Shifting attachments to social groups are a constant in the modern era. What accounts
for variation in the strength of group identification? Whereas prior work has emphasized
group-level properties and individual differences, we instead highlight the role of
positions within network structure. Distilling insights from prior work on networks and
identity, we propose that identification strength is positively related to network cohesion—
having contacts who are mutually interconnected. Departing from prevailing
accounts, we further propose that identification strength can separately arise through
network range—having contacts who inhabit a broad range of network communities.
Using the tools of computational linguistics to develop a language-based measure of
identification, we find consistent support for the theory using pooled data of internal
communications from three disparate organizations.