Showing papers on "Identity (social science) published in 2008"

Toward an integrative social identity model of collective action: A quantitative research synthesis of three socio-psychological perspectives

Abstract: An integrative social identity model of collective action (SIMCA) is developed that incorporates 3 socio-psychological perspectives on collective action. Three meta-analyses synthesized a total of 182 effects of perceived injustice, efficacy, and identity on collective action (corresponding to these socio-psychological perspectives). Results showed that, in isolation, all 3 predictors had medium-sized (and causal) effects. Moreover, results showed the importance of social identity in predicting collective action by supporting SIMCA's key predictions that (a) affective injustice and politicized identity produced stronger effects than those of non-affective injustice and non-politicized identity; (b) identity predicted collective action against both incidental and structural disadvantages, whereas injustice and efficacy predicted collective action against incidental disadvantages better than against structural disadvantages; (c) all 3 predictors had unique medium-sized effects on collective action when controlling for between-predictor covariance; and (d) identity bridged the injustice and efficacy explanations of collective action. Results also showed more support for SIMCA than for alternative models reflecting previous attempts at theoretical integration. The authors discuss key implications for theory, practice, future research, and further integration of social and psychological perspectives on collective action.

Taking risky opportunities in youthful content creation: teenagers' use of social networking sites for intimacy, privacy and self-expression

Abstract: The explosion in social networking sites such as MySpace, Facebook, Bebo and Friendster is widely regarded as an exciting opportunity, especially for youth.Yet the public response tends to be one of puzzled dismay regarding a generation that, supposedly, has many friends but little sense of privacy and a narcissistic fascination with self-display. This article explores teenagers' practices of social networking in order to uncover the subtle connections between online opportunity and risk. While younger teenagers relish the opportunities to recreate continuously a highly-decorated, stylistically-elaborate identity, older teenagers favour a plain aesthetic that foregrounds their links to others, thus expressing a notion of identity lived through authentic relationships. The article further contrasts teenagers' graded conception of `friends' with the binary classification of social networking sites, this being one of several means by which online privacy is shaped and undermined by the affordances of these s...

Intersectional Invisibility: The Distinctive Advantages and Disadvantages of Multiple Subordinate-Group Identities

Abstract: The hypothesis that possessing multiple subordinate-group identities renders a person “invisible” relative to those with a single subordinate-group identity is developed. We propose that androcentric, ethnocentric, and heterocentric ideologies will cause people who have multiple subordinate-group identities to be defined as non-prototypical members of their respective identity groups. Because people with multiple subordinate-group identities (e.g., ethnic minority woman) do not fit the prototypes of their respective identity groups (e.g., ethnic minorities, women), they will experience what we have termed “intersectional invisibility.” In this article, our model of intersectional invisibility is developed and evidence from historical narratives, cultural representations, interest-group politics, and anti-discrimination legal frameworks is used to illustrate its utility. Implications for social psychological theory and research are discussed.

Small stories as a new perspective in narrative and identity analysis

Abstract: In this article, we depart from our recent work on 'small stories', which we propose as an antidote to canonical narrative studies, and we advance our argumentation by sketching out a five-step analytical operation for tapping into small stories as sites of identity work. These steps grow out of the model of positioning (as put forward by Bamberg 1997, and elaborated in Bamberg 2004a; cf. also Georgakopoulou 2000) that succeeds in navigating between the two extreme ends of fine-grained micro analysis and macro accounts. We will work with positioning in the close analysis of a small story event (as part of a moderated group discussion involving ten-year-old boys in an American school) in which we will show how the teller's announcement of the story, the subsequent withdrawal, and the pre-telling negotiation with the interlocutors are as integral parts of our analysis as the actual telling. We will also demonstrate how viewing story content as a function of interactional engagement opens up new insights into identity constructions of sameness in the face of adversative conditions and constant change.

Identity matters: Reflections on the construction of identity scholarship in organization studies

Abstract: Key tensions underlying much of the identity literature; we foreground identity matters as encountered by individuals, understood as social; durability of identity; identity in its various conceptualizations offers creative ways to understand a range of organizational settings and phenomena while bridging the levels from micro to macro.

