Individuality and the group - T Postmes

Social identity research has transformed psychology and the social sciences. Developed around intergroup relations, perspectives on social identity have now been applied fruitfully to a diverse array of topics and domains, including health, organizations and management, culture, politics and group dynamics. In many of these new areas, the focus has been on groups, but also very much on the autonomous individual. This has been an exciting development, and has prompted a rethinking of the relationship between personal identity and social identity - the issue of individuality in the group.

This book brings together an international selection of prominent researchers at the forefront of this development. They reflect on this issue of individuality in the group, and on how thinking about social identity has changed. Together, these chapters chart a key development in the field: how social identity perspectives inform understanding of cohesion, unity and collective action, but also how they help us understand individuality, agency, autonomy, disagreement, and diversity within groups.

This text is valuable to advanced undergraduate and postgraduate students studying social psychology where intergroup relations and group processes are a central component. Given its wider reach, however, it will also be of interest to those in cognate disciplines where social identity perspectives have application potential.

"For researchers in social psychology, and particularly those familiar with SIT and related theories, this book will make for congenial and straightforward reading. For someone outside the field, some of the terminology might take some getting used to, butI would not hesitate to recommend the book to anyone interested in the interplay of individual and social forces in settings ranging from work life to national and international politics. The text is friendly in the sense that terms are defined and theory is placed in larger social and historical context throughout. Also, the book in its entirety is fewer than 300 pages, and most chapters are between 15 and 25 pages in length, so each "bite" of theory and research, so to speak, is easily digestible. All of the chapters are well written, and each contributes an important part to the whole."
Contemporary Psychology: APA Review of Books - Jeffrey Noel