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A distinction based on social identity theory and self-categorization theory is made between depersonalized (i.e., group prototypical, stereotypical) social attraction and idiosyncratic personal attraction. Only the former; as the affective component of group cohesiveness, is considered to be related to group belongingness. A questionnaire administered after a training session to 28 members of an Australian football team supported the hypotheses. As predicted, group prototypicality was significantly more closely related to social attraction and to social (group-based) popularity than to personal attraction and personal (non-group-based) popularity. Furthermore, members who were morestrongly identified with the team (e.g., rated themselves as highly prototypical) employed prototypicality as a stronger basis for social attraction than other members did.
Hogg et al. (Mon,) studied this question.