Showing papers on "Identity (social science) published in 1984"

Effects of group identity on resource use in a simulated commons dilemma.

Abstract: In a review of research on in-group categorization and group identity, Brewer (1979) proposed that cooperative solutions to social dilemmas, such as Hardin 's (1968) "tragedy of the commons ", may be achieved by exploiting the positive consequences arising from a common social-group identity. Three laboratory experiments were conducted to assess the effects of making salient either a superordinate (collective) or subordinate (differentiating) group identity in heterogeneous groups. In the first two experiments, naturally occurring social categories were used as a basis for group differentiation. In the third, the level of social-group identity was manipulated by varying the common fate of the group members. It was predicted that individual restraint would be most likely when a superordinate group identity was made salient and under conditions in which feedback indicated that the common resource was being depleted. Results from all three experiments provide support for this general hypothesis, indicating that cooperative responding is enhanced even when the basis for superordinate group identity is minimal.

Homosexual identity formation: Testing a theoretical model

Abstract: Of late, researchers in the area of homosexuality have emphasized the study of homosexual identity formation. Several models have been put forward depicting the process of identity acquisition, but little attempt has been made to test either their accuracy or generality. The study outlined in this paper assesses the validity of several important aspects of my six‐stage model of homosexual identity acquisition. To this end, a questionnaire was constructed to measure a number of factors believed to be critical to homosexual identity development. Responses of subjects at each stage were examined to ascertain the degree to which they corresponded with ideal stage descriptions predicted from the model. Results provided some support for the validity of these descriptions and . for the order of the stages. The data describe a four‐stage, rather than a six‐stage model. To check that these findings were not the result of researcher bias, a discriminant analysis was carried out. This indicated that the pos...

Personal Being: A Theory for Individual Psychology

Abstract: The undoubted fact of human individuality has remained outside the field of interest of scientific psychology. Neither the central organization of consciousness nor individual powers of action have been dealt with in substantial research programmes. Yet every facet of our mental lives is influenced by how our minds are organized. How much of this organization comes from the languages and social practices of the cultures into which we are born is undetermined. In this book, Rom Harre explores the radical thesis that most of our personal being may be of social origin. Consciousness, agency and autobiography are the three unities which make up our personal being. Their origin in childhood development and their differences in different cultures are explored. Nevertheless, despite the overwhelming influence of social environment on mental structure, individual identity is a central facet of Western culture. How is the formation of such identity possible? Rom Harre ends with the suggestion that personal identity derives from the complementary powers of human beings both to display themselves socially as unique and to create novel linguistic forms making individual thought and feeling possible.

Language and Society

Abstract: Acknowledgements 1. Linguistics and sociolinguistics 2. A tapestry in space and time 3. Language varieties: processes and problems 4. Discovering the structure in variation 5. Rhoticity 6. At the intersection of social factors 7. Change, meaning and acts of identity 8. The discourse of social life 9. Communication: words and world 10. Action and critique 11. Language and social explanation Further reading References Index.

Development of an objective measure to assess ego identity in adolescence: Validation and replication.

Abstract: Three studies that evaluate the reliability and validity of the Extended Version of the Objective Measure of Ego Identity Status (Adams and Grotevant, 1983) are reported. In Studies 1 and 2, college students in Texas and Utah, respectively, completed the identity measure, the Extended Range Vocabulary Test, and the Crowne-Marlowe Social Desirability Scale and released achievement results from their college records. The identity measure was found to have acceptable reliability (both internal consistency and test-retest) and validity (content, factorial, discriminant, and concurrent). In Study 3, scale scores from the objective identity measure correlated in the predicted pattern with ratings of identity exploration and commitment made from the Ego Identity Interview. Although the objective measure is not intended to replace the interview, it would appear to be useful in a number of situations where administration of the interview is impractical.

Fear and trembling ; Repetition

Abstract: Presented here in a new translation, with a historical introduction by the translators, "Fear and Trembling and Repetition" are the most poetic and personal of Soren Kierkegaard's pseudonymous writings. Published in 1843 and written under the names Johannes de Silentio and Constantine Constantius, respectively, the books demonstrate Kierkegaard's transmutation of the personal into the lyrically religious. Each work uses as a point of departure Kierkegaard's breaking of his engagement to Regine Olsen--his sacrifice of "that single individual." From this beginning "Fear and Trembling" becomes an exploration of the faith that transcends the ethical, as in Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his son Isaac at God's command. This faith, which persists in the face of the absurd, is rewarded finally by the return of all that the faithful one is willing to sacrifice. "Repetition" discusses the most profound implications of unity of personhood and of identity within change, beginning with the ironic story of a young poet who cannot fulfill the ethical claims of his engagement because of the possible consequences of his marriage. The poet finally despairs of repetition (renewal) in the ethical sphere, as does his advisor and friend Constantius in the aesthetic sphere. The book ends with Constantius' intimation of a third kind of repetition--in the religious sphere."

