The Social Cure Catherine Haslam; Jolanda Jetten; Alexander, S. Haslam
2012, 20120125, 2011, 2012-01-25, 20120101
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A growing body of research shows that social networks and identities have a profound impact on mental and physical health. With such mounting evidence of the importance of social relationships in ...protecting health the challenge we face is explaining why this should be the case. What is it that social groups offer that appears to be just as beneficial as a daily dose of vitamin C or regular exercise?
This edited book brings together the latest research on how group memberships and the social identities associated with them determine people's health and well-being. The volume provides a variety of perspectives from clinical social organisational and applied fields that offer theoretical and empirical insights into these processes and their consequences. The contributions present a rich and novel analysis of core theoretical issues relating to the ways in which social identities and factors associated with them (such as social support and a sense of community) can bolster individuals' sense of self and contribute to physical and mental health. In this way it is shown how social identities constitute a 'social cure' capable of promoting adjustment coping and well-being for individuals dealing with a range of illnesses injuries trauma and stressors. In addition these theories provide a platform for practical strategies that can maintain and enhance well-being particularly among vulnerable populations.
Contributors to the book are at the forefront of these developments and the book's strength derives from its analysis of factors that shape the health and well-being of a broad range of groups. It presents powerful insights which have important implications for health clinical social and organisational psychology and a range of cognate fields.
Drawing on social identity theory and self-categorization theory, we outline an approach to sport psychology that understands groups not simply as features of sporting contexts but rather as elements ...that can be, and often are, incorporated into a person's sense of self and, through this, become powerful determinants of their sport-related behavior. The underpinnings of this social identity approach are outlined, and four key lessons for sport that are indicative of the analytical and practical power of the approach are presented. These suggest that social identity is the basis for sports group (1) behavior, (2) formation and development, (3) support and stress appraisal, and (4) leadership. Building on recent developments within sport science, we outline an agenda for future research by identifying a range of topics to which the social identity approach could fruitfully contribute.
There is growing recognition that identification with social groups can protect and enhance health and well-being, thereby constituting a kind of "social cure." The present research explores the role ...of control as a novel mediator of the relationship between shared group identity and well-being. Five studies provide evidence for this process. Group identification predicted significantly greater perceived personal control across 47 countries (Study 1), and in groups that had experienced success and failure (Study 2). The relationship was observed longitudinally (Study 3) and experimentally (Study 4). Manipulated group identification also buffered a loss of personal control (Study 5). Across the studies, perceived personal control mediated social cure effects in political, academic, community, and national groups. The findings reveal that the personal benefits of social groups come not only from their ability to make people feel good, but also from their ability to make people feel capable and in control of their lives.
Aligned with research in the social capital and general health literature, a large body of evidence shows that older people who are more socially active have better cognitive integrity and are less ...vulnerable to cognitive decline. The present research addresses the question of whether the type of social engagement (group-based vs. individual) has differential effects on these cognitive health outcomes. Drawing on population data (N = 3413) from three waves (i.e., Waves 3, 4 and 5) of the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing, we investigated the independent contribution of group and individual engagement in predicting cognitive functioning four years later. Hierarchical linear regression was used entering age, gender, socioeconomic status, ethnicity, and physical health as covariates. The final model, controlling for initial cognitive function and social engagement (both group and individual) showed that only group engagement made a significant, sustained, and unique contribution to subsequent cognitive function. Furthermore, the effects of group engagement were stronger with increasing age. These findings extend previous work on the social determinants of health by pinpointing the types of relationships that are particularly beneficial in protecting cognitive health. The fact that group engagement optimized health outcomes, and that this was especially the case with increasing age, has important implications for directing community resources to keep older adults mentally active and independent for longer.
•Social group engagement explains more variance in cognitive integrity than individual engagement.•Group engagement appears more important in slowing cognitive decline among the older-old.•Strategies that promote group engagement may contribute to managing future cognitive decline.
This paper introduces a single‐item social identification measure (SISI) that involves rating one's agreement with the statement ‘I identify with my group (or category)’ followed by a 7‐point scale. ...Three studies provide evidence of the validity (convergent, divergent, and test–retest) of SISI with a broad range of social groups. Overall, the estimated reliability of SISI is good. To address the broader issue of single‐item measure reliability, a meta‐analysis of 16 widely used single‐item measures is reported. The reliability of single‐item scales ranges from low to reasonably high. Compared with this field, reliability of the SISI is high. In general, short measures struggle to achieve acceptable reliability because the constructs they assess are broad and heterogeneous. In the case of social identification, however, the construct appears to be sufficiently homogeneous to be adequately operationalized with a single item.