Managing Identity: Identity Work, Personal Predicaments and Structural Circumstances

Abstract: Social science research can play a valuable role in enabling people to understand how their personal predicaments relate to the broader structures and historical circumstances in which they arise. ...

Social identity contingencies: how diversity cues signal threat or safety for African Americans in mainstream institutions.

Abstract: This research demonstrates that people at risk of devaluation based on group membership are attuned to cues that signal social identity contingencies--judgments, stereotypes, opportunities, restrictions, and treatments that are tied to one's social identity in a given setting In 3 experiments, African American professionals were attuned to minority representation and diversity philosophy cues when they were presented as a part of workplace settings Low minority representation cues coupled with colorblindness (as opposed to valuing diversity) led African American professionals to perceive threatening identity contingencies and to distrust the setting (Experiment 1) The authors then verified that the mechanism mediating the effect of setting cues on trust was identity contingent evaluations (Experiments 2 & 3) The power of social identity contingencies as they relate to underrepresented groups in mainstream institutions is discussed

Narrative and the Cultural Psychology of Identity

Abstract: This article presents a tripartite model of identity that integrates cognitive, social, and cultural levels of analysis in a multimethod framework. With a focus on content, structure, and process, identity is defined as ideology cognized through the individual engagement with discourse, made manifest in a personal narrative constructed and reconstructed across the life course, and scripted in and through social interaction and social practice. This approach to the study of identity challenges personality and social psychologists to consider a cultural psychology framework that focuses on the relationship between master narratives and personal narratives of identity, recognizes the value of a developmental perspective, and uses ethnographic and idiographic methods. Research in personality and social psychology that either explicitly or implicitly relies on the model is reviewed.

Language in Late Modernity: Interaction in an Urban School

Abstract: The study of teenagers in the classroom, and how they interact with one another and their teachers, can tell us a great deal about late-modern society. In this revealing account, Ben Rampton presents the extensive sociolinguistic research he carried out in an inner-city high school. Through his vivid analysis of classroom talk, he offers answers to some important questions: does social class still count for young people, or is it in demise? Are traditional authority relationships in schools being undermined? How is this affected by popular media culture? His study, which provides numerous transcripts and three extensive case studies, introduces a way of perceiving established ideas in sociolinguistics, such as identity, insecurity, the orderliness of classroom talk, and the experience of learning at school. In doing so, Rampton shows how work in sociolinguistics can contribute to some major debates in sociology, anthropology, cultural studies and education.

Intersections: The Simultaneity of Race, Gender and Class in Organization Studies

Abstract: This article argues for a reconceptualization of the intersections of race, gender and class as simultaneous processes of identity, institutional and social practice in order to redress the lack of attention to these intersections in feminist organization studies. Grounding my argument on a brief critique of white liberal feminism from the perspective of women of colour, I examine other feminist frameworks beyond the dominant liberal paradigm and identify their possible contributions to the study of intersections in organization theory and practice. Specifically, I propose theoretical and methodological interventions for researching and practicing more forcefully and intentionally the simultaneity of race, gender and class in organizations, including researching and publicizing the hidden stories at the intersections of race, ethnicity, gender, class, nation and sexuality; identifying, untangling and changing the differential impact of everyday practices in organizations and identifying and linking internal organizational processes with external societal processes. I conclude with some reflections on the possible implications of these proposals for each of us, scholars and practitioners of gender and organization.

Academic identities under threat

Abstract: This article focuses on the lived experience of practising academics as part of an inquiry into the vexed question of ‘academic identities’. Identity is understood not as a fixed property, but as part of the lived complexity of a person's project. The article reports on data from a small study in one university. The data suggest that academic identity is complex and that, moreover, it cannot be read off from descriptions of teaching, research, or management roles. Respondents in all roles were able to maintain highly distinctive, strongly framed academic identities. Experiences of class, gender and the significance of family are reported as having continued salience in respondents' lives. Moreover, despite all the pressure of performativity, individuals created spaces for the exercise of principled personal autonomy and agency. The article concludes that paying detailed attention to how changes are being experienced is an important element in theorising trends in the sector.