Identity Formation: Discovery or Creation?

Abstract: The contrasting metaphors of discovery and creation are proposed here as alternative ways of understanding the nature of the task of identity formation. These two metaphors are related to the philosophies of eudaimonisn and existentialism, respectively. The processes of discovery and creation are shown to have distinctive theoretical implications regarding (a) the sources of identity elements, (b) the methods used in the evaluation of competing identity alternatives, and (c) the decision-making level on which a resolution of an identity crisis is most likely to be reached. Some practical implications of the two metaphors for counseling adolescents and others with identity concerns are also presented.

Homosexual identity formation as a developmental process.

Abstract: Homosexual identity is conceptualized as a life-spanning developmental process that eventually leads to personal acceptance of a positive gay self-image and a coherent personal identity. HabermasAE theory of ego development is utilized to provide a synthesis and understanding of the literature on the construction and maintained of the homosexual identity. It is concluded that the homosexual identity generally emerges in a three-stage process in which the person progresses form: (1) an egocentric interpretation of homoerotic feelings to (2) an internalization of the normative, conventional assumptions about homosexuality to (3) a post-conventional phase in which societal norms are critically evaluated and the positive gay identity is achieved and managed. Developmental task associated with each stage are outlined in terms of their ego-integrative factions. Although the stages in the process of homosexual identity formation are theoretically the same for females and male, because of the paucity of research o...

Familial correlates of identity formation in late adolescence: A study of the predictive utility of connectedness and individuality in family relations

Abstract: Past investigations have documented that late adolescence is associated with developmental changes in identity formation resulting in individual differences in identity statuses. Particular attention has been given to the identification and study of diffusion, foreclosure, moratorium, and identity achievement statuses. Drawing from the recent theoretical speculations by Cooper and Grotevant, an investigation was completed to assess the predictive utility of measures of family connectedness and individuality in differentiating among the four identity statuses. Data were obtained from male and female late adolescents and their mothers and fathers on perceptions of independence (individuality), communication, and emotional affection (connectedness). Differences among adolescents grouped into the four identity formation statuses were assessed using analysis of variance techniques comparing gender and identity status on measures of connectedness and individuality within a parent-adolescent relationship. Evidence consistent with the notion that a combination of emotional attachment to parents and the encouragement of independence striving by parents is associated with healthy identity development emerges from our data.

The emergence of action

Abstract: People sometimes find themselves doing things that they did not set out to do. The theory of action identification suggests that people will make such discoveries under certain circumstances and then will continue to perform the action as newly understood; new action, then, will be the result. This action emergence phenomenon was investigated in two experiments. Each was designed to test the idea that people would embrace a new understanding of action—an emergent act identity—to the degree that this identity provided a more comprehensive understanding of the action than did a previous act identity. In Experiment 1, some subjects were induced to think about the details of the act of "going to college" (e.g., "studying"), whereas others were led to focus on more comprehensive meanings (e.g., "preparing for a career"). Those who concentrated on details were more susceptible to an emergent understanding of the act. They came to agree with an article that suggested that "going to college" results in "improving one's sex life" or "impairing one's sex life." Experiment 2 revealed that emergent identification can be translated into emergent action. Subjects in this study who were induced to think about the details of "drinking coffee"—by drinking their coffee in unwieldy cups—were more susceptible than those who drank from normal cups to a suggested action identification. They came to believe that "drinking coffee" amounts to "making myself seek stimulation" or to "making myself avoid stimulation," and subsequently followed the suggested action identification by turning up or down the volume of music they were hearing.

Chemical identity of the chromophores of fly visual pigment

Abstract: vanced that nickel inhibits either the synthesis of SMM or the transaminase of homocysteine or its precursors. Synthesis of cysteine [7] and hence homocysteine occurs in leaves. If vase solutions containing nickel ions inhibit the leaf synthesis of cysteine and homocysteine that explains why our leafy Chrysanthemum blooms responded to nickel by delayed flower senescence, whereas the leafless blooms of Papaver nudicaule did not. Our thanks are expressed to Dr. V.J. Bofinger of the Department of Mathematics for statistical advice. Received December 8, 1983

