“Strength in numbers” indeed: I had posted an observation in the past that a key component of social identity was finding a “scapegoat” group which was in some way similar to one’s own and trying one’s best to put that group down or set it as the “lesser” group. (As an aside, because this sort of similarity is kind of like a Hamming distance – number of things that need to change to transform one into the other – which is a symmetric measure, such things tend to be reciprocal: “A thinks B is less and B thinks A is less”. Who is right? Probably neither; both are equally petty).

Well, that would imply that social identity is built on top of a deep-rooted sense of insecurity, which is countered by gathering many people with the same characteristics. Having others who think like us makes us feel Secure. Confident. Right.

An interesting corollary of this is that people who tend to feel confident/secure/right enough on their own have no need for social identity. This would seem to link self-confidence to traits ranging from individuality to creativity or an entrepreneurial mindset.