This book offers a critical examination of Identity Fusion Theory (IFT) that scrutinises its theoretical and methodological assumptions. IFT is a major new extension of the social identity paradigm, itself one of the most widely used paradigms in social psychology. It purports to explain why some people are willing to sacrifice their lives or commit violent acts in the name of a group, such as a nation or a terrorist cell. This book offers a reinterpretation of the theory through a discursive psychological perspective, that critiques cognitivist assumptions about the nature of the human relationships and social phenomena. The book proposes an alternative interpretation of the type of strong group identity described by IFT from a discursive perspective, reframing its key experimental findings in terms of discourse and culturally-specific language choices. Finally, the book reflects on the wider implications of the shortcomings of Identity Fusion Theory for the field of experimental social psychology today.weiterlesen