Identity Fusion Project

We are an active and dynamic international research group working in the Department of Social and Organizational Psychology  at Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia  (UNED) in Madrid (Spain) and at the University of Texas, at Austin (US). Dr. Ángel Gómez is the current coordinator of the research group "Social Psychology on intra and intergroup relations and Social Identity"  (G66E49) in Spain and Dr. William B. Swann Jr. is the current coordinator of the lab group in Austin. 
 
Altogether, our group has developed several research lines related to relevant psychosocial processes, and particularly, related to the strategies to improve intergroup relations and those processes involved on such improvement. 
 
Together with Prof. William B. Swann Jr. (University of Texas at Austin), the research work developed by Ángel Gómez and his group has pioneered the identification of an essential construct in order to explain the roots of extreme behaviors: Identity Fusion. Identiy Fusion is a visceral connection of an individual with a group that predicts pro-group and extreme behavior (e.g., willingness to fight and die for the group and self-sacrifice).
 
A growing body or research focused on pathways to fusion is being developed with the Anthropologist Dr. Harvey Whitehouse, at the University of Oxford, UK. Collaboration with Harvey´s team is being crucial to determine some of the potential causes of group bonding in general, and identity fusion in particular
 
Our team has made relevant scientific contributions to the current international research in Social Psychology. Our works have been published in some of the most influential and renowned scientific journals of the area (e.g., Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, Psychological Review, Journal of Personality & Social Psychology, Personality & Social Psychology Bulletin, or Psychological Science). With the help of our collaborators we keep trying to reveal some of the most relevant process for intergroup relations. 
 
For more information see: www.identityfusion.org