Work

The role of social identity processes in mass emergency behaviour: An integrative review

Year: 2018

Type: article

Abstract: This review provides a new integration of recent research that has formed the basis of a social identity explanation of supportive collective behaviour among survivors in emergencies and disasters. I describe a model in which a sense of common fate is the source of an emergent shared social identity among survivors, which in turn provides the motivation to give social support to others affected. In addition, by drawing on the concept of relational transformation in psychological crowds, I show how an emergent shared social identity can engender a range of further behavioural and cognitive consequences that contribute to collective self-organisation in emergencies, including expected support, coordination of behaviour, and collective efficacy. It will be argued that the model can been applied to explaining how potentially dangerous crowd events avoid disaster: shared social identity operates as the basis of spontaneous self-organisation in these cases, as in many emergencies and disasters.

Source: European Review of Social Psychology

DOI: 10.1080/10463283.2018.1471948

Author: John Drury

Institution: University of Sussex

Language: English

Topic: Social and Intergroup Psychology

Subfield: Sociology and Political Science

Field: Social Sciences

Domain: Social Sciences

Open Access status: green

Funders: Leverhulme Trust, Royal Society, Economic and Social Research Council

Awards: Beyond contagion: Social identity processes in involuntary social influence, G6393616670, G706545649