Group Identification Paper

In second research, Group Identification under Conditions of Threat: College Students’ Attachment to Country, Family, Ethnicity, Religion, and University Before and After September 11, 2001. Moskalenko, McCauley and Rozin made three classes of introductory psychology students at the University of Pennsylvania completed a survey which includes several measures of group identification before, immediately after and long after the 9/11 attacks. They define group identification as caring about the outcomes of group. They use four different theories which are Group Dynamics Theory, Basking In Reflected Glory and Cutting Off Reflected Failure, Terror Management Theory and Social Identity Theory to make predictions about impact of 9/11 on US students’ identification with country, family, ethnicity, religion and university.
They have several hypotheses deriving from these theories. The first one is that identification with country would be higher for the second survey which made shortly after 9/11 than for the first which made before 9/11 and lower for the third survey which made long after than for the second. The second hypotheses is that identification with country would be lower for the second survey than for the first and higher for the third survey than for the second. A parallel change in self-esteem was also predicted; as a result of incomplete
All participants rated importance of country, family, ethnicity, religion, and university. They conducted ANOVA to test for differences over time. Their results are as the following. Group identification was significantly higher in the second survey than the first survey. The importance of country was significantly higher at the second survey than both first and third surveys. Importance of family did not differ between surveys. We can conclude that identification with country and university increased after 9/11. (Skitka, Bauman, &