S. Reicher et N. Hopkins, SEEKING INFLUENCE THROUGH CHARACTERIZING SELF-CATEGORIES - AN ANALYSIS OF ANTI-ABORTIONIST RHETORIC, British journal of social psychology, 35, 1996, pp. 297-311
This paper presents an analysis of an anti-abortionist's speech to a m
edical audience. It is shown that central to the speech is the way in
which the speaker defines the context of the abortion debate and hence
the categories of people involved. In particular, the speaker constru
es himself as a member of a common in-group with his audience, constru
es the entire audience as part of an anti-abortion category and claims
that abortion is in contradict ion with the defining features of the
audience's medical identity on a series of levels. This analysis is us
ed to make two suggestions. Firstly, following self-categorization the
ory, that the ways in which self-categories are defined may be central
to the process of mass social influence. Secondly, however, self-cate
gories may not be specified by intra-psychic processes but rather are
discursively constructed and argued over. The implications of such a p
osition for future research on self-categorization and category salien
ce are discussed.