SOCIAL IDENTIFICATION AND GROUP PERFORMANCE: THE EFFECT OF DIFFERENT WAR OUTCOMES ON NATIONAL PRIDE, THE SENSE OF BELONGING AND THE SENSE COMMUNITY AMONG CITIZENS

The current research examines variations in social identity's saliency (including the components of national pride, the sense of belonging and the sense of community) of citizens, generated by different war outcomes (victory, defeat, stalemate and a negotiated agreement). The context of real life conflict between groups has interesting characteristics that permit a close examination of some of the central assumptions in social identity theory, one of the most comprehensive theories of group relations. Individuals' aspiration to achieve a positive self-esteem may clash with their membership in a social group, when social comparisons are made with a clearly superior out-group (for example, following groups' defeat in a war). Using a web experiment, the study sheds light on the intricate relations between social identification of individual group members and group performance. The findings show that a positive group identity is sustained despite poor group performance, as no statistically significant differences were observed across parameters and experimental conditions. The paper also addresses the Socio-psychological mechanisms that may account for the found effect, and thus, contribute to the interdisciplinary discussion in the realm of post conflict societies.