto aVective change—you may still feel uncertain, but now about

other things.

A. BASIC HYPOTHESIS TESTS

The most basic prediction that can be made from uncertainty–identity

theory is that the more uncertain people are the more likely they are to

identify, and to identify more strongly, with a self‐inclusive social category.The first tests of this hypothesis used the minimal group paradigm. The

minimal group paradigm (Bourhis, Sachdev, & Gagnon, 1994; Diehl, 1990)

is particularly appropriate for at least three reasons: (1) it occupies a pivotal

role in the development of social identity theory; (2) it is implausible that

people discriminate on the basis of a minimal categorization because of a

self‐enhancement motivation (cf. Cadinu & Rothbart, 1996); and (3) mini-

mal group studies are situations of high uncertainty due to the novelty of the

situation and the strangeness of the resource distribution task, and therefore

participants readily use the minimal categorization to reduce uncertainty

about themselves and how they should behave.

The first study (Hogg & Grieve, 1999) was a 2 (categorization) � 2 (uncer-

tainty) experiment in which student participants (N ¼ 151) were not cate-

gorized or were explicitly randomly categorized into X‐ and Y‐groups(the categorization variable). This was done under normal minimal group

conditions, which embodied relatively high subjective uncertainty, or

under conditions where uncertainty was lowered by giving participants three

practice trials on the standard minimal group allocation matrices (the un-

certainty variable). Uncertainty was checked after the manipulation (three

items measuring how uncertain they felt about the allocation task), and

measured again in the final questionnaire—the manipulation was only mar-

ginally eVective. On a composite measure of in‐group bias (three items,

� ¼ .87), we found, as predicted, that only those participants who had been

categorized under high uncertainty expressed significant in‐group bias and

significantly greater bias than participants in the other three conditions.

By reducing uncertainty, we had, as predicted, eliminated the minimal cate-

gorization aVect. The rationale was that by reducing uncertainty, we had

reduced themotivation to identify and thus reduced in‐group bias. Participantscategorized under uncertainty also showed significant reduction in uncer-

tainty over time, whereas uncategorized participants did not. We were able to

conclude that in minimal group studies, social categorization per se does not

82 MICHAEL A. HOGG

produce intergroup discrimination. It is social categorization under conditions

of subjective uncertainty that motivates participants to define themselves

in terms of the minimal categorization, which in turn generates diVerentialintergroup perceptions, feelings, and behavior (i.e., discrimination).

We repeated this experiment, with methodological refinements (Grieve &

Hogg, 1999, Experiment 1, N ¼ 119). The key diVerences were that low‐uncertainty participants completed 12 rather than only 3 practice matrices

(the uncertainty checks revealed this manipulation to be eVective), and

group identification was measured by 10 items (� ¼ .87), adapted from

Hains, Hogg, and Duck (1997) and Hogg and Hains (1996).1 As in Hogg

and Grieve (1999), there was significant bias (three items, � ¼ .84) only

among those participants who were categorized under uncertainty, but we

also found that these participants reported identifying significantly more

strongly than other participants.

Our third study (Grieve & Hogg, 1999, Experiment 2, N ¼ 105) was a

replication of Grieve and Hogg (1999, Experiment 1), involving a diVerentmanipulation of uncertainty. We wanted to manipulate uncertainty in a way

that was separate from the subsequent allocation task used to express dis-

crimination, and we wanted to elevate uncertainty as well as to reduce it. In a

2 (categorization)� 2 (uncertainty) design, participants had their uncertainty

elevated by having them write down what they thought was happening in

each of five ambiguous pictures (from the Thematic Apperception Test), or

lowered by writing down what they thought was happening in each of

five unambiguous pictures (e.g., photos of everyday life). To check on this

manipulation, they indicated how uncertain they felt about each of their

descriptions—the manipulation was highly eVective. Participants were then

explicitly categorized or not categorized, as in Grieve and Hogg, Experiment

1, and completed minimal group allocation matrices and measures of group

identification. There was significant in‐group bias (three items, � ¼ .63)

only among participants who were categorized under elevated uncertainty

1Group identification can be measured in many ways. In my own research, including the

studies of uncertainty reported in this chapter, I have used between 3 and 10 items which

generally ask participants to indicate their desire to get to know the group’s members, to join

the group, and to stand up for the group; and to indicate the extent to which they identify

with the group, like its members and the group as a whole, perceive personal similarity to the

group and its members, feel ties to other members, and feel they fit in the group (1 not very

much, 9 very much). Across literally dozens of studies over a period of 20 years, these kinds of

measures form highly reliable scales (mostly with reliabilities greater than .90) (e.g., see Grieve &

Hogg, 1999; Hains et al., 1997; Hogg & Grieve, 1999; Hogg & Hains, 1996; Hogg & Svensson,

2006; Hogg et al., 2006, 2007; Mullin & Hogg, 1998, 1999; Reid & Hogg, 2005).

−0.26a−0.32a

3.43b*

1.22a

−1

0

1

2

3

4

Low High

Uncertainty

In-g

roup

bia

s

Not categorized

Categorized

Fig. 1. Grieve and Hogg (1999, Experiment 2): EVect of categorization and uncertainty on

in‐group bias, F(1, 104) ¼ 6.21, p < .05. Note: In‐group bias is a three‐item scale (� ¼ .63) that

can take values between �12 (completely favoring the out‐group) and þ12 (completely favoring

the in‐group). Means not sharing a subscript are significantly diVerent by simple main eVects.

Asterisk indicates significantly diVerent from zero.


(Fig. 1), and these people also identified (10 items, �¼ .91) significantly more

strongly than all other participants (Fig. 2).

Continuing to explore diVerent aspects of uncertainty, a fourth study

(Mullin & Hogg, 1998) modified the Grieve and Hogg methodology. In

addition to the categorization manipulation, there were two uncertainty

variables, task and situational, producing a 2 � 2 � 2 design (N ¼ 96).

Task uncertainty was manipulated in a similar way to previous studies. Low‐uncertainty participants were given six practice matrices, and told to do as

many as they needed to feel completely certain about the task; high‐uncertainty participants were not given practice matrices. Situational uncer-

tainty was a dichotomous subject variable. High‐uncertainty participants

had not yet taken part in an experiment; low‐uncertainty participants had

already been in at least five experiments. We felt that situational uncertainty

might be a compelling motivation for identification because it related more

directly to the relation between self and others in the social setting. Checks

confirmed the eVectiveness of both forms of uncertainty. As predicted, there

was a significant interaction between categorization and task uncertainty,

and between categorization and situational uncertainty on both in‐groupbias (three items, � ¼ .93) and identification (five items, � ¼ .82). Partici-

pants categorized under either task or situational uncertainty identified

more strongly than other participants, and were the only ones to express

3.60a3.68a

5.93c

4.67b

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

Low High

Uncertainty

Iden

tific

atio

n

Not categorized

Categorized

Fig. 2. Grieve and Hogg (1999, Experiment 2): EVect of categorization and uncertainty on

group identification, F(1, 104) ¼ 7.61, p > .01. Note: Identification is a 10‐item scale (� ¼ .91)

that can take values between 1 and 9. Means not sharing a subscript are significantly diVerent by

simple main eVects.

84 MICHAEL A. HOGG

significant bias. There was some support for reduced uncertainty associated

with in‐group identification and bias.

The four studies just described provide robust support, across diVerentoperationalizations of uncertainty, for the key uncertainty–identity hypoth-

esis that people are more likely to identify with a self‐inclusive category, andidentify more strongly, when they are uncertain. However, there is less robust

evidence that identification reduces reported uncertainty. Hogg and Grieve

(1999) and Mullin and Hogg (1998) did find evidence that uncertainty‐induced identification reduced uncertainty, but Grieve and Hogg (1999,

Experiment 1) did not. Grieve and Hogg (1999, Experiment 2) did not have

postidentification measures of uncertainty. This is one aspect of uncertainty–

identity theory that requires further investigation. The evidence for identi-

fication reducing uncertainty may be less robust for methodological reasons

(perhaps the use of repeated measures inhibited participants from reporting a

change in uncertainty—they may not have wanted to seem uncertain about

how uncertain they were), or for conceptual reasons (I discussed earlier how

epistemic resolution of uncertainty through identification may not map di-

rectly onto aVective change—you may still feel uncertain, but now about

other things). It is also worth noting that other less direct studies of uncer-

tainty and identification have found evidence for identification reducing

uncertainty (McGregor, Nail, Marigold, & Kang, 2005).


B. RELATION OF UNCERTAINTY TO SELF‐ENHANCEMENT

AND SELF‐ESTEEM

Although the studies described in the previous section suggest that uncer-

tainty motivates identification, there is a possible alternative explanation.

Perhaps the manipulations of uncertainty also aVected self‐esteem (it is

plausible to speculate that being made to feel uncertain may also depress

self‐esteem) and people identified to elevate self‐esteem rather than reduce

uncertainty—in which case uncertainty per se was not motivating identifica-

tion. There are at least two reasons to be circumspect about this possibility:

(1) social identity research on the self‐esteem hypothesis shows that although

identification can elevate self‐esteem, depressed self‐esteem typically does not

motivate identification (Aberson et al., 2000; Rubin & Hewstone, 1998) and

(2) manipulations of self‐uncertainty do not necessarily aVect self‐esteem(McGregor et al., 2001). Nevertheless it seemed prudent to investigate.

