Journal of Personality and Social Psychology

Volume 96 Number 5

Identity Fusion: The Interplay of Personal and Social Identities in Extreme Group Behavior

Authors: William B. Swann Jr., Angel Gomez, D. Connor Seyle, J. Fransisco Morales, and Carmen Huici

This article is about “The authors purpose that when people become fused with a group, their personal and social identities become functionally equivalent. Two hypotheses follow from this proposition. First, activating either personal or social identities of fused persons should increase their willingness to endorse extreme behaviors on behalf of the group. Second, because personal as well as social identities support group related behaviors of fused person”.  I think the research topic for this article is seeing how people interact when they get infused with a certain group of people. So, the research question would be Do personal identities get influenced negatively by the people you associate yourself with? The type of data needed for this research question is Personal and Psychological Traits, Self-Identity, and Deeply Held Opinions and Attitudes. These types have to do with Identity and that is what the research question is trying to get at. The type of methods the authors use surveys and questionnaires, psychological scales, and focus groups. The data analysis method they used is ordinal and categorical data. I think the authors did a great job with their research. They conducted a lot of good studies to back up what they were trying to prove. I think it is helpful to have more than one author so you can conduct more research and get different point of views on the topic you are looking at. They did a great job at following the six research steps.