Social Psychology of intra and intergroup relationships and social identity
We are currently six people in the research group
the two professors of the department, Francisco Morales and Carmen Huici,
and also Alexandra Vázquez, Saulo Fernández Arregui, Elmira Yarzi the two professors of the department, Francisco Morales and Carmen Huici,
and also Alexandra Vázquez, Saulo Fernández Arregui, Elmira Yarzi
and myself as director of the group.
The main objective of our work is what is known as the Identity Fusion theory,
which was created by ourselves.
Identity Fusion is a visceral feeling that certain people have with a group.
This visceral feeling makes these people willing to do anything for the group,
even to sacrifice their own lives.
The origin of this line of research
was the September 11 attacks in the USA
but also the 11 March attacks in Madrid.
We wanted to look for the reason
why certain people are willing to die for their group
and to kill people from another group that may be a threat for them or not.
The main novelty in our line of research is that, so far,
most of the studies about terrorism were rather descriptive
but there was not a formal line of research
especially performing the experimental methodology
that tried to search for the causes and consequences of this type of behavior.
We are working in this line for 8 or 9 years.
We have done investigations that have been published
and fortunately we have received funding from the Spanish Ministry
for three investigation projects.
We are currently using the third one to investigate
and fundamentally to be able to seek which are those elements
that would make it possible to reduce or try to avoid this type of behavior.
The Identity Fusion is a relatively recent proposal.
That is why we are currently focusing on the basic processes of the phenomenon.
However, we do have discovered certain relation
between the fusion and certain behavior in favour of the group.
For instance an increase in donations to members of their own group,
or a better performance in motor activities
related to the group with which the individual is fused.
Therefore, this kind of relationships may help
to future applications of the process of identity fusion.
Regarding the lines of investigation we could differentiate three:
one consists of determining the previous stages of the fusion,
that is, which factors lead people to fuse with one group or another.
Another research line may be to discover the emotional and cognitive aspects
that distinguish fused people from people who are not fused with their group
and finally we would be interested to know the factors that may modify the fusion.
The factors that may act as moderators.
We can mention a few collaborators from foreign universities,
from the University of Texas at Austin,
we count on Professor William Swann and Michael Buhrmester;
at the University of Queensland, Australia
we collaborate with Jolanda Jetten and Brock Bastian;
at the University of Oxford, we collaborate with Harvey Whitehouse;
and at Yale University, with John Dovidio.
Besides, for an international study we have recently done
we have counted on collaborators from universities of the five continents,
for instance from Chile, Mexico, Indonesia, Japan, South Africa, Germany, etc.
Finally, with regard to the investigations in recent years
we have published seven research papers in international renowned journals
and we published a theoretical paper on the process of identity fusion in 2012.