We conducted two studies (Hogg & Svensson, 2006). The first was a

computer‐mediated minimal group study in which the three variables of

uncertainty, group relevance, and opportunity to self‐aYrm were manipu-

lated in a 2 � 2 � 2 design. Uncertainty was manipulated by having partici-

pants (N ¼ 168) perform an easy/unambiguous or diYcult/ambiguous

eyewitness task, followed by a manipulation check and measures of state

self‐esteem. Participants were then categorized as members of a group that

was more, or less, relevant to them in terms of their career interests. The key‐dependent measure was group identification (eight items, �¼ .86). However,

in order to manipulate self‐aYrmation, half the participants were given the

opportunity to self‐aYrm prior to indicating their identification. Drawing on

self‐aYrmation theory (Sherman & Cohen, 2006; Steele, 1988), we argued

that if uncertainty operated via self‐esteem, then the eVect of uncertaintyon identification would disappear in the self‐aYrmation condition. This

did not happen. Participants identified significantly more strongly when

uncertain, particularly when the group was self‐relevant, irrespective of

whether they aYrmed. Furthermore, this eVect remained significant when

state self‐esteem, measured immediately after the uncertainty manipulation,

was statistically partialed out of the analysis.

For the second study, participants (N ¼ 101) were in real face‐to‐facesmall groups—group relevance was high throughout. They individually

performed the eyewitness task from Study 1 (uncertainty manipulation),

answered uncertainty checks (self‐esteem was not measured), and then indi-

cated how much they identified with their group (eight items, � ¼ .86)—as

in Study 1 half the participants self‐aYrmed first (self‐aYrmation manipula-

tion). Once again participants identified more strongly under high than low

uncertainty, which was not aVected by self‐aYrmation.

5.67b

4.56a5.19ab5.49b

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

Low High

Uncertainty

Iden

tific

atio

n

Low status High status

Fig. 3. Reid and Hogg (2005, Experiment 1): EVect of status and uncertainty on group

identification, F(1, 59) ¼ 7.30, p ¼ .009. Note: Identification is a nine‐item scale (� ¼ .87) that

can take values between one and nine. Means not sharing a subscript are significantly diVerent

by simple main eVects.

86 MICHAEL A. HOGG

The Hogg and Svensson (2006) studies show that uncertainty on its own

motivates identification, independent of self‐esteem or self‐enhancement

considerations. However, what happens when one feels uncertain but the

available group has low status that mediates adverse self‐evaluation—does

the need to reduce uncertainty win over the pursuit of positive identity, or

vice versa?

Reid and Hogg (2005) conducted two minimal group studies to investigate

this. In Study 1 participants (N ¼ 64) were categorized, ostensibly as over‐ orunderestimators (a frequently used minimal criterion), and given feedback

that their group had relatively high or low status (did better or worse than

other groups in the experiment on a perceptual task)—the group status

manipulation. Uncertainty was manipulated by having participants perform

an object‐counting task that was easy (very few objects) or diYcult (too many

to count, they could only guess). In anticipation of a group activity, partici-

pants then indicated how strongly they identified with their group (nine items,

� ¼ .87). The key finding (Fig. 3) was that even when the group had low

status, uncertainty significantly increased identification—thus, uncertainty

reduction concerns prevailed over self‐enhancement considerations.

Study 2 was a replication of Study 1 but with an additional variable

manipulating the extent to which participants (N¼ 210) felt they were a good

fit with, and prototypical of, the group [cf. the notion of group relevance in

Hogg and Svensson’s (2006) first study]. The prediction was that the eVectsobtained in Study 1 would only emerge in the high prototypicality condition.


This is precisely what happened. Participants identified (nine items, � ¼ .91)

significantly more strongly with the low‐status group when uncertainty was

high than low, but only when they felt they fit the group well. Once again,

uncertainty reduction prevailed over self‐enhancement.

The Reid and Hogg studies show that uncertainty is a suYciently strong

motive for identification that it can override group status and self‐enhancement

concerns. This has obvious implications for an understanding of why minor-

ity or stigmatized groups may not rise up to challenge the status quo. The

prospect of change raises uncertainty and thus encourages members to main-

tain or strengthen their identification, even though the group has low status.

Perhaps they go on to justify their behavior by engaging in a discourse of

system justification (cf. Jost & Hunyady, 2002).

C. UNCERTAINTY RELEVANCE AND GROUP RELEVANCE

Not all uncertainty motivates. As described earlier, if you feel uncertain but

simply do not care, then the uncertainty does not motivate behavior.

For uncertainty to motivate, it must matter to you that you are uncertain.

Typically uncertainty about something important to you that reflects on or is

focused on self matters and therefore motivates.

To test this idea, Mullin and Hogg (1999) had students participate in a

2 (categorization) � 2 (task uncertainty) � 2 (task importance) minimal

group experiment (N ¼ 128). Participants were randomly categorized as

group members (�‐ versus �‐group) or identified as individuals, after they

had been given feedback to raise or lower feelings of uncertainty about the

validity of their attitudes toward low‐importance or high‐importance issues

(e.g., trivial commodity preferences versus important lifestyle and health

preferences). Checks confirmed the eVectiveness of the importance and

uncertainty manipulations. As predicted, participants who were categorized

under high uncertainty about important issues identified (five items, � ¼ .85)

significantly more strongly than did participants in all seven other conditions.

These people also expressed significantly greater desire than others to interact

with and learn more about members of their group. This study confirms that

uncertainty must matter in order for it to sponsor identification.

IV. Entitativity

Two studies were described above (Hogg & Svensson, 2006, Experiment 1;

Reid & Hogg, 2005, Experiment 2) showing that uncertainty is more likely to

lead to identification, or leads to stronger identification, if the group is

88 MICHAEL A. HOGG

relevant to self‐definition. This begs the broader question of what kinds of

groups, or what properties of groups, are best equipped to reduce uncer-

tainty through identification. The answer proposed by uncertainty–identity

theory is high‐entitativity groups (Hogg, 2004, 2005a).

Entitativity is that property of a group, resting on clear boundaries,

internal homogeneity, social interaction, clear internal structure, common

goals, and common fate, which makes a group ‘‘groupy’’ (Campbell, 1958;

Hamilton & Sherman, 1996). Groups can vary quite widely in entitativity

from a loose aggregate to a highly distinctive and cohesive unit (Hamilton,

Sherman, & Rodgers, 2004; Lickel et al., 2000). Generally, entitativity is

more a matter of perceived interdependence and mutual social influence than

mere similarity or homogeneity (Lickel, Rutchick, Hamilton, & Sherman,

2006).

Group identification reduces uncertainty because it provides a clear sense

of self that prescribes behavior and renders social interaction predictable.

An unclearly structured low‐entitativity group that has indistinct bound-

aries, ambiguous membership criteria, limited shared goals, and little agree-

ment on group attributes will do a poor job of reducing or fending oV self

or self‐related uncertainty. In contrast, a clearly structured high‐entitativitygroup with sharp boundaries, unambiguous membership criteria, highly

shared goals, and consensus on group attributes will do an excellent job.

Identification via self‐categorization reduces uncertainty because self is

governed by a prototype that prescribes cognition, aVect, and behavior.

Prototypes that are simple, clear, unambiguous, prescriptive, focused, and

consensual are more eVective than those that are vague, ambiguous, unfo-

cused, and dissensual. Clear prototypes, such as the former, are more likely

to be grounded in high‐than low‐entitativity groups.

In addition, essentialism, the tendency to attribute properties of indivi-

duals or groups to invariant underlying qualities or essences (Haslam,

Rothschild, & Ernst, 1998; Medin & Ortony, 1989; Yzerbyt, Judd, &

Corneille, 2004), may be a positive function of perceived entitativity

(Rothbart & Taylor, 1992). Thus, the more ‘‘groupy’’ a group is perceived

to be, the more people view its attributes to be immutable and fixed essences

that, for example, reflect biology and genetics. Because this process imparts

the illusion of immutability to groups, it further renders entitative groups

highly eVective in reducing and fending of uncertainty.

From uncertainty–identity theory, the clear prediction is that although

under uncertainty, especially self‐uncertainty, people will identify with groups,

they will show a strong preference for high‐entitativity groups. People will

seek out highly entitative groups with which to identify or they will work to

elevate, subjectively or in reality, the entitativity of groups towhich they already

belong.


A. STUDIES OF THE ROLE OF ENTITATIVITY IN

UNCERTAINTY‐INDUCED IDENTIFICATION

As a first test of this idea, Jetten, Hogg, and Mullin (2000) conducted two

minimal group studies where judgmental uncertainty and group homoge-

neity (a proxy for entitativity) were orthogonally manipulated, and group

identification and intergroup perceptions were measured. Uncertainty pre-

dicted identification, as in previous studies, but this was not moderated by

homogeneity. Uncertainty and homogeneity did interact on a measure of in‐group–out‐group stereotype diVerentiation—participants who were uncer-

tain showed greater in‐group–out‐group stereotype diVerentiation when

the in‐group was more homogeneous. However, stereotypic diVerentiationis a perceptual eVect that is not the same as identification and belonging,

and in‐group homogeneity, a similarity perception, is not the same as in‐group entitativity, and may actually be the least important component of

entitativity (Hamilton et al., 2004; Lickel et al., 2006).