Technology, Identity, and Inertia through the Lens of 'The Digital Photography Company'

Abstract: Organizations often experience difficulty when pursuing new technology. Large bodies of research have examined the behavioral, social, and cognitive forces that underlie this phenomenon; however, the role of a firm's identity remains relatively unexplored. Identity comprises insider and outsider perceptions of what is core about an organization. An identity has associated with it a set of codes or norms that represent shared beliefs about legitimate behavior for an organization with that identity. In this paper, technologies that deviate from the expectations associated with an organization's identity are labeled identity-challenging technologies. Based on a comprehensive field-based case study of the entire life history of a company, identity-challenging technologies are found to be difficult to capitalize on for two reasons. First, identity serves as a filter, such that organizational members notice and interpret external stimuli in a manner consistent with the identity. As a result, identity-challenging technological opportunities inconsistent with that identity may be missed. Second, since identity becomes intertwined in the routines, procedures, and beliefs of both organizational and external constituents, explicit efforts to shift identity in order to accommodate identity-challenging technology are difficult to accomplish. Given the disruptive nature of identity shifts, understanding whether technology is identity-challenging is a critical consideration for managers pursuing new technology.

Identity as a Variable

Abstract: As scholarly interest in the concept of identity continues to grow, social identities are proving to be crucially important for understanding contemporary life. Despite - or perhaps because of - the sprawl of different treatments of identity in the social sciences, the concept has remained too analytically loose to be as useful a tool as the literature's early promise had suggested. We propose to solve this longstanding problem by developing the analytical rigor and methodological imagination that will make identity a more useful variable for the social sciences. This article offers more precision by defining collective identity as a social category that varies along two dimensions - content and contestation. Content describes the meaning of a collective identity. The content of social identities may take the form of four non-mutually exclusive types: constitutive norms; social purposes; relational comparisons with other social categories; and cognitive models. Contestation refers to the degree of agreement within a group over the content of the shared category. Our conceptualization thus enables collective identities to be compared according to the agreement and disagreement about their meanings by the members of the group. The final section of the article looks at the methodology of identity scholarship. Addressing the wide array of methodological options on identity - including discourse analysis, surveys, and content analysis, as well as promising newer methods like experiments, agent-based modeling, and cognitive mapping - we hope to provide the kind of brush clearing that will enable the field to move forward methodologically as well.

A Best Practices Guide to Intersectional Approaches in Psychological Research

Abstract: This paper serves as a “best practices guide” for researchers interested in applying intersectionality theory to psychological research. Intersectionality, the mutually constitutive relations among social identities, presents several issues to researchers interested in applying it to research. I highlight three central issues and provide guidelines for how to address them. First, I discuss the constraints in the number of identities that researchers are able to test in an empirical study, and highlight relevant decision rules. Second, I discuss when to focus on “master” identities (e.g., gender) versus “emergent” identities (i.e., White lesbian). Third, I argue that treating identity as a process situated within social structural contexts facilitates the research process. I end with a brief discussion of the implications for the study of intersectionality.

Ontological Security in International Relations: Self-Identity and the IR State

Abstract: 1. Introduction 2. Identity, Morality, and Social Action 3. The Possibilities of a Self 4. The Power of Self-Identity: British Neutrality and the American Civil War 5. 'Death Before Dishonor': Belgian Self-Identity, Honor, and World War I 6. Haunted by the Past: Shame and NATO's Kosovo Operation 7. The Future of Ontological Security in International Relations

Family Identity: A Framework of Identity Interplay in Consumption Practices

Abstract: “Being a family” is a vitally important collective enterprise central to many consumption experiences and replete with new challenges in contemporary society. We advance a framework to learn how families draw on communication forms and use marketplace resources to manage interplays among individual, relational (e.g., couple, sibling, parent‐child), and collective identities. Our framework also outlines potential moderators of this identity‐management process. To demonstrate the value of our framework for consumer researchers, we propose numerous research questions and offer applications in the areas of family decision making, consumer socialization, and person‐object relations.

