| Summary: | Prior conceptualizations of social identity theory and self-categorization suggest that an individual's social identity can be distinguished in terms of the category it represents - the collective that defines the group identity (e.g., college students, gender, race, nationality, etc.) - and in terms of its membership norms - the prescriptive behavioral norms associated with the group identity (e.g., college students are hardworking; cf. Hogg and McGarty 1990; Tajfel and Turner 1986; Turner 1985; Turner et al. 1987). Existing research has primarily focused on the former aspect of social identity, the collective, and explored how activations of it and threats to it affect consumers (e.g., Dalton and Huang 2014; Puntoni, Sweldens, and Tavassoli 2011; White and Argo 2009; White, Argo, and Sengupta 2012). The present research focuses on the latter aspect of social identity, which I coin the membership normative aspect, as a distinctive component of social identity, and explores how threats to this aspect may differentially affect consumer behavior. I predict divergent responses to threats to each of these aspects of social identity due to the nature of the threats. Whereas a threat to the collective undermines the group identity as a whole compared to other groups (e.g., "compared to baby boomers, millennials are selfish and lazy"), a threat to the membership emphasizes a deviation from the group norm by a group member (e.g., "you're a poor excuse for a millennial"). As such, I expect that given the goal to maintain a positive self-image, individuals faced with a collective threat will feel powerless and tend to distance themselves from the social identity to affirm their sense of self, for example, by avoiding identity-related products, while those faced with a membership threat will feel they can impact the threat and tackle it head on by associating with the identity, preferring identity-related products.
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