Social identity research was pioneered as a distinctive theoretical approach to the analysis of intergroup relations but over the last two decades it has increasingly been used to shed light on ...applied issues. One early application of insights from social identity and self‐categorization theories was to the organizational domain (with a particular focus on leadership), but more recently there has been a surge of interest in applications to the realm of health and clinical topics. This article charts the development of this Applied Social Identity Approach, and s five core lessons from the research that has taken this forward. (1) Groups and social identities matter because they have a critical role to play in organizational and health outcomes. (2) Self‐categorizations matter because it is people's self‐understandings in a given context that shape their psychology and behaviour. (3) The power of groups is unlocked by working with social identities not across or against them. (4) Social identities need to be made to matter in deed not just in word. (5) Psychological intervention is always political because it always involves some form of social identity management. Programmes that seek to incorporate these principles are reviewed and important challenges and opportunities for the future are identified.
CEOs have been argued to play a critical role for organizational performance. However, CEOs cannot achieve success singlehandedly. They rely on other organizational members to execute and implement ...their agenda and to contribute to organizational success. In the present research, we propose that CEOs serve as identity leaders of their organization who are able to enhance organizational performance by representing and cultivating a sense of shared collective identity (“us”) with those they lead. One way for leaders to do so is through the use of we-referencing (as opposed to I-referencing) language. We examine this idea in a pre-registered study of organizations listed in the DAX (i.e., leading German stock index) between 2000 and 2016, assessing the impact of CEOs’ use of we- and I-referencing language in letters to the stakeholders (N = 378) on objective indicators of organizational financial performance. In line with hypotheses, results show a positive relationship between CEOs’ use of we-referencing language and key indicators of financial performance: return on assets and sales per employee (while there was no evidence of an association with return on sales). At the same time, results indicate that the use of I-referencing language was unrelated to organizational performance. These findings advance the literature on strategic leadership and on the social identity approach to leadership by suggesting that CEOs’ thinking and acting in collective terms is associated with greater organizational financial performance.
The health of people's body and mind is powerfully conditioned by social factors that affect their social identity. Consistent with this notion, there is a growing interest in the way that group ...memberships (and the social identities derived from belonging to these groups) affect health and well‐being. To the extent that group memberships provide individuals with meaning, support, and agency (i.e., a positive sense of social identity), health is positively impacted, constituting a “social cure”. However, when group membership is not associated with these positive psychological resources or when social identity is challenged in other ways (e.g., group membership is devalued or stigmatised), social identities may become a curse, threatening and potentially harming health and well‐being. In a range of social contexts, novel examples of these processes are brought together in the contributions to this special issue. In this editorial, we link the findings from these contributions to a set of hypotheses that emerge from the social identity approach to highlight the nuanced ways in which social identity processes are key to understanding health and well‐being (Haslam, Jetten, Cruwys, Dingle, & Haslam, forthcoming). The contributions in this special issue point to fruitful ways to develop the social cure agenda. Together they highlight the importance of social identities as powerful psychological resources that have an important role to play in managing and improving health.
A growing body of research suggests that a lack of social connectedness is strongly related to current depression and increases vulnerability to future depression. However, few studies speak to the ...potential benefits of fostering social connectedness among persons already depressed or to the protective properties of this for future depression trajectories. We suggest that this may be in part because connectedness tends to be understood in terms of (difficult to establish) ties to specific individuals rather than ties to social groups. The current study addresses these issues by using population data to demonstrate that the number of groups that a person belongs to is a strong predictor of subsequent depression (such that fewer groups predicts more depression), and that the unfolding benefits of social group memberships are stronger among individuals who are depressed than among those who are non-depressed. These analyses control for initial group memberships, initial depression, age, gender, socioeconomic status, subjective health status, relationship status and ethnicity, and were examined both proximally (across 2 years, N = 5055) and distally (across 4 years, N = 4087). Depressed respondents with no group memberships who joined one group reduced their risk of depression relapse by 24%; if they joined three groups their risk of relapse reduced by 63%. Together this evidence suggests that membership of social groups is both protective against developing depression and curative of existing depression. The implications of these results for public health and primary health interventions are discussed.
•There has been little uptake of evidence that social support reduces depression.•We propose that research with depressed samples using concrete measures is needed.•Social group memberships predicted lower depression 2 years and 4 years later.•Among those depressed at baseline, groups were protective against relapse.•Joining and maintaining groups may be a viable, cost-effective intervention.
Membership in important social groups can promote a positive identity. We propose and test an identity resource model in which personal self-esteem is boosted by membership in additional important ...social groups. Belonging to multiple important group memberships predicts personal self-esteem in children (Study 1a), older adults (Study 1b), and former residents of a homeless shelter (Study 1c). Study 2 shows that the effects of multiple important group memberships on personal self-esteem are not reducible to number of interpersonal ties. Studies 3a and 3b provide longitudinal evidence that multiple important group memberships predict personal self-esteem over time. Studies 4 and 5 show that collective self-esteem mediates this effect, suggesting that membership in multiple important groups boosts personal self-esteem because people take pride in, and derive meaning from, important group memberships. Discussion focuses on when and why important group memberships act as a social resource that fuels personal self-esteem.
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