Group adherence and personal agency: the role of identity fusion and self-concept clarity

Identity fusion is a construct that describes the overlap between the self and group schema. The aim of our studies was to expand previous research on identity fusion and its relationship with group control and agency. Two studies were conducted to examine if people fused with a group would present more agentic self-descriptions than people with low identity fusion. Correlational analyses showed that when group identification was controlled for, the identity fusion (between the self and the country) was positively related to agentic characteristics (as measured by goals and action orientation scale, agency and communion scales, and the decisiveness scale). Moreover, in two studies these relationships were mediated by the clarity of self-construct and by the certainty about one's characteristics. Overall, our studies revealed that the Polish version of the Identity Fusion Scale is a reliable measure, that allows to tap agentic aspects of group adherence. peerReviewed publishedVersion