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Zimbardo's Uncertain-Identity Theory

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Recommended: Conformity and non conformity

Identification is the act of identifying yourself with a group and incorporating another person’s personality. This essay will be focus on uncertain identity theory (Hogg 2000) and social identity theory (Tajfel and Turner 1986), commenting on how effective these two theories are in explaining identification within conformity.
Uncertain Identity Theory (Hogg 2000) is one approach to conformity, suggesting that in times of uncertainty, we identify and conform to the group to reduce our uncertainty in that situation. Hogg, Hohman and Rivera (2008) argue that self-uncertainty is a key aspect for identification to occur.
One way identification is shown through the uncertain-identity theory was Zimbardo and his concept of deindividuation. Zimbardo (1969:703) argues that deindividuation results in a diminished identity, something that occurs when in a group. …show more content…

Zimbardo gave volunteers one of two roles; prisoner or prison officer. Zimbardo put participants into a mock prison to see how they would behave when given these new roles. Zimbardo found that participants conformed to the role given with many guards feeling ‘surprised’ with the joy they felt of control (Zimbardo 1999:728).This supports the uncertainty-identity theory as it show that because they were in an unfamiliar situation, they identified with the role given in order to reduce their own uncertainty in the new situation. Another theory is the social identity theory (Tajfel and Turner 1986). This is defined by Tajfel (1972:31) as an ‘individuals knowledge that he belongs to certain social groups together with some emotional and value significance to him of the group

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