Making History: The Past in the Ijesha Present

Abstract: The paper concerns the relations between politics and concepts of history in Ilesha, a Nigerian town. It is argued that purely "presentist" approaches to concepts of history are severely deficient and that analysis should focus on "stereotypic reproduction" as a dialectical process in which present practice and representations of a real past limit one another to give a sense of control over the vicissitudes of historical change. Ijesha concepts of the past are approached by an examination of the nature and use of itan (oral historical narratives). Besides implicitly static precedents, the Ijesha also had cyclical and linear ideas about the past, which had different functions; conveying respectively models of political action and a sense of their community's growth. A key civic ritual is shown to provide a mnemonic for a central motifthe contested relationship between king and people of the oral traditions. The colonial period saw a new acceptance of cultural change, but static and cyclical notions continued to have their uses: to sustain a sense of communal identity and to provide a blueprint of popularist politics. The data do not support any idea that the past (as against the present), even as embodied in ritual, can only serve an essentially conservative function, still less that it is divorced from practical politics. It is also argued that Africanists have exaggerated the effects of literacy on historical ideas, and that the Ijesha uses of the past are strongly characteristic of all situations where history is linked with collective identity.

What does the word "psychosomatic" really mean? A historical and semantic inquiry.

Abstract: Semantics and history of psychosomatic medicine are not popular topics nowadays, if they ever were; yet both of them constitute indispensable facets of any discipline that lays claim to a separate identity, as psychosomatics does. The latter, being an inchoate and inherently complex field of study, is especially in need of repeated efforts to clarify the meaning of its key terms, to delineate its scope, and to chart its development over time. Such efforts should pay off in improved teaching of this subject and in more effective communication with workers in other disciplines and with the general public. I have tried in this paper to sketch the historic development of psychosomatic conceptions and address some relevant semantic issues. It appears that early in this century, the convergence of two ancient conceptions, the holistic and the psychogenic, prepared the ground for the emergence in the 1930s of psychosomatic medicine as an organized scientific discipline and a counterreformation against the mechanistic view of man and medicine. Those two conceptions came to be subsumed by the word "psychosomatic" and thus contributed its two distinct connotations. The latter have not usually been clearly distinguished; hence, the ambiguity of the term. I have argued that only the holistic connotation should be retained, as it properly conveys the contemporary viewpoint. It is unfortunate that the word "holistic" has been appropriated recently by an anti-scientific and antiintellectual so-called "holistic health movement" (67), with resulting increment in semantic confusion and, in the eyes of many, loss of credibility for the misappropriated term. However, to retain it has merit as it is short, simple, and derived from the Greek - as were the very conceptions it has come to connote. Moreover, "holistic" has been part of the basic vocabulary of psychosomatic medicine from the beginning and conveys its core premises and purpose faithfully. As a historian aptly put it, the historic function of the psychosomatic movement has been to "vitalize the whole of medicine, psychiatry no less . . . with the holistic and ecologic viewpoint" (59, p. 9).(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)

Ego identity status, conformity behavior, and personality in late adolescence.

Abstract: Three related studies were completed to test the predictive relation among identity status, personality, and conformity behavior. The investigations were undertaken to replicate the earlier research findings of Toder and Marcia (1973). As predicted in Study 1, personality differences were found for both sexes. However, no relation was observed between identity status and conformity on the Asch task. Study 2 was completed to confirm the reliability of the identity status measure. Finally, in Study 3 four measures of conformity behavior (peer assessments, an experimental task, two self-report scales) were completed by college students of diffusion, foreclosure, moratorium, and identity-achievement statuses. Diffusion students were most influenced by peer pressure conformity, whereas identity-achievement students were most likely to report engaging in conformity behavior for achievement gains. Although earlier research by Toder and Marcia (1973) was not replicated via the Asch conformity task, the third study does support a predicted relation between identity and conformity behavior.

A Psychoanalytic Study of Migration: Its Normal and Pathological Aspects

Abstract: Without maintaining that it always follows the same steps, we could say that the migratory process passes through several phases. The feelings that prevail are those of intense sorrow for all that has been abandoned or lost, fear of the unknown, and the very profound experiences of loneliness, privation, and helplessness. Paranoid, confusional, and depressive anxieties occupy the scene in turn. This stage may be followed or replaced by a manic state in which the immigrant minimizes the transcendental significance of the change in his life or, on the contrary, magnifies the advantages of the change and overvalues everything in the new situation, disdaining what has been lost. After a variable period of time, nostalgia appears, and sorrow for the lost world. The immigrant begins to recognize feelings previously dissociated or denied and becomes capable of "suffering" his pain ("growing pains") while, at the same time, he becomes more accessible to the slow and progressive incorporation of elements of the new culture. The interaction between his internal and external world becomes more fluid. Recovery of the pleasure of thinking and desiring and of the capacity for making plans for the future, in which the past is regarded as such and not as a "lost paradise" where one constantly longs to return. In this period, it could be considered that mourning for the country of origin has been worked through to the maximum extent possible, facilitating integration of the previous culture into the new culture, without the need to renounce the old. All of this promotes an enrichment of the ego and the consolidation of a more evolved sense of identity.

