Stressing the group: Social identity and the unfolding dynamics of responses to stress

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Haslam, S. Alexander; Reicher, Stephen
• 署名单位: University of Exeter; University of St Andrews
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0021-9010
• DOI: 10.1037/0021-9010.91.5.1037
• 发表日期: 2006
• 页码: 1037-1052
• 关键词: stress; social identity; BURNOUT; social support; bullying

摘要

Participants in the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) prison study were randomly assigned to high-status (guard) and low-status (prisoner) groups. Structural interventions increased the prisoners' sense of shared group identity and their willingness to challenge the power of the guards. Psychometric, physiological, behavioral, and observational data support the hypothesis that identity-based processes also affected participants' experience of stress. As prisoners' sense of shared identity increased, they provided each other with more social support and effectively resisted the adverse effects of situational stressors. As guards' sense of shared identity declined, they provided each other with less support and succumbed to stressors. Findings support an integrated social identity model of stress that addresses intragroup and intergroup dynamics of the stress process.