Me’s and We’s Forms and Functions of Social Identities

Abstract While the concept of “social self’’ or “social identity” has always had multiple meanings, two predominant conceptions of social identity can be found in the social psychological literature. For simplicity, we will term these two conceptions “me’s” and “we’s,” or for variety, “individuallevel” and “collective-level” identities, or more briefly, “individual” and “collective” identities. Individual-level me’s are identifications of the self as a certain kind of person, using broad social categories to describe “who I am.” Collective-level we’s are identifications of the self with a group as a whole, using broad social categories to describe “who we are.”1 Because, as will be seen, both types of identity are social in origin, we must use terms other than “social identity” to distinguish between them.