Articles
 Justice for All
 Church in Decline
 Striking Similarity
 The Efficacy of Prayer
 Are You Ready for Change?
 A Question of Vocation
 The Challenge of Change
 Elul 24
 Elul 23
 Elul 22

Series [All]
 Administration
 Elul 5777 (9)
 Exploring Translation Theories (25)
 Live Like You Give a Damn
 Memory and Identity
 The Creative Word (19)
 The Cross-Cultural Process (7)
 The Old Testament is Dying
 The Oral Gospel Tradition (4)
 We the People (8)

Archive

Wednesday, 1 July 2015

Self Categorisation

Conflict and Identity in Romans: The Social Setting of Paul's Letter,
Philip F. Esler, Fortress Press, 2003, page 26

Esler's next step is to describe self-categorisation theory. This includes

the recognition that where people define themselves in terms of a shared category membership, they tend to stereotype themselves in terms of such membership, and in so doing enhance the sense of identity shared with ingroup members, while heightening the sense of contrast between themselves and members of outgroups.

Group identity starts to becme more important than personal identity. Or, put another way, when individuals join and want to be considered a part of a group, perhaps because of exclusion from another group, they tend to lose their personal uniqueness and become like the other members of the new ingroup.

There is a depersonalisation of the self - a cognitive re-definition of the self - from unique attributes and individual differences to shared category memberships and associated stereotypes.

Posted By Jonathan, 8:00am Comment Comments: 1
 
 

Wednesday, 1 July 2015
Comment -

In Messiah, though, we have a both/and effect: we are both enhanced in our uniqueness, with personal gifts affirmed and bestowed on us, AND we are included into the Body of Messiah.

Posted By Timothy Butlin 08:09am