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LIT-1721: Being one of us: we-identities and self-categorization theory

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StatusActive — read in full 2026-10-28 (NOTE-1309) from the open-access published article; worth reading as a philosopher's limit on self-categorization theory: the we-identities of close relationships (long friendships, romantic partnerships) rest on mutual individualization and non-substitutability, the opposite of depersonalization, so the theory cannot be the general account of the "we" that phenomenologists have taken it to be. It proposes a socially extended account of such identities. An argument from cases and from relationship research, with no data of its own. Source of THEORY-1115.
Tagssocial-ontology, phenomenology, self, social-identity
Cited as “paper” byNOTE-1309 — Being one of us: we-identities and self-categorization theory
Cited as “source” byTHEORY-1115 — A we-identity, being one of us, can arise through mutual individualization, in which members grasp one another as non-substitutable and complementary, without depersonalization, as in long friendships and romantic partnerships; so depersonalization is not necessary for a we-identity

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León, F. (2023). Being one of us: we-identities and self-categorization theory. Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, 25(1), 97–121. doi:10.1007/s11097-023-09923-0.

Read in full in NOTE-1309.

Why this is here

It quotes Turner et al. 1987 (LIT-1723) at second hand: pp. 29, 42, 44–46, 49–51, 66, 103 and 204, including the claim that group size is no theoretical restriction. It also tests the theory’s claim to be a general account of group belonging against a case it fits badly. That bears on the record’s self and social-ontology topics, and on THEORY-126’s We-mode collective emotion.

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