The role of entitativity was better investigated in a series of four studies by

Castano, Yzerbyt, and Bourguignon (2003), who manipulated diVerentaspects of entitativity and measured identification with the European

Union (EU). Entitativity increased identification but only, or more strongly,

among those with less extreme attitudes toward the EU. Uncertainty was

not measured or manipulated—it can only be speculated that those with

less extreme attitudes may have been less self‐conceptually uncertain. The

main message of this research is that people identify more strongly with

high‐entitativity groups (Castano, 2004; Yzerbyt, Castano, Leyens, &

Paladino, 2000), which is consistent with Lickel et al.’s (2000) finding that

in‐group entitativity perceptions were significantly correlated with reported

importance of the group to self.

To address some of the limitations of these earlier, indirect, and incomplete

tests of the role of entitativity in uncertainty‐induced group identification, we

(Hogg , Sherman, Dierselhui s, Maitner, & Mo Y tt, 2007) condu cted tw ostudies in which entitativity was measured or manipulated and uncertainty,

specifically self‐uncertainty, was primed. Study 1 was a field experiment (N¼114) in which we measured how entitative student participants felt the politi-

cal party they supported was, and then primed uncertainty (high versus low)

by asking them to focus on things that made them feel uncertain/certain about

themselves and to write down those things that made them feel most uncer-

tain/certain. The dependent measure was a nine‐item measure of identifica-

tion with their political party (� ¼ .93). As predicted, under high uncertainty

identification increased with increasing perceived entitativity (Fig. 4). Under

low uncertainty, there was no significant relation between identification and

entitativity. Another way to look at this is that when the group was high in

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

Low High

Entitativity

Iden

tific

atio

n

HighuncertaintyLowuncertainty

Fig. 4. Hogg et al. (2007, Study 1): Group identification as a function of perceived

entitativity for high‐ and low‐self‐uncertainty participants, � ¼ .21, t ¼ 2.42, p ¼ .017. Note:

Identification is a nine‐item scale (� ¼ .93) that can take values between one and nine.

90 MICHAEL A. HOGG

entitativity, uncertain participants identified more than less uncertain

participants, and vice versa for low‐entitativity groups.

Study 2 was a laboratory experiment in which participants (N ¼ 89) took

part in a computer‐mediated decision‐making group. On the basis of an

initial test, they were given detailed controlled feedback that described their

group as being high or low in entitativity in terms of its attributes and the

way the group would approach the decision‐making task. Following an

entitativity check, participants completed the uncertainty prime as in

Study 1, and then filled out an eight‐item measure of group identification

(� ¼ .94). Participants who were self‐uncertain and in a high‐entitativitygroup identified significantly more strongly than participants in all other

conditions (Fig. 5).

These direct tests confirm the predicted moderating role of entitativity in

uncertainty‐induced identification. A particular strength is the direct manip-

ulation of self‐uncertainty—previous uncertainty–identity research had

manipulated judgmental or perceptual uncertainty that reflects on self,

rather than self‐uncertainty directly. Another feature of this manipulation

is that it may not influence self‐esteem—a similar priming procedure used by

McGregor et al. (2001) did not significantly aVect self‐esteem.

These studies also extend Pickett’s research. Pickett and colleagues

(Pickett & Brewer, 2001; Pickett, Silver, & Brewer, 2002) argue that the

relation between identification and group entitativity/inclusiveness is mod-

erated by motivational states, and show that one motivational moderator is

4.72a

3.93a

6.98b

4.61a

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

Low High

Entitativity

Iden

tific

atio

n

Low uncertainty

High uncertainty

Fig. 5. Hogg et al. (2007, Study 2): EVect of entitativity and uncertainty on group identifi-

cation, F(1, 84) ¼ 8.05, p ¼ .006. Note: Identification is an eight‐item scale (� ¼ .94) that can

take values between one and nine. Means not sharing a subscript are significantly diVerent by

simple main eVects.


the need for assimilation/diVerentiation as specified by optimal distinc-

tiveness theory (Brewer, 1991). Our studies show that self‐conceptual uncer-tainty, as specified by uncertainty–identity theory, is another powerful

moderator of the entitativity–identification relation.

V. Social Extremism and Totalistic Groups

The story so far is that subjectively important feelings of uncertainty about

self or about matters that relate to or reflect on self motivate people to

identify with groups, particularly groups that are relevant to self and are

high in entitativity. This process may go one step further (Hogg, 2004,

2005a). When self‐uncertainty is acute or enduring, people may identify very

strongly with groups that are not merely entitative but extreme—totalistic

groups (Baron, Crawley, & Paulina, 2003).

These groups have closed and carefully policed boundaries, uniform

attitudes, values and membership, and inflexible customs. They are rigidly

and hierarchically structured with a clearly delineated chain of legitimate

influence and command, and substantial intolerance of internal dissent and

92 MICHAEL A. HOGG

criticism. Such groups are often ethnocentric—they are inward looking, and

suspicious and disparaging of outsiders. They engage in relatively asocial and

overly assertive actions. Their attributes resemble narcissism (cf. Baumeister,

Smart, & Boden, 1996) expressed at the collective level (Montoya, Rosenthal,

& Pittinsky, 2006; Pittinsky, Montoya, & Rosenthal, 2006)—characterized

by grandiosity, self‐importance, envy, arrogance, haughtiness, entitlement,

exploitativeness, excessive admiration, lack of empathy, fantasies of un-

limited success, and feelings of special/unique/high status. These are ‘‘ex-

treme’’ groups that furnish members with an all‐embracing, rigidly defined,

exclusive, and highly prescriptive social identity and sense of self. In this

way, uncertainty‐induced identification may underpin zealotry, extremism,

and totalistic groups (Hogg, 2004, 2005a). (It should be noted that not

all the attributes mentioned above will necessary be found in all extreme

groups.)

There is a well‐documented association between societal uncertainty and

various forms of extremism or totalism, such as genocide (Staub, 1989), cults

(Curtis & Curtis, 1993; Galanter, 1989; Singer, 1995), ultranationalism

(Billig, 1978, 1982; Kosterman & Feshbach, 1989), blind patriotism (Staub,

1997), religious fundamentalism (Altemeyer, 2003; Batson, Schoenrade, &

Ventis, 1993; Rowatt & Franklin, 2004), terrorism (Moghaddam &

Marsella, 2004), ideological thinking (Doty, Peterson, & Winter, 1991; Jost,

Glaser, Kruglanski, & Sulloway, 2003; Jost & Hunyady, 2002; Lambert,

Burroughs, & Nguyen, 1999), and fanaticism and being a ‘‘true believer’’

(HoVer, 1951).Uncertainty–identity theory describes a psychological mechanism that

converts uncertainty into totalism. The process may be initiated by extreme

and enduring uncertainty—for example, widespread societal uncertainty

caused by economic collapse, cultural disintegration, civil war, terrorism,

and large‐scale natural disasters, or more personal uncertainty caused by

unemployment, bereavement, divorce, relocation, adolescence, and so forth.

Under these circumstances, extreme groups may do a better job than merely

high‐entitativity groups at reducing or fending oV uncertainty. People seek

out extreme groups to identify with, or they make existing groups more

extreme. Furthermore, people will identify strongly with such groups. They

will have a strong sense of belonging and a strong feeling of attachment

to the group, and their sense of self will be comprehensively defined by

the group—they could be described as zealots, fanatics, or true believers.

Describing the true believer, HoVer writes:

‘‘To live without an ardent dedication is to be adrift and abandoned. He sees in

tolerance a sign of weakness, frivolity, and ignorance . . .. He hungers for the deep

assurance which comes with total surrender—with the wholehearted clinging to a


creed and cause. What matters is not the contents of the cause but the total dedication

and communion with a congregation’’ (HoVer, 1951, p. 90).

Totalistic groups have properties that are ideally suited to uncertainty

reduction. Although these properties may seem unattractive to most of us

because they rigidly constrain our freedom, they are precisely what is sought

by people who are very self‐uncertain. Totalistic groups have rigid bound-

aries that unequivocally define who is in and who is out—there is no

ambiguity or fuzziness about membership, and thus membership can be

diYcult to achieve and it can also be diYcult to ‘‘leave.’’ Group membership

may be actively policed by the group—once you are in, you really feel you

belong. The group’s identity is clearly, unambiguously, and relatively simply

defined, and often sharply polarized away from other groups (Isenberg,

1986; Moscovici & Zavalloni, 1969)—as a member you know exactly who

you are and how you should behave and how others will behave.

There is a strong expectation of homogeneity and consensus—the group is

suspicious of deviants and marginal members and will typically vilify and

persecute such individuals (Hogg, 2005c; Hogg, Fielding, & Darley, 2005;

Marques, Abrams, Paez, & Hogg, 2001; Marques, Abrams, & Serodio,

2001). A conformist silo mentality prevails—this preserves homogeneity

and inhibits change by suppressing criticism (Hornsey, 2005), and may

produce symptoms similar to groupthink (Janis, 1972). There is reliable

and widespread social validation of one’s worldview.

Orthodoxy prevails—there is a single standard of right and wrong atti-

tudes and behaviors (Deconchy, 1984). It is quite likely that value similarity

comes to the fore as a defining feature of the group. Values run deeper than

attitudes (Rokeach, 1973) and provide a stronger and more enduring behav-

ioral imperative couched in the absolutist language of moral superiority.

In totalistic groups, values, attitudes, and beliefs are tightly woven together

into ideological belief systems that are self‐contained and explanatory

(Billig, 1982; Larrain, 1979; Thompson, 1990), providing a firm and

unassailable platform of certitude.

