Who Is on the Team? Disentangling Symbolic and Operational Group Identities

• In Event: Unpacking Social and Political Identities

Abstract

This paper explores the disjuncture between identifying with a group and holding the beliefs associated with that group. More specifically, the paper argues that there are operational or belief-based group members—those who hold the beliefs associated with a group—and symbolic or identity-based group members who feel close to others in the group and see themselves as part of the “team.” Importantly, the distinction between symbolic and operational identities applies to multiple social identity that meets two criteria. First, identification with the group must generally be chosen rather than inherited. Second, beliefs and/or values can define what it means to be a group member. Examples of such identities include: evangelical Christian, feminist, environmentalist, secular, gun owner, pro-choice, and pro-life.

I draw on both the social psychology and political science literatures to measure symbolic identities through agree-disagree statements such as “To what extent do you think of yourself as being a [group label]?” and “When talking about [group] I usually say “we” rather than “they.” I consider operational identities to be beliefs that are defining characteristics of being a group member. To do so, I rely on existing research to generate a list of operational measures for each identity. For example, the operational evangelical measures come from scholars of religion, whereas I measure operational feminism by drawing on research conceptualizing feminism as a set of beliefs about gender equality.

Empirical analyses yield four important results. First, symbolic and operational identities are weakly correlated and do not measure the same underlying construct. Being an operational identifier does not necessitate being a symbolic identifier and vice versa. Second, the relationship between these symbolic and operational components varies across different identities. For example, many evangelicals hold strong group attachments but possess few of the beliefs traditionally associated with evangelicalism. The converse is true for feminists; many people hold operational beliefs associated with feminism but eschew the label. A third key takeaway is that left- and right-leaning identities differ in the number of symbolic versus operational identifiers. I have found evidence that right-leaning identities include a large number of symbolic identifiers who are not operational identifiers—that is, evangelicals and gun owners who strongly identify with the group but do not always hold many of the beliefs associated with the identity. The reverse is true for left-leaning identities: many respondents accept the beliefs, values, and principles associated with feminism, environmentalism, and secularism but do not identify strongly with the groups themselves. And fourth, these left-right asymmetries have important political implications, as I find that the symbolic and operational components of an identity have different relationships with political attitudes and behaviors. In particular, symbolic attachment is more strongly associated with willingness to take political action. Thus, individuals holding these right-leaning identities may be more likely to engage in political activity on account of their symbolic attachments (despite holding few of the operational beliefs), whereas left-leaning operational identifiers may remain on the political sidelines even though they hold a coherent set of politically relevant beliefs.

Author

• Michele Margolis, University of Pennsylvania