Michael Hogg

Michael Hogg

Michael Hogg is Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Social Psychology at Claremont Graduate University and director of its Social Identity Lab. He developed uncertainty-identity theory, an account of why people identify with groups: doing so reduces uncertainty about who they are, and people preferentially seek out groups with high entitativity, meaning groups that feel bounded, coherent and unified, when they do it. He has since extended the theory to explain extremism and totalist group membership.

Who they are

Hogg has spent his career studying how group membership shapes identity, working from the University of Bristol before moving to Claremont Graduate University in the United States, where he holds emeritus status and directs the Social Identity Lab. His central theoretical contribution, uncertainty-identity theory, proposes that self-uncertainty, not knowing who one is, what one should believe, or how one should behave, is itself uncomfortable enough to be a motivating force, and that identifying strongly with a group is one of the more effective ways to resolve it.

The theory predicts, and Hogg's experimental work has tested, that people under uncertainty do not identify with just any group. They gravitate toward groups high in entitativity, a property Hogg breaks down into components including boundedness, internal homogeneity and common fate: essentially how much a collection of people feels like a single coherent thing rather than a loose aggregate. A tight clique, a cult, a sports team and a nation can all score high on entitativity, and Hogg's research suggests the more uncertain a person feels, the more strongly they are drawn to exactly that kind of bounded, unified group.

Hogg has also written and edited widely on group processes and intergroup relations, including a long-running introductory social psychology textbook with Graham Vaughan that is a standard text in the UK, Europe and Australasia. In later work, he has extended uncertainty-identity theory to account for extremism and totalist groups, arguing that the same uncertainty-reduction mechanism that draws a person into an ordinary social clique can, under the right conditions, draw them into a group that demands far more.

Books

Hogg's output beyond his major monographs and textbook runs mostly to journal articles; the works below are selected as the significant ones, not an exhaustive list.

Key papers

Hogg, M. A. (2007). Uncertainty-identity theory. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 39, 69-126.

Hogg, M. A., Sherman, D. K., Dierselhuis, J., Maitner, A. T., & Moffitt, G. (2007). Uncertainty, entitativity, and group identification. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 43(1), 135-142.

Key ideas

Uncertainty-identity theory. People identify with groups partly to resolve uncertainty about who they are; a clearer, more strongly defined group membership settles a discomfort that has nothing to do with liking the group's members. See uncertainty-identity theory.

Entitativity as the preferred target. Under uncertainty, people do not gravitate toward just any group, but toward ones that feel bounded, internally homogeneous and unified by common fate. Hogg's components of entitativity work almost as a specification sheet for what makes a clique feel like a clique. See entitativity.

A rival account, held side by side rather than resolved. Hogg's 2007 paper cites Marilynn Brewer's optimal distinctiveness theory as a competing explanation for group identification: Hogg's account centres uncertainty reduction, Brewer's centres a balance between fitting in and standing out. Neither fully displaces the other, and this site treats both as live.

Identity fusion and tribal psychology. Hogg's uncertainty-reduction mechanism connects to stronger, more totalising forms of group attachment, including identity fusion, and to group behaviour more broadly in what this site groups under tribal psychology. See identity fusion and tribal psychology.

The extremism extension. Hogg has applied the same theory to explain why uncertain people are drawn to extremist and totalist groups, which use identical entitativity cues, rigid boundaries, uniformity, a shared enemy or fate, at a more extreme setting.

Concepts on this site

Uncertainty-identity theory, the theory he originated

Entitativity, the group property his theory says people seek out under uncertainty

Identity fusion, a more totalising form of the same attachment

Tribal psychology, the broader territory his group-identification research sits within

Find them elsewhere

Scholar profile states Professor of Social Psychology, Claremont Graduate University, matching the note. No social accounts found

Checked 2026-09-10. Handles and affiliations go out of date, so treat this block as a snapshot rather than a standing fact.

Sources

  1. Hogg, M. A., & Abrams, D. (1988). Social Identifications: A Social Psychology of Intergroup Relations and Group Processes. Routledge.
  2. Hogg, M. A. (1992). The Social Psychology of Group Cohesiveness: From Attraction to Social Identity. Harvester Wheatsheaf.
  3. Hogg, M. A., & Vaughan, G. (1995-present). Social Psychology. Pearson.
  4. Hogg, M. A., & Terry, D. J. (Eds.). (2001). Social Identity Processes in Organizational Contexts. Psychology Press.
  5. Hogg, M. A. (2007). Uncertainty-identity theory. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 39, 69-126.
  6. Hogg, M. A., Sherman, D. K., Dierselhuis, J., Maitner, A. T., & Moffitt, G. (2007). Uncertainty, entitativity, and group identification. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 43(1), 135-142.
  7. Bibliography verified against publisher and university pages, 2026-09-01.