Together orthodoxy and ideology may help resolve the postmodern para-

dox. Dunn (1998) has argued that there is a postmodern paradox that makes

the certainties and absolutes oVered by ideologies particularly attractive in a

postmodern world of moral and behavioral relativities. Baumeister (1987)

paints a picture of medieval society in which social relations were fixed and

stable, and legitimized in religious terms. People’s lives and identity were

clearly mapped out according to position in the social order; by visible

ascribed attributes such as family membership, social rank, birth order,

and place of birth. People were tightly locked into a matrix of prescribed

group memberships and social relations. By the 1950s, these stable identities

94 MICHAEL A. HOGG

had been almost entirely replaced by a more atomistic individual‐orientedstatus society that ‘‘did not promote feeling of identification or collective

involvement’’ (Nisbet, 1959, p. 17), producing the postmodern paradox in

which people with today’s less structured self yearn for community and the

collective aYliations of times past (Barber, 1995; Bashevkin, 1991; Dunn,

1998 ; Gerge n, 1991 ). This gen eral idea is invo ked by Lewis ( 2004 , p. 19) in

his analysis of contemporary Islamic fundamentalism—he argues that ‘‘in a

time of intensifying strains, of faltering ideologies, jaded loyalties, and

crumbling institutions, an ideology expressed in Islamic terms is particularly

appealing.’’

Totalistic groups tend to be relatively insular. Insularity provides a com-

fortably circumscribed world for members, but is also associated with

marked ethno centrism (Brew er & Campbe ll, 1976 ) and accentua ted mis trust

and fear of outsiders (Stephan & Stephan, 1985). Because totalistic groups

are highly entitative, processes of essentialism (Haslam et al., 1998) are also

likely to be enhanced, further rendering self and social context invariant and

immutable. Finally, because high entitativity is associated with clear internal

structure, totalistic groups are likely to be relatively rigidly structured in

terms of role relations and communication networks (Bavelas, 1968), and

leader ship is likely to be relative ly hierar chical an d au tocratic (cf. Lipp itt &

W hite, 1943 ).

A. STUDIES OF UNCERTAINTY, IDENTITY, AND EXTREMISM

This account of the general structure and form of extremist groups makes it

easy to see how they provide succor for the uncertain. They provide the sort

of group identity that clearly defines self and protects self from uncertainty.

The basic prediction is that under uncertainty people should identify

strongly with such groups, or make the structure and form of existing groups

that they belong to more extreme and totalistic. We conducted a triad of

very similar studies to investigate this hypothesis (Hogg, Meehan, Parsons,

Farquharson, & Svensson, 2006).

The participants were Australian university students, who could be expec-

ted to be individualistic (Triandis, 1989), and to have an independent self‐construal (Markus & Kitayama, 1991; Oyserman, Coon, & Kemmelmeier,

2002) and low ‘‘power distance’’ (Hofstede, 1980), inclining them generally to

prefer more moderate groups (cf. Fiske, Kitayama, Markus, & Nisbett, 1998;

Smith, Bond, & Kagitcibasi, 2006). This, taken in conjunction with the fact

that the level of self‐uncertainty in the studies could not be genuinely

extreme, led us to make the context‐specific prediction that the participants’

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

Low (moderate) High (extreme)

Extremism

Gro

up id

entif

icat

ion

High uncertainty

Low uncertainty

Fig. 6. Hogg et al. (2006, Study 1): Group identification as a function of group extremism

for high‐ and low‐self‐uncertainty participants, � ¼ .16, t ¼ 2.16, p ¼ .033. Note: Identification

is a three‐item scale (� ¼ .89) that can take values between one and nine.


general tendency to identify more strongly with moderate than extreme

groups would weaken or disappear with increasing self‐uncertainty.Study 1 was a field experiment (N ¼ 168) in which we measured partici-

pants’ self‐uncertainty on 20 diVerent dimensions (� ¼ .88) and then

provided them with a carefully constructed manifesto, ostensibly provided

by members of a student action group that, like them, opposed various

government threats to Australian universities. The manifesto described

either a relatively moderate group or a quite extreme group in terms of its

general structure and form—operationalizing extremism by capturing the

attributes described above. There was then a check on perceived extremism,

after which participants indicated how much they identified with the group

(three items, � ¼ .89) and how favorably they evaluated the group (four

items, � ¼ .90). As anticipated, participants evaluated the moderate group

more favorably than the extreme group, and also identified more strongly

with it. However, as predicted, the tendency to identify more with the

moderate than extreme group disappeared among more highly uncertain

participants (Fig. 6).

In Study 2 (N¼ 84), we measured self‐uncertainty with a subset of 15 items

from Study 1 (� ¼ .91). Again we manipulated extremism by presenting

information on a student action group—this time focusing on a diVerentstudent issue, and presenting the information via a carefully constructed

audio interview with key members of the group. We checked on the manip-

ulation, and measured identification (six items, � ¼ .97), but then also

measured participants’ intentions to engage in protest activities on behalf

of the group (six items, � ¼ .93). Identification with an extreme group is

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9


Extremism

Gro

up id

entif

icat

ion

High uncertainty

Low uncertainty

Fig. 7. Hogg et al. (2006, Study 2): Group identification as a function of group extremism

for high‐ and low‐self‐uncertainty participants, � ¼ .24, t ¼ 2.70, p ¼ .009. Note: Identification

is a six‐item scale (� ¼ .97) that can take values between one and nine.

96 MICHAEL A. HOGG

more problematic if people also intend to engage in extreme behavior—even

more so if people actually engage in those behaviors. Attitude–behavior

research concludes that behavioral intentions are a good predictor of actual

behavior (Ajzen & Fishbein, 1977; Kraus, 1995), and social identity research

theorizes and shows that the strongest attitude–behavior correspondence

occurs if attitudes are normative of an in‐group that people identify with

(Terry & Hogg, 1996; Terry, Hogg, & White, 2000). In Study 2, we predicted

that the eVects of uncertainty and extremism on behavioral intentions

would reflect the eVects on identification and be mediated by identification.

As predicted and replicating Study 1, the tendency to identify more with a

moderate than an extreme group disappeared under high uncertainty (Fig. 7)

and this was exactly reflected in behavioral intentions—identification

mediated the eVect of uncertainty and extremism on behavioral intentions.

Study 3 was a laboratory experiment (N ¼ 82) where we first manipulated

extremism via a description of a student action group, focusing on a third

diVerent student issue—but this time the description was in the form of a

carefully staged (using actors) video interview with key members of the

action group. We then manipulated, rather than measured self‐uncertainty—using the prim ing procedure from Hogg et al. (2007) descri bed abo ve. The

dependent measures were a four‐item group evaluation scale adapted

from Study 1 (� ¼ .83), a nine‐item identification scale (� ¼ .94), and the

six‐item behavioral intentions scale from Study 2 (� ¼ .92). Unlike Study 1,

participants did not evaluate the moderate group more favorably than the

extreme group, but instead evaluated both groups more favorably when they

were uncertain. On identification we replicated both previous studies—the

5.04b 5.34b5.42b

3.69a

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9


Extremism

Gro

up id

entif

icat

ion

High uncertainty

Low uncertainty

Fig. 8. Hogg et al. (2006, Study 3): EVect of uncertainty and group extremism on group

identification, F(1, 78) ¼ 10.70, p ¼ .002. Note: Identification is a nine‐item scale (� ¼ .94) that

can take values between one and nine. Means not sharing a subscript are significantly diVerent

by simple main eVects.


tendency to identify more with a moderate than an extreme group disap-

peared under high uncertainty, but here we also found that where the group

was extreme participants identified significantly more if they were uncertain

than if they were not (Fig. 8). As in Study 2, this eVect was mirrored in

behavioral intentions and mediated by identification.

Together, these three studies provide consistent support, across varying

methods of manipulating extremism and both measured and manipu-

lated self‐uncertainty, for uncertainty–identity theory’s predictions about

uncertainty‐induced identification with extreme groups. Student participants’

preference to identify with moderate groups disappeared when they were

more uncertain, and identification with extreme groups was stronger among

participants who were high than low in uncertainty. This eVect was exactlymirrored in intentions to engage in behavior on behalf of the group. It remains

to be shown empirically that when uncertainty is genuinely extreme (in the

present studies uncertainty was high, but not extreme) participants identify

significantly more with extreme than moderate groups.

VI. Extensions, Applications, and Implications of

Uncertainty–Identity Theory

In this section, I describe some extensions and implications of uncertainty–

identity theory—to some extent consolidating ideas mentioned earlier.

98 MICHAEL A. HOGG

A. DEPERSONALIZATION AND PROJECTION

The reason why group identification reduces uncertainty is that self‐categorization transforms self so that perceptions, feelings, attitudes, and

behaviors are prescribed by the group prototype—a process of depersonali-

zation in which the group’s prototypical attributes are assigned to self. This

process assumes that there is some content to the prototype—that there

really are some attributes to assign to self. Indeed, the more richly, con-

cretely, clearly, and distinctively defined a group is the better it is at reducing

self‐uncertainty. As we have seen above, under uncertainty people prefer to

identify, and identify more strongly with high‐entitativity groups that have

these sorts of prototypes.

