Social Identity of East Germans: The Process of Unification between East and West Germany as a Challenge to Cope with “Negative Social Identity”

Changing European Identities 2026 Book chapter

View at publisher
Authors: Amélie Mummendey, Rosemarie Mielke, Michael Wenzel, Uwe Peter Kanning
DOI: 10.4324/9781003777106-28
Cited by: 14

Abstract

Since the classic Sherif-Experiments in the 1950s there have been theories in social psychology which dealt especially with intergroup processes and emphasised the fundamentally different nature of interpersonal and intergroup behaviour. Examples are: Theory of Realistic Group Conflict ( Sherif, 1966 ), Theory of Relative Deprivation ( Gurr, 1970 ; Crosby, 1976 ; Runciman, 1966 ) and of course the well known Social Identity Theory (SIT); ( Tajfel, 1978 ; Tajfel and Turner, 1986 ).

Fields of Study & Subjects

Eastern European Communism and Reforms

Publication details

Journal / source
Changing European Identities
Publisher
Routledge
Pages
405–428
Publication date
13 April 2026
Language
EN
Document type
Book chapter