Social Identity Theory and the Authoritarian Personality Theory in South Africa

Abstract

Social identity theory assumes that individuals and collectives apply identity management strategies in order to cope with threatened social identities. It is argued here that an integration of social identity theory and the authoritarian personality theory may help to investigate identity management strategies for minority and majority groups. It was intended to investigate predictors of identity management strategies applied by students at the University of Cape Town. Analyses are based on a questionnaire survey of 457 university students. Results only partially confirmed assumptions derived from social identity theory. Group identification and perceptions of legitimacy were related to the individual identity management strategy, “individualisation”, while the collective strategy “social competition” was associated with collective efficacy and authoritarianism. Perceptions of instability and authoritarianism predicted preferences for “temporal comparisons”. ‘Superordinate recategorisation’ was only very weakly predicted by group identification. The study indicated that social identity theory and the authoritarian personality theory might play different roles in preferences for identity management strategies. While social identity theory appears better in explaining individual identity management strategies, the authoritarian personality theory might be better in explaining collective strategies.