What happens, then, if the group prototype is fuzzy and unclear, lacks

consensus, or is impoverished and information‐poor? The simple answer,

from above, is that under uncertainty we would be disinclined to identify

because the group would do little to reduce uncertainty. Instead, we would

identify with a diVerent more entitative group that had more clearly defined

attributes. However, sometimes this is not possible; for example, when you

join a new group and know little about it, when there are few if any other

groups that are self‐relevant in that situation, or when you are externally

constrained to define yourself in terms of the group.

Under these circumstances, people use whatever information they can to

construct a clear and substantial prototype for the group. For example,

information can be gathered slowly from other people, the media, the

Internet, and so on. However, one source of information that is immediately

available, extraordinarily rich, and virtually instantaneous to apply is the

self. People know a great deal about themselves, and knowing they share a

category membership with others triggers an automatic assumption of

shared attributes. If you do not know much about the other people or the

group as a whole, you assume that the group and its members have attri-

butes like yours—you project your attributes onto the group and, eVectively,make the group in your own image.

This idea has been proposed by Crisp and colleagues (Crisp, Farr, Beck,

Hogg, & Cortez, 2006; Crisp & Hogg, 2006). Drawing on self‐anchoringtheory (Cadinu & Rothbart, 1996), the concept of social projection (Clement

& Krueger, 2000; Krueger & Clement, 1996), and research by Otten (2002;

Otten & Moskowitz, 2000; Otten & Wentura, 1999, 2001), Crisp and collea-

gues argue that a full analysis of the process of uncertainty reduction

through group identification needs to consider not only uncertainty about

or related to self directly, but also uncertainty about the attributes of

particular social identities and groups that one could identify with.

Feelings of self‐uncertainty typically hinge on who we are and how we

should behave and relate to others in a given context, and we assign group


attributes to ourselves through a process of self‐categorization‐generateddepersonalization. Here, the main focus of our uncertainty is self not the

group—we are relatively certain about the group’s attributes. If, however,

self‐uncertainty is associated with lack of information about the group’s

attributes, the main focus of uncertainty may actually be the group—we

are more uncertain about the group than about self. Self‐categorization is

here associated with a process of projection in which we assign our own

attributes to the group. Projection reduces uncertainty because it is asso-

ciated with an identity and (cognitively constructed) self‐definition that is

ostensibly grounded in consensus. However, there is no doubt that projec-

tion is a less immediate route to uncertainty reduction. It is possible that it is

a first step toward constructing a concrete prototype that we assign to self

through depersonalization.

Crisp et al. (2006) conducted two similar experiments (N ¼ 57 and 159) as

a first step in investigating depersonalization and projection processes in

uncertainty‐induced identification. In both studies, the participants were

either undergraduate students who had just arrived at university (first year,

freshmen) or students who had already been there for a year (second year,

sophomores). It was reasoned that freshmen would be more uncertain than

sophomores about the group (the university). The second predictor variable

was a manipulation in which participants were primed to either focus on self

or focus on the group. The dependent variable was a measure of self‐in‐groupdefinitional overlap—overlap between participants’ description of themselves

and their description of the group. As predicted, among sophomores (rela-

tively certain about the in‐group) definitional overlap was greater in the groupprime condition (a process of depersonalization), whereas among freshmen

(uncertain about the in‐group) definitional overlap was greater in the self

prime condition (a process of projection).

The idea that the locus of uncertainty may aVect the process of group

identification has many implications. For example, it may help explain the

way in which group leaders initiate actions to define the group whereas fol-

lowers do not. Perhaps leaders are more certain than followers about them-

selves as group members and therefore, in association with identification,

they engage in more pronounced projection behaviors that seek to mold the

group in their own image.

B. CENTRAL MEMBERS, MARGINAL MEMBERS, LEADERS,

AND DEVIANTS

This idea can be pursued further by drawing on the social identity theory of

leadership (Hogg, 2001b; Hogg & van Knippenberg, 2003; van Knippenberg

& Hogg, 2003; also see Ellemers, de Gilder, & Haslam, 2004) and on social

100 MICHAEL A. HOGG

identity analyses of deviance (Marques et al., 2001; Marques, Abrams et al.,

2001) and of the prototypicality of group members (Hogg, 2005c). A key

point in these analyses is that group members vary in terms of how proto-

typical of the group they are, how prototypical they consider themselves to

be, and how prototypical others consider them to be. In groups, people pay

very close attention to the prototype and to prototype‐relevant information,

and therefore prototypicality impacts social processes within and between

groups very significantly.

Some implications of this are that prototypically central members find it

relatively easy to be innovative and to show leadership, whereas proto-

typically marginal members do not, and are often perceived negatively and

treated as deviants. Uncertainty may be involved in a variety of diVerentways. Most obviously, marginal members will be more uncertain than

central members of their membership status in the group and of the proto-

typical properties of the group. Research shows that prototypical members

are considered to be more strongly identified with the group than marginal

members, and are therefore trusted more than marginal members—their

membership credentials are less often called into question (see Platow, Reid,

& Andrew, 1998; Platow & van Knippenberg, 2001; Tyler, 1997; Tyler &

Lind, 1992).

Using the language of Higgins’s (1998) regulatory focus theory, marginal

members may be more oriented toward promoting their identification in

order to reduce their membership uncertainty, whereas prototypical mem-

bers may be more oriented toward protecting their identification in order to

stave oV the specter of membership uncertainty. Thus, prototypicality and

centrality of membership may influence people’s orientation toward uncer-

tainty reduction through identification, and the particular social behaviors

they engage in to manage self‐uncertainty. Taken in conjunction with the

earlier discussion of depersonalization and projection, we could speculate

that central members (leaders?) tend to engage in behaviors that involve

identity protection and self‐projection onto the group, whereas more mar-

ginal members tend to engage in behaviors involving identity acquisition and

depersonalization. Marginal members may also have a strong need to feel

that they can trust more prototypical members or leaders to treat them

honestly, in matters of identity and membership and in matters relating to

the nature of the group prototype (see below).

A further twist to this story is that certainty is power. If you can call into

question someone’s sense of self, their identity, then you have exercised

enormous power over that person. Within groups, leaders can use their

position of influence and power to keep subordinates teetering on the brink

of uncertainty about their membership and wider sense of self. They can do

this by continually redefining the group and the meaning of membership and


by targeting marginal members as deviants to be pilloried, persecuted, and

rejected. At the same time, the leader can oVer complete commitment and

subjugation to and identification with the group as the ultimate resolution of

unc ertainty (see Hogg, 2007).

Marris (1996) has elaborated this idea in the context of intergroup rela-

tions—talking about the ‘‘politics of uncertainty.’’ He argues that intergroup

relations are amatter of groups struggling over certainty.Dominant groups are

those whose existence is characterized by relative certainty (e.g., secure jobs,

reliable income, media validation of one’s worldview) and subordinate groups

by uncertainty (e.g., job insecurity, unpredictable income, unreliable housing).

Groups actively strive to reduce uncertainty for their own group and increase

uncertainty for relevant out‐groups—an intergroup struggle for certainty.

Marginal members of a group or marginal groups in wider society may not

always be powerless in the uncertainty game. They too can use uncertainty as

a strategic tool to influence and control others. A key idea in the literature on

minority influence (Martin & Hewstone, 2003; Moscovici, 1980; Mugny &

Perez, 1991) is that active minorities present a viewpoint that is consistent

across time and widely shared by members of the minority. A viewpoint with

these qualities causes the majority to feel uncertain about its own viewpoint—

uncertainty that runs deep and ultimately leads to conversion to the minor-

ity’s viewpoint. For marginal status to have this eVect there probably needs tobe a group of marginal members—a lone marginal would find it diYcult

to create the perception of a shared viewpoint. From an uncertainty–identity

theory perspective, conversion has its eVect not merely because the minority’s

behavior style raises uncertainty in the majority, but because the uncertainty

is ultimately about or focused on self and identity. Conversion involves

the majority identifying with a redefined representation of majority group

membership.

The final way in which uncertainty may relate to leadership was foresha-

dowed in the earlier discussion of totalistic groups. It was argued that all

things being equal, extreme uncertainty leads to strong identification with

totalistic groups that have relatively hierarchical leadership structures. Hier-

archical leadership provides unambiguous group structure and a clear defi-

nition of consensual prototypicality. This is probably true most of the time,

but there may be exceptions. Some extremist groups may be ideologically

opposed to hierarchical leadership. For example, some relatively extreme

1970s feminist groups actively eschewed hierarchical leadership (Freeman,

1973; Hackman, 2002, p.93). For other extremist groups, hierarchical lead-

ership may put the group at risk due to elevated visibility (e.g., some 1950s

communist cells), or may be diYcult to maintain due to other factors. For

example, some contemporary terrorist groups are highly distributed as a

network of insulated autonomous cells and no one strong leader.

102 MICHAEL A. HOGG

In this way, the communication structure of a group (Bavelas, 1968) may

influence the extent to which strong hierarchical leadership is feasible, even

in extremist groups. Highly centralized groups with a single communication

node are conducive to the development of hierarchical leadership under uncer-

tainty. Less centralized groups which do not have a single communication hub

are less conducive to hierarchical leadership. In the latter case, conditions of

uncertainty may encourage the group and its members to change the group’s

communication structure. Sometimes this may be diYcult because the commu-

nication structure is tied to the very nature of the group—for example, many

groups that rely on computer‐mediated communication (Hackman, 2002).

Nevertheless, in the case of extreme groups with no apparent single strong

leader, it may simply be that group life prevents the embodiment of leader-

ship in a single person, but ideological or symbolic leadership prevails in the

form of a strong prescriptive representation of group identity.

