ABSTRACT
This chapter explores how it is that individuals attain a positive social identity through their relationship to a group. In order to expand analytical framework of identity positivity, we need to account for the situational attributes of positive social identity. Social identity theory and self-categorisation theory provide complementary bodies of theory that we require to capture the relationship between positive identity within the group. Both identity theories are dependent on situation and that identities are nested within domains, and we will return to this. A social identity cannot ever be autonomously determined. A change in any other group changes the meaning of the identity of the other. This distinctive identity is not maximal but optimal. Too much distinctiveness, and one risks out-group prejudice; too little, and no individual advantage may be obtained within the group. Optimal distinctiveness as an underlying motivation for human social behaviour accords directly with inclusive fitness optimisation.