The 'search for adultness": membership work in adolescent-adult talk

Abstract: Introducing some possibilities in the use of the notions "membership categorization device" and "category-bound activity" for ethnometh? odology, Sacks (1974) sketched out features and uses of, among others, the "stage of life" collection. A complement to this work, and a useful expansion of it, is found in Atkinson's (1980) analysis of "the prac? tical uses of a 'natural lifetime'." Both Sacks and Atkinson discuss how notions of life stages are used in practical reasoning, and describe the tying of activities to categories within the collection or to location in the "natural lifetime." My purpose in this paper is to develop these sources by observing membership categorization activity in conserva? tions between members of different categories within the device "stage of life," where membership/potential membership in these categories is also the topic of the talk. In particular, I give attention to the com? monsense category "adolescence" by witnessing some methods "ado? lescents" use in interview conversations about their passage through the "natural lifetime," and connect these observations to points raised in Hadden and Lester's (1978) analysis of identity as an interpretive accomplishment. Descriptions of how the "stage of life" device is used conversationally make possible some purchase on how "ado? lescence" is constituted as a commonsense category in everyday life, and some exploration of how biographical identities (identities tied to the device) serve as resources as well as topics in conversation. This kind of analysis is prior to all constructivist theorizing about "ado? lescence," since the social "fact" of an adolescence is produced and sustained through the work persons do with devices like "stage of life" and "natural lifetime." For ethnomethodology, this describes the practical and even the strategic uses of these devices by "positioned" members, who can at the same time be characterized as "transitional" within the device. "Adolescent" talk, and talk about or with "ado

The Identity of Transracial Adoptees

Abstract: A study identifies familial and contextual factors that may influence the development of racial self-perceptions among black children whose major reference groups are white. It also suggests respon...

On the nature of Latino ethnicity.

Abstract: This paper is an attempt toward a theoretical understanding of Latinos as an ethnic group. In an analysis of the social construction of Latino ethnicity by community organization leaders consideration of possible limitations that may be inherent in this type of group form must be studied. Ethnic consciousness is defined as an awareness of belonging and/or being different; a collective uniqueness derived from shared cultural characteristics such as language and an awareness of being different from other US social groups. The 1st section of this paper shows that Latino conscious behavior is collectively generated out of the interaction of at least 2 Spanish speaking groups; the 2nd section shows the idea of Latinismo as a political phenomenon--a group identity used to gain advantages or overcome disadvantages in society. The overwhelming majority of the studys respondents ( a group of community organization leaders from the Mexican American and Puerto Rican communities in Chicago) define the idea of Latino as a political phenomenon. Overall although the Spanish language is an important cultural feature of Latino ethnic consciousness it still cannot be used as the primary defining characteristic of the Latino ethnic group identity and consciousness. The conceptual form of Latino ethnic group identification proposes that social groups and their members only compare their position and fate with a limited range of other groups or individuals usually those a little higher in the social scale. In sum the social organization of Latino ethnicity represents an attempt to alter existing social and power arrangements between the Spanish speaking society and the larger American society. The politicization of a situational Latino ethic identity and consciousness suggests the mobilization of Spanish speaking groups into a self conscious Latino frame of reference. However it stresses unique national and cultural identities of the groups that it mobilizes precisely at the historical moments when these groups are being asked to take on a Latino ethnic consciousness.

Differential Involvement in Delinquency: Toward an Interpretation in Terms of Reputation Management

Abstract: Publisher Summary This chapter discusses the concept of self-presentation into that of reputation management and explains how this clarifies the aspects of pattern of differential involvement in delinquency. Clues to sex differences in delinquent involvement are provided by the possibility of sex differences in several of the factors that are otherwise related to delinquency. These include differential parental supervision and consequent segregation of audiences, the differential significance of educational achievement for boys and girls, and possibly differences in relevant knowledge. The strong sex differences that have been found in attitudes to authority are more a reflection of differential inclination to choose a delinquent identity than an explanation of it. The generality of individual differences reflects not so much a common psychological structure as communality of social meaning. Those activities that distinguish the high from the low scorer on self-report measures are those that exemplify and express a delinquent identity. These diverse activities have similarity of social meaning in common. The chapter also discusses that the age pattern reflects the fact that the contingencies in the social environment, although relatively stable, are not entirely so. Between childhood and adolescence, the pattern of social participation changes as the individual moves increasingly beyond the supervision and protection of the family home, from a small school to a bigger school and from parent–child to peer–peer relationships. It changes again with the progress of educational career, with the move beyond school and possibly into work, and with a shift from single-sex to mixed-sex participation and possibly marriage.

