ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the basic premise, originally developed in the framework of social identity or self-categorization theory that the self-categorization process is a major source of the social self. It has three major sections. First, it outlines a self-aspect model (SAM) of the individual self and the collective self to help clarify the conceptual distinction and relation between these two variants of the social self and explicate the role and mode of operation of the self-categorization process on the basis of this model. Second, it presents and discuss the results from several empirical studies to illustrate important determinants of the self-categorization process and the corresponding consequences for the social self. Throughout these two sections, repeatedly make use of the place metaphor, both to give meaning to abstract theoretical concepts and to make sense of empirical findings. Third, it focuses explicitly on this metaphor and argues that it is more than just a picture in a scientists head.
