Perception, Action, and the Social Dynamics of the Variable Self
Year: 2016

ion: as human, as a living creature, and so on. The point then is that we have many different selves that are salient at different times and that affect our psychological functioning in different ways. Notably, social identity theory proposes that the shift from interindividual to intergroup behavior is underpinned by the shift from personal to social identity. Second, the concept of social identity introduces the notion of the variable self: Who we are, how we see ourselves, how we define our relations to others (indeed whether they are construed as "other" or as part of the extended "we" self) is different in different settings. Self categorization theory seeks to explain how this variation in the salience of different identities is determined as a function of context. So too it seeks to explain how the salience of different identities impacts on psychological functioning. In this latter regard, it has tended to concentrate on two issues. One issue is the way that, to the extent that a given social identity is salient, people tend to self stereotype in terms of the way the relevant group is defined (Haslam CONTACT Stephen Reicher sdr@st andrews.ac.uk School of Psychology Neuroscience, University of St. Andrews, St. Andrews, Fife, KY16 9JP, UK.  1995; Turner et al. 1987) To build on the classic "they saw a game" study with which Xiao and colleagues introduce their argument, it may well be that, on the terraces, watching a game of soccer, we may bay at the referee if he or she gives a foul to the other team or else fails to give a foul to our own. For the definition of a soccer fan is to be loyal and passionate. But when we talk about the same game in our lectures, we focus on the evidence not because sanity has suddenly returned but because, in terms of an academic identity, the values of objectivity and dispassionate evaluation of the facts are now foremost. The other focus of self categorization theory is on how people function together. This, in many ways, is the core aspect of group behavior. It is not just that we have stereotypes, it is that we have consensual stereotypes. To the extent that people also have consensus in terms of self stereotyping they can agree on their norms and values and also on how to act on these in the world then they are able to act together, to combine their efforts, to accumulate social power and thereby become better able to implement these norms and values. That is why groups are so important to the human condition (not simply that they satisfy a need for belonging) They allow us to transform the world we live in materially as well as symbolically. It is a point we often forget, attributing to specific individuals particularly individuals to whom we attribute the magical qualities of leadership the achievements of groups of followers. But to invoke Bertolt Brecht's "Questions From a Worker Who Reads" "Who built Thebes of the 7 gates? In the books you will read the names of kings. Did the kings haul up the lumps of rock? And Babylon, many times demolished, who raised it up so many times? In what houses of gold glittering Lima did its builders live? Where, the evening that the Great Wall of China was finished, did the masons go?" (Brecht, 1935) The contribution of self categorization theory is to show how the formation of consensus and the possibility of coaction depend upon a shared sense of social identity: Because group members expect to agree, they shape conversations to produce agreement (Haslam, Turner, Oakes, McGarty, Reynolds, 1998) The ability of leaders to motivate and direct the coordinated actions of followers depends upon their management of that social identity (Haslam, Reicher, Platow, 2011) In sum, then, self categorization theory is not primarily about specific group phenomena such as stereotyping, category salience, polarization, or social influence (even though it addresses them) Nor indeed is it simply about group phenomena in general (indeed, many of the principles of self categorization can be applied at any level of identity, including the individual I vs. you level of personal identity; see, e.g. McGarty, Mavor, Skorich, 2015; Reynolds et al. 2010; Skorich Mavor, 2013) More fundamentally it develops the position that the way in which the social world impacts the psychological field of the actor is through processes of the variable self (see S. D. Reicher, Haslam, Spears, Reynolds, 2012) Exploring the Dynamics of the Variable Self Our argument, then, is that the evidence amassed by Xiao and colleagues speaks specifically to the primary ambition of selfcategorization theory. It is certainly reasonable to note that self categorization theorists have not exhaustively or rigorously addressed the ways in which self dynamics moderate the operation of core perceptual processes (in the broad sense of the term to include all sensory modalities) But at the same time, the basic logic of the theory does suggest various ways by which that may occur, and some of these have been addressed conceptually and empirically. To illustrate this point, it helps to start by appreciating that the notions of the multiple self and of the variable self, apply to (and hence problematize) all self related terms (which permeate psychology) This point is well appreciated in some cases. Take the term "self esteem," for instance. Here we know we must distinguish between individual self esteem (pertaining to one as an individual) and collective self esteem (pertaining to that which the same person may derive from membership of a given social group) That is, we know that to ask "What is someone's self esteem?" makes no sense at all without specifying which of these selves one is referring to (cf.  This is because one's sense of esteem varies as a function of which self is salient. Yet there are less obvious and perhaps more significant examples. Let us consider two such terms: selfrelevance and self interest.  Imagine that a Palestinian peasant loses his land in some village you have never heard of on the West Bank. Would you be bothered? Would an article about the event catch your attention and cause you to pause and read? Perhaps, perhaps not. But if you were to define yourself as a Muslim in a world where Muslims are abused and ignored, the answer would most definitely be yes. The event would be happening to "one of us" and would exemplify "our" shared plight. It would be highly self relevant. Or again, imagine that a small island at the other end of the world, which at best you had only vaguely heard of, was occupied by soldiers. Again, would you be bothered? But if your identity as British were made salient and if the islanders were construed as Britons, and if, moreover, the invasion seemed to exemplify the act of a bully and invoke British norms of standing up to the bully, then you might be outraged and even support sending a naval task force over 10,000 miles to reverse the situation. The point is that whether something attracts our attention whether it is self relevant or not depends on how our self and the event are defined and hence on whether there is a connection between the two. What is more, what grabs our attention, how we construe the meaning of the event, and how we respond to it will likewise depend on the selves at play. For instance, when the invaded islands are the Falklands, British observers are likely to notice the national qualities of the islanders and the dictatorial decision of the Argentinian junta, rather than the widespread popular Argentinian feelings about their sovereignty over the islands. This suggests that there may be processes operating at multiple levels relating to self relevance and affecting attentional, encoding, and interpretative processes. At the most basic level, it may be that we don't encode the other when they are defined as other to the self. Thus, for instance, McLung, Jentzsch, and Reicher (2013) used a low level cognitive task (the joint Simon task) in which representation of the other interferes with performance and found no such interference when the other was 342 COMMENTARIES