C. UNCERTAINTY, IDENTITY, AND TRUST

Trust is closely associated with predictability and uncertainty. The more we

are able to trust someone, the more predictable they are and the less

uncertain we feel. Trust plays a central role in group, specifically in‐group,life. In‐groups are ‘‘bounded communities of mutual trust and obligation’’

(Brewer, 1999, p. 433) in which members expect to be able to trust fellow

members to do them no harm and to be acting in the best interest of the

group as a whole (Levine & Moreland, 2002). This expectation serves a clear

evolutionary function in allowing people to have confidence in those with

whom they choose to cooperate (Kenrick, Li, & Butner, 2003).

In‐group members who betray our group‐based trust by leaving the group

to pursue their personal interest or by acting in ways that only benefit

themselves and are to the detriment of the group as a whole reduce trust

and raise uncertainty and thus invite harsh reactions. This dynamic can be

particularly pronounced for central members who are prototypical of the

group or act as group leaders. Disloyalty and violation of trust on the part of

prototypical members is most disruptive of group equilibrium (Arrow,

McGrath, & Berdahl, 2000; Van Vugt & Hart, 2004), and is a particularly

potent source of uncertainty about what the group stands for, about one’s

membership in the group, and ultimately about self.

We do not have such expectations for marginal members. On the con-

trary, we expect them to be less reliable and less loyal, and are less surprised

when they behave in these ways. In addition, we can react more harshly

toward them, precisely because of their marginal position in the group.

Thus, they can readily be marginalized as deviants.


D. UNCERTAINTY, IDENTITY, AND IDEOLOGY

The relation between uncertainty, identity, and ideology is discussed fully

elsewhere (Hogg, 2005a) and is mentioned a number of times above. Ideology

is a highly contested sociopolitical construct (Larrain, 1979; Thompson,

1990), but for our social psychological purposes an ideology can be defined

as ‘‘an integrated system of apparently congruent beliefs and values that

explain and justify the world, our place within it, our relationship with others,

and our own and others’ actions. Furthermore, it is a belief system that is

shared within a group or community’’ (Hogg, 2005a, p. 204). To this can be

added the fact that ideologies are largely self‐contained universes. They

define the problematic and provide answers to all and only those questions

generated by the problematic.

From this, it is quite clear that ideological belief systems are perfectly

suited to uncertainty reduction. They do exactly what is needed to reduce

self‐uncertainty. Ideologies arise under uncertainty and prevail to ward oVuncertainty. Ideologies are also almost universally attached to specific group

membership—group memberships that people zealously cherish with extra-

ordinary passion. It is no accident that monolithic ideological systems

have arisen around the most fundamental human uncertainties—the origins

of life and the universe, the organization of human society, and death and

the afterlife. From uncertainty–identity theory, it can be seen why these

scientific, religious, and political ideologies, particularly the latter two, are

a perennial source of much of humanity’s greatest inhumanity.

Social psychologists have begun to focus more closely on ideology

and ideology‐related constructs (Crocker & Major, 1994; Duckitt, 2001;

Greenberg, Koole, & Pyszczynski, 2004; Jost & Major, 2001; Jost et al.,

2003; Major, Quinton, & McCoy, 2002). Particular ideological forms have

been a specific focus: for example, social dominance orientation (Sidanius &

Pratto, 1999), right wing authoritarianism (Altemeyer, 1998), system justifi-

cation beliefs (Jost, Banaji, & Nosek, 2004; Jost & Hunyady, 2002), the

protestant work ethic (Furnham, 1990; Quinn & Crocker, 1999), belief in a

just world (Furnham, 2003; Furnham & Procter, 1989; Rohan, 2000), and

religious fundamentalism (Altemeyer, 2003; Rowatt & Franklin, 2004).

Uncertainty–identity theory does not distinguish among specific ideolo-

gies, but focuses on common features of ideological systems that suit them to

uncertainty reduction through group identification. The greater the uncer-

tainty, the more likely it is that people will identify very strongly, as true

believers, with high entitativity, perhaps totalistic, groups that have a

tightly integrated, consensual, and explanatory system of absolutist beliefs,

attitudes, and values.

104 MICHAEL A. HOGG

E. UNCERTAINTY, IDENTITY, AND SOCIAL MOBILIZATION

Uncertainty about outcomes and about the behavior of others is often

viewed as a significant obstacle to social mobilization. The topic of social

mobilization focuses on people’s participation in social protest or social

action groups (Reicher, 2001; Sturmer & Simon, 2004; Tyler & Smith,

1998), and addresses the question of how individual discontents are trans-

formed into collective action. How and why do sympathizers become

mobilized as activists or participants?

Klandermans (1997) argues that mobilization reflects the attitude–behavior

relation. Sympathizers hold sympathetic attitudes toward an issue, yet these

attitudes do not readily translate into behavior. From this perspective, one

barrier to mobilization is that people are not sure how, or if at all, their

behavior will achieve their attitudinal goals (cf. Ajzen, 1989). Mobilization

also resembles a social dilemma (cf. de Cremer & van Vugt, 1999). Protest is

generally for a social good (e.g., equality) or against a social ill (e.g., oppres-

sion). Success benefits everyone irrespective of participation but failure harms

participants more. Because you cannot be sure that others will participate, it

is tempting to free ride, to remain a sympathizer rather than become a

participant. In both cases, uncertainty is a potent barrier to participation.

However, uncertainty–identity theory suggests that uncertainty may

sometimes have the opposite eVect. To the extent that uncertainty reflects

on or is focused on self‐conception, people identify strongly with the group,

and the group’s norms are applied to self via self‐categorization and deper-

sonalization. The group’s attitudes become one’s own, or one’s own atti-

tudes become prototypical of membership. According to the social identity

analysis of the attitude–behavior relation, it is precisely under these circum-

stances that people are most likely to behave in accordance with their atti-

tudes (Terry & Hogg, 1996; Terry et al., 2000; also see Hogg & Smith, in

press)—thus, it is group identification that increases the probability of social

action and collective protest (Sturmer & Simon, 2004).

There is some evidence for this analysis. Two of the studies of uncertainty

and extremism reported above (Hogg et al., 2006, Studies 2 and 3) found

that intentions to actually engage in behavior on behalf of the group were

fully mediated by identification. The extent to which people reported they

would engage in attitude‐congruent group normative behavior was entirely

determined by the degree to which they identified with the group.

Smith et al. (in press) report two studies adopting a conventional attitude–

behavior paradigm to focus on the impact of self‐uncertainty on conformity to

group norms. In both studies, self‐uncertainty was manipulated using a delib-

erative mindset manipulation (McGregor et al., 2001). In Study 1 (N ¼ 106),

student participants were exposed to information about a relevant student

4.77b

3.78a

4.89ab5.28b

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

Low High

Uncertainty

Will

ingn

ess

to e

ngag

e in

beha

vior

Incongruent norm

Congruent norm

Fig. 9. Smith et al. (in press, Study 1): EVect of uncertainty and normative support on

willingness to engage in attitude‐consistent behavior, F(1, 97) ¼ 5.72, p ¼ .019. Note: Willingness

to engage in attitude‐consistent behavior is a four‐item scale (� ¼ .85) that can take values between

one and nine. Means not sharing a subscript are significantly diVerent by simple main eVects.


issue that portrayed normative student attitudes as being congruent, or incon-

gruent, with the participant’s own attitude. In Study 2 (N ¼ 83), there was a

third norm condition in which the normative information was ambiguous.

The dependent variable comprised a range of measures of intentions to

engage in attitude‐consistent behaviors. The results of Study 1 were clearest.

Participants’ intentions to engage in attitude‐consistent behavior (four items,

� ¼ .85) strengthened under uncertainty where the group provided norma-

tive support for their attitude, but weakened where the group’s norm was

contrary to the participants’ attitude (Fig. 9).

VII. Uncertainty–Identity Theory in Relation to Other Ideas

The previous section discussed some extensions and implications of uncer-

tainty–identity theory. In this section, I briefly touch on, sometimes revisit,

the relation between uncertainty–identity theory and some related ideas.

A. CONTEXT AND PERSONALITY

An important credo for uncertainty–identity theory is that self‐uncertainty isproduced by contextual factors. Thus, enduring uncertainty reflects an

enduring uncertainty–producing context rather than an individual diVerenceor personality factor—an argument famously used by others to attribute

106 MICHAEL A. HOGG

authoritarianism and prejudice to context rather than personality (Minard,

1952; Pettigrew, 1958). For example, variations in uncertainty across the life

span can reflect developmental or life‐span factors such as adolescence,

empty‐nest, retirement, and so forth. This is not to say that people do not

diVer in terms of their experience of uncertainty, their tolerance for uncer-

tainty, their need to reduce uncertainty, and their mode of reducing or

avoiding uncertainty. Rather, much of this individual variation may be

due to variation in enduring contextual factors; and in uncertainty–identity

theory, individual variation is treated as ‘‘error variance.’’

Nevertheless, as discussed earlier, the social psychology literature on uncer-

tainty and uncertainty‐related constructs is dominated by personality and

individual diVerences approaches. One particularly relevant personality ap-

proach to uncertainty is the work of Kruglanski and colleagues on need for

cognitive closure (Kruglanski, 1989, 2004; Kruglanski & Webster, 1996;

Neuberg & Newson, 1993; Webster & Kruglanski, 1998). Kruglanski talks

about need for cognitive closure as a generic individual diVerence variable.

