Self-uncertainty and group identification: Consequences for social identity, group behavior, intergroup relations, and society

Uncertainty is ubiquitous, and its resolution is a fundamental motivation for human behavior. People strive to reduce uncertainty, especially uncertainties that reflect on, or are directly about, who they are—self-uncertainty. This chapter describes and reviews uncertainty-identity theory, with a particular focus on advances and developments over the past 15 years. The key premise of the theory is that context-induced self-uncertainty motivates uncertainty reduction, and that one of the most effective ways to reduce self-uncertainty is group identification through self-categorization. Group identification reduces uncertainty because it causes people to internalize a shared identity and associated group prototype, which defines and prescribes who one is and how one should behave, and describes how one will be perceived and treated by others. However, some groups and identities are better equipped to reduce self-uncertainty—specifically, distinctive groups with clearly defined and prescriptive identities that are relatively unambiguous and consensual. In more extreme circumstances and manifestations, self-uncertainty can motivate a strong preference for and zealous identification with extremist groups—groups that have identities that echo populist ideology and behavior, and associated conspiracy theories and narratives of victimhood, and have strong and directive leaders who can be populist, autocratic and toxic. Uncertainty-identity theory is a motivational account of group and intergroup behavior, and social identity phenomena; but it can also explain the conditions under which radicalization and extremism arise and the various forms they can take.