The role of social identity complexity in humanization and political engagement

Our societies are becoming increasingly multicultural, with examples of people with high motivation to cooperate among different social groups. However, intergroup prejudice and discrimination are still overt and very widespread. It is also true that people belong to a number of different social categories and groups and the higher overlap ascribed to their different memberships the lower the complexity of their social identity. In the present study we controlled for social identity complexity, political engagement and orientation to social dominance and we assessed the extent to whether Arabs, considered by many Western countries as a threatening outgroup, is regarded as a part of the human group. Results showed that the higher the complexity of social identity and political engagement, the lower the orientation to social dominance an individual possesses, the more he/she tends to humanize Arab people and supports human policies towards them. Moreover, evidence showed that the more complex subjective representation of the interrelations among different self-definitions an individual has, the higher the motivation to engage in support of human policies in his/her own as well as in other countries. Thus, this evidence suggests that one’s own belongingness to multiple not overlapping social groups can be a potential strategy for improving people involvement not only in their country but in favor of the human community.