Some people have a strong need for structure and cognitive closure. They are

more concerned to reduce uncertainty quickly than to be correct, and therefore

‘‘seize’’ on information and ‘‘freeze’’ on their judgments—they are closed‐minded. Other people have a greater fear of invalidity and are able to tolerate

substantial uncertainty while they engage in a prolonged search for validity.

There is no doubt that need for cognitive closure is essentially a personali-

ty and individual diVerences construct. A 42‐item need for cognitive closure

scale has been developed (Webster & Kruglanski, 1994), and research shows

that individual diVerences in need for closure are associated with a wide

array of other personality constructs. However, Kruglanski has reintro-

duced the notion that situational factors can have an influence (Kruglanski,

Pierro, Mannetti, & De Grada, 2006). For example, need for closure has

been elevated by time pressure, ambient noise, fatigue, alcoholic intoxica-

tion, and other manipulations that vary the costs or benefits of reaching

closure quickly and completely.

Kruglanski et al. (2006) also introduce a new concept—a ‘‘syndrome’’

they call ‘‘group‐centrism,’’ which emerges

‘‘When people care a lot about sharing opinions with others in their group; when they

endorse central authority that sets uniform norms and standards; when they suppress

dissent, shun diversity, and show in‐group favoritism; when they venerate their

group’s norms and traditions, and display fierce adherence to its views; when above

all, they exhibit all these as a package’’ (p. 84).

They go on to argue that need for closure as a trait or a state can foster

group‐centrism. For instance, high need for closure has been found to be


associated with a number of more pronounced group membership‐relatedbehaviors such as stereotyping (Dijksterhuis, van Knippenberg, Kruglanski,

& Schaper, 1996) and intergroup discrimination (Shah, Kruglanski, &

Thompson, 1998).

Although Kruglanski and associates only make brief passing reference to

social identity theory and to the role of uncertainty reduction in group identifi-

cation, their analysis has clear convergencewith aspects of uncertainty–identity

theory, and therefore provides some conceptual validation for uncertainty–

identity theory. Specifically, the idea that a drive for closure can cause people to

become group‐centric to the extent that they prefer highly groupy groups,

resonates with the uncertainty–identity thesis that self‐uncertainty ‘‘drives’’

people to categorize themselves asmembers of (identify with) entitative groups,

and that more extreme uncertainty can produce true believers and zealotry

associated with totalistic group structures characterized by ideology, intoler-

ance, extreme ethnocentrism, homogeneity, suppression of dissent, hierarchical

structure, and so forth.

Another particularly relevant personality approach to uncertainty is

Sorrentino’s research on uncertainty orientation (Sorrentino & Roney,

1986, 1999; Sorrentino & Short, 1986). Sorrentino diVerentiates between

(1) uncertainty‐oriented people, who seek out information that may raise

uncertainty, in order to resolve uncertainty (‘‘need to know,’’ or scientific

types); and (2) certainty‐oriented people who avoid uncertainty if they can,

and when confronted with uncertainty defer to others or use heuristics to

resolve uncertainty quickly.

Sorrentino and colleagues believe that the social identity analysis of uncer-

tainty reduction and group identification applies better to certainty‐ thanuncertainty‐oriented people, and report a modified replication of Mullin

and Hogg (1998) to support their argument (Sorrentino et al., 2001). Two

comments can be made in relation to this work (see Hogg, 2001a). First

Sorrentino separates social identity processes and self‐categorization pro-

cesses, when in fact self‐categorization is the cognitive process responsible

for social identification. Second, as explained above, we would expect indi-

vidual diVerences to strengthen or weaken the uncertainty–identity relation,

but this does not invalidate the uncertainty–identity process.

B. CULTURE

Sorrentino’s work does, however, invite the question of how culture might

impact the uncertainty–identity relation. Of particular relevance is the fact

that one of Hofstede’s (1980) four dimensions to diVerentiate cultures

was uncertainty avoidance. Western cultures (e.g., Denmark) are low on

108 MICHAEL A. HOGG

uncertainty avoidance, whereas Eastern cultures (e.g., Japan) are high.

Relatedly, Schwartz (1992) reported that Eastern cultures are less open to

change. Overall, relative to Western cultures, Eastern cultures are not only

more uncertainty avoidant and less open to change, but they are more

collectivist (Hofstede, 1980) and they are associated with a more interdepen-

dent (Markus & Kitayama, 1991) and relational (Brewer & Gardner, 1996;

Yuki, 2003) self‐concept (see Oyserman et al., 2002). There appears to be an

association between a stronger desire to reduce or avoid uncertainty, and self‐conception in more collectivist, interdependent, or relational terms. This is

consistent with uncertainty–identity theory. Where the need to reduce uncer-

tainty is elevated, people identify more strongly with groups, particularly

high‐entitativity groups.

Hogg (2006a) reports a preliminary study, by Hogg and Alit, testing the

hypothesis that uncertainty‐induced identification with high‐entitativitygroups would be accentuated among people with a stronger inclination

toward collectivist/interdependent/relational self‐construal. Participants

were 115 Indonesian tertiary students from the island of Bali and 105

Australian tertiary students from the city of Brisbane (N ¼ 220). They

completed a pencil‐and‐paper role playing exercise in which independent–

interdependent self‐construal was measured (median split produced ‘‘inde-

pendents’’ and ‘‘interdependents’’), performed a diYcult or easy perception

task (a standard uncertainty manipulation), and then role‐played being in a

high‐ or low‐entitativity discussion group (entitativity manipulation). The

dependent measure was an eight‐item group identification scale (� ¼ .96).

The three‐way interaction was significant, F(1, 212) ¼ 4.97, p ¼ .027. Under

high uncertainty, participants identified more strongly with a high‐ than a

low‐entitativity group, and the eVect was stronger for interdependent thanindependent participants.

C. TERROR MANAGEMENT, COMPENSATORY CONVICTION,

SELF‐VERIFICATION, AND SYSTEM JUSTIFICATION

Over the past decade, terror management theory has attracted substantial

attention in social psychology (Greenberg, Solomon, & Pyszczynski, 1997;

Pyszczynski et al., 1999, 2004). The key point is that existential anxiety, fear

of death, motivates aYliation and other behaviors aimed at buVering this

anxiety. One way in which people can buVer existential anxiety and create

symbolic immortality is by constructing, adhering to, and protecting a

cultural worldview (cf. ideology) that provides them with a sense of order,

stability, and predictability. Mortality salience has been shown to increase


aY liation and belongi ngness needs ( Mikuli ncer, Floria n, & Hirschberge r,

2004 ; Pyszczynski et al., 1996 ), and group and worldview protect ive behavior s

( Greenber g et al., 1990; Harmon ‐ Jones, Greenb erg, & Solomon, 1996 ).

Exist ential anxiet y is, howeve r, a mess y variab le. It certainly involv es

an xiety abou t de ath, but also a significan t de gree of unc ertainty about one’s

own dea th an d, pe rhaps most impor tantly, abo ut what there is after death,

the afte rlife. Not surpri singly, mortali ty salience has been shown to increa se

pe ople’s desir e for c ertainty (Landa u et al., 2004; van den Bos , 2001 ), and to

ha ve very sim ilar e V ects to those produc ed by uncerta inty man ipulations

(van den Bos &Miedema, 2000; van den Bos, Poortvliet, Maas, Miedema, &

van den Ham, 2005; see van den Bos & Lind, 2002 ). In add ition, low state or

trait uncertainty has been shown to reduce the impact of mortality salience

(Dechesne, Janssen, & van Knippenberg, 2000; Jost, Fitzsimons, & Kay,

2004).

This suggests that existential anxiety may have an epistemic dimension,

that is, in this case focused on death and the afterlife, but obeys more general

principles of uncertainty reduction through group identification as specified

by uncertainty–identity theory. The afterlife certainly is the big unknown,

and so it is not surprising, from an uncertainty–identity point of view, that

religious identities and associated ideologies have a long history of tending

toward fundamentalism, extremism, and zealotry.

Uncertainty–identity theory has implications for McGregor’s compensatory

conviction model. On the basis of self‐aYrmation theory (Steele, 1988), com-

pensatory conviction is a hydraulic motivational model. It argues that when

people feel uncertain in one domain, they compensate for this by ‘‘spontane-

ously emphasizing certainty and conviction about unrelated attitudes,

values, personal goals, and identifications’’ (McGregor et al., 2001, p. 473;

also see McGregor & Marigold, 2003). Compensatory conviction research

focuses mainly on uncertainty‐sponsored hardening of expressed attitudes

toward social issues, and has (McGregor & Marigold, 2003) investigated the

moderating role of self‐esteem as an individual diVerence variable.Although it provides some data showing uncertainty‐sponsored harden-

ing of intergroup attitudes, accentuation of consensual worldviews, and

aYrmation that particular activities define self (McGregor et al., 2001),

compensatory conviction is not primarily a motivational theory of psycho-

logical identification with a social group. However, a group of studies by

McGregor et al. (2005) shows more directly that group identification and

exaggerated opinion consensus can be consequences of uncertainty‐relatedthreats.

