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Social identity theories have posited that people's social categorization renders ingroup favoritism and outgroup discrimination. However, studies conducted during political transitions (South Africa's democratic election and East-West German unification) have revealed mixed directions of the causal links between social categorization and intergroup attitudes. To further address this issue, we conducted two longitudinal studies during the handover of Hong Kong in 1997. Study 1 revealed mixed temporal causal links between Hong Kong participants' social categorization and their attitudes toward Chinese Mainlanders across four waves. In Study 2, we conducted a summer camp in which Hong Kong participants came into contact with new immigrants from Mainland China. In this condition, Hong Kong participants' prior attitudes toward Mainlanders predicted their subsequent social categorization. These findings were interpreted in terms of intergroup relations during political transitions.

Social identity approaches assume that social identification affects both self-conception and intergroup orientation. The authors contend that such social identification effects are accentuated when people hold a fixed view of human character and attribute immutable dispositions to social groups. To these individuals, social identities are immutable, concrete entities capable of guiding self-conception and intergroup orientation. Social identification effects are attenuated when people hold a malleable view of human character and thus do not view social identities as fixed, concrete entities. The authors tested and found support for this contention in three studies that were conducted in the context of the Hong Kong 1997 political transition, and discussed the findings in terms of their implications for self-conceptions and the meaning of social identification.