This theory emphasizes how the level of commitment with the social identity shapes the nature of the threat experienced.
The four components of social identity threat were developed by Nyla R. Branscombe, Naomi Ellemers, Russell Spears, and Bertjan Doosje (1999).
Categorization threat happens when individuals are involuntarily assigned stereotypical characteristics or judged on the basis of their group membership.
[2] This theory suggests that there are certain social contexts where people want to be seen as unique individuals who have their own personal characteristics or accomplishments, and if instead, they are categorized in accordance with a group membership such as gender, ethnicity, or political orientation, then they would be resistant to the identity and feel as if they are being treated unfairly.
This resistance to categorization is especially pronounced when the assigned membership seems irrelevant or inappropriate to the situation at hand (even if the identity is normally one which they strongly identify with) such as gender in the workforce.
[3] Individuals might even opt to hide stigmatized group membership in order to avoid the possible consequences of being categorized.
Other identities like gender or ethnicity cannot be concealed, thus making it impossible to prevent others from categorizing them in specific ways.
The authors recommended further research be conducted exploring the specific conditions that lead to identification with one identity over another.
[8] Low-identifying members experience negative affective emotions such as anger, low self-esteem, or depression.
According to research done by Tajfel and colleagues, individuals rely on distinct identities as a way to find meaning and define themselves in the world.
For example, Polish students would rather embrace some stereotypically negative traits of their nation than emphasize the similarities between all European countries.
In situations where the status-dimension is taken into account and social reality is hard to dispute (e.g. sports team losing), then direct in-group favoritism is not effective.
In-group members' opinions may be seen as more value because they are an important part of one's identity and are supposed to be accepting of the individual.
[24] Additionally, those who were low-identifying suffered more self-esteem loss from negative feedback compared to high-identifying individuals.
While these behaviors may manifests itself differently depending on the group that one wants to gain entry for, individuals just desire to be accepted into the in-group they favor.
Since rejection by an ingroup is seen as distressing to those who are high-identifying, they might over-compensate by adhering strictly to all of the expectations associated with the group.