Hogg was born in 1954 in Calcutta, India, where his parents (his father was Scottish, his mother English and Welsh) were employed at the time of his birth.
After a year traveling around south and central America, Hogg returned to England in 1978 to embark on his PhD in social psychology at Bristol University.
He is also the foundation editor, with Dominic Abrams at the University of Kent, of the journal Group Processes and Intergroup Relations - first published in 1996.
These formulas included adjustments to account for a researcher's experience in terms of how many years it has been since an individual earned a PhD.
While at Queensland, Hogg established and directed the Center for Research on Group Processes, and soon after arriving in Claremont set up the Social Identity Lab in the School of Behavioral and Organizational Sciences at Claremont Graduate University.