Because compensatory conviction states that people compensate for uncer-

tainty in one domain by expressing conviction in another, it cannot so easily

110 MICHAEL A. HOGG

account for the uncertainty–identity theory findings that the uncertainty–

identification relationship is moderated by being categorized (Grieve &Hogg,

1999) and by the entitativity of the group (Hogg et al., 2007). Uncertainty–

identity theory focuses on group identification, not aYrmation or conviction,

as a response to self‐uncertainty, and thus it predicts that factors related

to group membership, such as inclusion, categorization, and entitativity,

will influence how strongly people identify with a group as a response to

self‐uncertainty.Another theory that relates to aspects of uncertainty–identity theory is

Swann’s self‐verification theory (Swann, 1977; Swann, Polzer, Seyle, & Ko,

2004; Swann, Rentfrow, & Guinn, 2003). Self‐verification theory

‘‘. . . assumes that stable self‐views provide people with a crucial source of coherence,

and invaluable means of defining their existence, organizing experience, predicting

future events, and guiding social interaction’’ (Swann et al., 2003, p. 369).

It goes on to argue that interpersonal relations provide ‘‘the steady supply

of self‐verifying feedback from others’’ (Swann et al., 2003, p. 369) that is

required to construct a stable sense of self. Having achieved a stable and

validated sense of self, people are invested in maintaining and protecting this

self‐view and are likely to pursue a range of strategies to confirm and verify

their self‐concept.Using a slightly diVerent language, self‐verification theory shares with

uncertainty–identity theory the assumption that people need to reduce un-

certainty about themselves and the world they live in. The key diVerence liesin the source and process of self‐uncertainty reduction. For self‐verification,the source is feedback from other people we interact with and the process is

information comparison. For uncertainty–identity theory, the source is

group prototypes (about which we can gather information from other peo-

ple) and the process is self‐categorization and prototype‐based depersonali-

zation. Another key diVerence concerns the types of groups to which people

seek out to belong. For self‐verification theory, it is ‘‘groups that confirm

(people’s) negative or positive self‐views’’ (Swann et al., 2004, p. 11); for

uncertainty–identity theory, it is groups that provide a clearly defined and

distinctive identity, high‐entitativity groups.

Finally, system justification theory (Jost, Banaji et al., 2004; Jost &

Hunyady, 2002) touches on issues that are relevant to uncertainty–identity

theory. System justification theory maintains that ‘‘people are motivated to

perceive existing social and political arrangements as fair, legitimate, and

justifiable . . ., even sometimes at the expense of personal and group interests

and esteem,’’ and goes on to argue that ‘‘people who are most disadvantaged

by a given social system should paradoxically be the most likely to provide


ideological support for it, insofar as they have the greatest need to justify

their suVering’’ (Jost, Fitzsimons, & Kay, 2004, p. 267, emphasis in original).

Uncertainty reduction is nominated as one motivation for system justifica-

tion, along with cognitive consistency, conservation of eVort and prior

beliefs, fear of equality, illusion of control, belief in a just world, and

reduction of dissonance over failing to combat oppression.

However, the needs to reduce uncertainty and threat are considered to be

perhaps the primary needs—the ones most closely associated with ideologi-

cal justification of the status quo (Jost et al., 2003). Jost, Fitsimons, and Kay

(2004) write that ‘‘the management of uncertainty and threat would be most

closely linked to the two core components of conservative thought . . .,resistance to change and acceptance of inequality’’ and ‘‘(N)eeds to reduce

uncertainty and threat are well served by ideological resistance to change,

insofar as change (by its very nature) upsets existing realities and is fraught

with epistemic insecurity’’ (p. 271, parenthesis in original).

In this way, system justification theory attributes inequality‐enhancingconservative ideologies primarily to the management of uncertainty, which

is consistent with uncertainty–identity theory. However, uncertainty–identity

theory is more basic—it specifies precisely how uncertainty reduction is

social cognitively accomplished by self‐categorization and group identifica-

tion and the associated process of prototype‐based depersonalization. It is

also more encompassing—it shows how any ideological belief system, not

just a politically conservative one, grounded in a high‐entitativity group is

ideally suited to self‐uncertainty reduction through group identification.

VIII. Concluding Comments

This chapter describes uncertainty–identity theory—its origins, its concepts,

its implications and extensions, and its relation to related ideas and theories.

The emphasis has been conceptual but empirical support was also described

and assessed. Uncertainty–identity theory is an extension of social identity

theory that postulates uncertainty reduction as a key motivation for social

identity processes and group and intergroup behaviors. It is a theory that

attributes particular forms of group attachment, self‐definition, and group

structure to people’s striving to reduce, via group identification, self‐categorization and prototype‐based depersonalization, feelings of uncertain-

ty about and related to themselves. The key features of uncertainty–identity

theory can be captured by four broad premises.

Premise 1. People are motivated to reduce or avoid feelings of uncertainty

about themselves, and about their perceptions, judgments, attitudes, and

112 MICHAEL A. HOGG

behaviors that relate to themselves, their interactions with other people, and

their place in social context.

Premise 2. Social categorization reduces or protects from uncertainty

because it depersonalizes perception to conform to one’s in‐group and out‐group prototypes, such that one ‘‘knows’’ how others will behave. Proto-

types define and prescribe people’s identities and therefore their perceptions,

attitudes, feelings, and behaviors, and how they interact with and treat other

people, including oneself. Social categorization of self, self‐categorization,assigns one an identity with all its associated in‐group prototypical attri-

butes. There is usually substantial agreement within a group on the in‐groupprototype and on prototypes of relevant out‐groups—further reducing un-

certainty through consensual validation for one’s behaviors and sense of self.

Premise 3. Prototypes are better at resolving uncertainty to the extent that

they are simple, clear, unambiguous, prescriptive, focused, and consensual,

as well as coherently integrated, self‐contained, and explanatory. These

kinds of prototypes circumscribe clear identities and define or are associated

with distinctive, well‐structured groups that are high in entitativity. Under

uncertainty, people identify more strongly with high‐entitativity groups—

they seek them out to join, they create them anew, or they transform existing

groups to be more entitative.

Premise 4. Where uncertainty is extreme and enduring, the motivation to

reduce uncertainty and the quest for high‐entitativity groups and clear

prototypes are accentuated. Under these circumstances, people may identify

passionately as true believers or zealots, seeking rigidly and hierarchically

structured totalistic groups with closed boundaries, homogenous and ideo-

logical belief structures, and inflexible customs—ethnocentric, insular, and

somewhat narcissistic groups that suppress dissent and are intolerant of

outsiders. These kinds of groups provide all‐embracing identities that are

powerful buVers against self‐uncertainty.Direct and indirect tests of uncertainty–identity theory provide good sup-

port for Premise 2, across diVerent paradigms and diVerent manipulations of

uncertainty. The studies show that uncertainty’s motivational role is indepen-

dent of self‐enhancement and self‐esteem concerns, and provide some evi-

dence for reduced uncertainty after identification. There is also good support

for Premise 3. Entitativity moderates the uncertainty–identification relation-

ship as predicted, as do the self‐relevance of the group and the subjective

importance of the dimension of uncertainty. Studies of ways in which uncer-

tainty can lead group members to accentuate entitativity remain to be pub-

lished. A series of unpublished preliminary studies provide some support for

this by finding that under uncertainty people accentuate how diVerent they seein‐group and out‐group to be—they polarize their representations of in‐groupand out‐group attitudes (Sherman, Hogg, Maitner, & MoYtt, 2006).


Direct support for Premise 4 comes from a series of studies that were

described. However, there is indirect support from a wide array of literatures

that associate uncertainty with aspects of extremism or conservative ideology

and praxis. Unlike these other literatures, uncertainty–identity theory speci-

fies the social cognitive process and places self‐conception and social identity

at its heart.Much research remains to be done—for example, experiments and

surveys with really extreme groups and really extreme uncertainty, closer

investigations of the role of ideology and values in fending oV or reducing

extreme uncertainty, a focus on leadership in totalistic groups, and a focus on

uncertainty and active minorities.

Uncertainty–identity theory embraces some concepts that are also dealt

with by other theories and constructs—for example, terror management

theory, self‐verification theory, compensatory conviction, system justifica-

tion theory, need for cognitive closure, group‐centrism, and uncertainty

orientation. This furnishes convergent validity for the theory. However, as

was discussed, uncertainty–identity theory diVers from these other constructs

and theories in a number of ways—it is broader than they are, it identifies

social identity processes as the mediator in the relation between uncertainty

and group phenomena, it specifies the way in which these social identity

processes operate to translate uncertainty into group phenomena, it places

self‐conception and identity at the heart of the problematic, it treats uncer-

tainty as a state rather than a trait, and it describes how extremism and

totalism can emerge from ordinary processes associated with ordinary groups

and ordinary identities.

Uncertainty is a pervasive part of life—we get excited and stimulated by it,

we get frightened and oppressed by it, and we do what we can to reduce,

control, or avoid it. We can never be truly certain, so we are always more or

less uncertain. In this chapter, I have sketched out amodel of how uncertainty

may be related to why and how we identify with groups and to the types of

groups that we identify with—suggesting that extreme uncertainty may en-

courage zealotry and totalism. These last are the bane of human existence—at

best, producing ineYcient and oppressive groups and at worst, causing

immeasurable human suVering.

Acknowledgments

The research program reported in this chapter has been generously supported by the award

of an Australian Research Council Professorial Fellowship, three research grants from the

Australian Research Council, a research grant from The Leverhulme Trust, and travel grants

from the British Academy and the British Psychological Society.

114 MICHAEL A. HOGG

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