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The how and the when of the social cure: A conceptual model of group‐ and individual‐level mechanisms linking social identity to health and well‐being
Author(s) -
Häusser Jan A.,
Junker Nina M.,
Dick Rolf
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
european journal of social psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.609
H-Index - 111
eISSN - 1099-0992
pISSN - 0046-2772
DOI - 10.1002/ejsp.2668
Subject(s) - psychology , social identity theory , social psychology , attribution , social identity approach , identification (biology) , identity (music) , social group , social support , social relation , botany , physics , acoustics , biology
In this article, we aim at theoretical specification and integration of mechanisms proposed within the Social Identity Approach to Health and Well‐being. We differentiate group‐level and individual‐level effects of shared social identity by distinguishing three different aspects: individual identification , group identification , and individually perceived group identification . We discuss specific group‐level mechanisms (i.e., mutual social support and collective self‐efficacy) and individual level‐mechanisms (i.e., attribution and appraisal processes regarding stressors and resources) for each of the three aspects. A core conclusion is that the positive effects of shared social identity on health and well‐being crucially depend on its close relationship with social support, and that although social support is an interindividual phenomenon, it is intraindividual mechanisms—attribution and appraisal—that shape the psychological partnership between social identity and social support. Therefore, we put special emphasis on cross‐level interactions between group‐ and individual‐level mechanisms, which have been widely neglected in earlier research.