Ethnic myths and ethnic revivals

Abstract: In this paper I want to explore the role of myths of descent and renewal in nourishing a sense of ethnic identity and mobilising ethnic communities for political action. Much of the recent literature on the upsurge in ethnic sentiment, by focussing on the postwar West and concentrating on immediate economic, social and political factors, fails to grasp the deep historical and sociological roots of modern nations and the persistence of ethnic ties and symbols around which nationalists could create their nations. There is a long history of formation and dissolution of ethnie, reaching back to the first recorded cases in ancient Summer, Egypt and Crete, which forms the backdrop to the modern drama of nationalism and the specifically modern revival of ethnicity. Not only are the postwar ethnic autonomy movements simply a recent variation of a wider ethnic and national revival going back to the late eighteenth century in Europe; this latter revival is but the latest of a series of such resurgences, some of them purely local and others widely diffused. In pre-Roman antiquity, just as in the early European Middle Ages, and in the Far East and Africa more recently, that ancient and widespread social formation, the ethnie, has occupied a variable but important position in the hierarchy of human allegiance and has, on occasion, served as a focus for political movements and organisations. Whether we think of the kingdoms of Hittites, Hurrians and Elamites in the second millennium B.C., or the early medieval regna of Franks, Normans and Visigoths, we cannot escape from the fact that these states rested, to a large degree, on a sense of identity and solidarity deriving from elements of their shared culture and their social and political interactions with significant outsiders.

The Bisexual Identity: An Idea Without Social Recognition

Abstract: Theories of sexuality reflect popular notions by treating sexual identity as a simple dichotomy. There is research evidence for the coexistence of homosexual and heterosexual interest and behavior in a significant portion of the population. This paper examines how various conceptualizations of human sexuality have failed to adequately deal with bisexuality. The lack of acknowledgement by both the larger heterosexual society and the emerging lesbian/gay community, and its impact on the individual bisexual is examined by using the sociological concept of marginality. Some of the differences in self-labeling by women and men are noted in the light of social sex-roles. Finally, the implications of society's acceptance of bisexuality for evolving forms of relationships are suggested.

Race, socioeconomic status, and age: the social context of american masculinity

Abstract: This article seeks to delineate the social context of American masculine attainment and identity. The effects of race, socioeconomic status, and age on masculine role perceptions are analyzed for a sample of Black middle-class men. Comparative data from previous research on a sample of Black working-class men are discussed. Comparisons are also made to the findings of a Psychology Today survey sample consisting primarily of middle-class White men. Data are analyzed to exemplify the importance of studying masculine roles within a framework that takes into account the relative social location of American men. Future research needs for the study of masculine role identity from a social structural perspective are discussed.

The people of the book : drama, fellowship, and religion

Abstract: Judaism has long derived its identity from its sacred books. The book or scroll--rather than the image or idol--has been emblematic of Jewish faith and tradition. The People of the Book presents a study of a group of Orthodox Jews, all of whom live in the modern world, engaged in the time-honored practice of lernen, the repeated review and ritualized study of the sacred texts. In preserving one of the activities of Jewish life, Samuel C. Heilman argues, these are the genuine -People of the Book.- For two years, Heilman participated in and observed five study circles in New York and Jerusalem engaged in the avocation of lernen the Talmud, the great corpus of Jewish law, lore, and tradition. These groups, made up of men who felt the ritualized study of sacred texts to be not only a religious obligation but also an appealing way to spend their evenings, weekends, and holidays, assembled together under the guidance of a teacher to review the holy books of their people. Having become part of this world, the author is able to provide first-hand observation of the workings of the study circle. Heilman's study moves beyond the merely descriptive into an analysis of the nature and meaning of activity he observed. To explain the character and appeal of the study groups, he employs three concepts: drama, fellowship, and religion. Inherent to the life of the study circle are various sorts of drama: -social dramas- playing out social relationships, -cultural performances- reenacting the Jewish world view, and -interactional dramas- and -word plays- involving the intricacies of the recitation and translation process. This book will be of interest to anthropologists and those interested in the academic study of religion.