Construing multiple in-groups: Assessing social identity inclusiveness and structure in ethnic and religious minority group members

The combination of multiple social identities into a coherent in-group construal is of immediate relevance in today's complex and diverse societies. This paper proposes a conceptual and operational framework to examine how individuals subjectively construe their in-group in the context of multiple, cross-cutting group memberships. The subjective combination of multiple social identities is described in terms of structure (social identity structure) and inclusiveness (social identity inclusiveness (SII)). Two studies assess SII and social identity structure in community samples to whom the subjective combination of multiple, cross-cutting in-groups is of particular relevance: a sample of Turkish-Belgian Muslims (Study 1) and Turkish-Australian Muslims (Study 2). Across both studies, SII uniquely predicted attitudes toward a range of out-groups, over and above identification with singular in-groups. Moreover, a wide range of social identity structures were identified, further attesting to broad individual differences in the construal of the perceived in-group.