Younger academics’ constructions of ‘authenticity’, ‘success’ and professional identity

Abstract: This article contributes to ongoing work that seeks to understand the nature and formation of contemporary academic identities. Drawing on interview data conducted with a sample of ‘younger’ academics within UK universities, it considers how they position themselves (and in turn experience being positioned) in relation to notions of ‘authenticity’ and ‘success’. It is argued that younger academics’ experiences of inauthenticity are exacerbated by: (a) the current dominant performative ethos, (b) their age, (c) race, class, gender, and (d) status – but especially for those who are contract researchers. In particular, it is argued that the extent to which they are able to perform ‘success’ is shaped and constrained by structural locations of ‘race’/ethnicity, social class, gender and age. Consideration is given to the younger academics’ various attempts to position themselves as ‘authentic’, and their negotiations of this contested discursive terrain. It is suggested that the ‘authentic’ and ‘successful’ ac...

Adolescents' Identity Experiments on the Internet Consequences for Social Competence and Self-Concept Unity

Abstract: The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of adolescents' online identity experiments on their social competence and self-concept unity. An online survey was conducted among 1,158 Dutch adolescents between 10 and 17 years of age. Using structural equation modeling, the authors investigated the validity of four opposing effects hypotheses in an integrative antecedents-and-effects model. Adolescents who more often experimented with their identity on the Internet more often communicated online with people of different ages and cultural backgrounds. This communication, in turn, had a positive effect on adolescents' social competence but did not affect their self-concept unity. In particular, lonely adolescents used the Internet to experiment with their identity. The social competence of lonely adolescents benefited significantly from these online identity experiments.

Contrasting perspectives on narrating selves and identities: an invitation to

Abstract: In recent years, qualitative researchers have in varied ways conceptualized selves and identities as narratively constructed. In this article, we offer a typology for viewing, the various conceptualizations of narrative identities and selves. Five perspectives are presented for discussion. These are, the psychosocial, the inter-subjective, the storied resource, the dialogic and the performative perspectives. Insights into contrasts between them are also generated by exploring the emphasis given by each perspective to both the social and individual in creating selves and identities. These contrasts are organized along a continuum, with perspectives that adopt a 'thick individual' and 'thin social relational' view to the self and identity at one end, and those that adopt a 'thin individual' and 'thick social relational' view at the other. We close by suggesting that each perspective is worthy of consideration in its own right and that coexistence is possible despite their differences.

Identity based views of the corporation: Insights from corporate identity, organisational identity, social identity, visual identity, corporate brand identity and corporate image

Abstract: Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to consider advances in corporate identity scholarship on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of the first special edition of corporate identity to appear in the European Journal of Marketing in 1997.Design/methodology/approach – The paper takes the form of a literature review.Findings – The notion of, what can be termed, “identity‐based views of the corporation” is introduced. Each of the ten identity based perspectives that inform the above are underpinned by a critically important question which is believed to be of considerable saliency to marketing scholars and policy advisors alike. As a precursor to an exposition of these ten perspectives, the paper discusses five principal schools of thought relating to identity and identification ((the quindrivium) which can be characterised as: corporate identity (the identity of the organisation); communicated corporate identification (identification from the organisation); stakeholder corporate identification (an indivi...

Contrasting perspectives on narrating selves and identities: an invitation to dialogue

Abstract: In recent years, qualitative researchers have in varied ways conceptualized selves and identities as narratively constructed. In this article, we offer a typology for viewing, the various conceptualizations of narrative identities and selves. Five perspectives are presented for discussion. These are, the psychosocial, the inter-subjective, the storied resource, the dialogic and the performative perspectives. Insights into contrasts between them are also generated by exploring the emphasis given by each perspective to both the social and individual in creating selves and identities. These contrasts are organized along a continuum, with perspectives that adopt a `thick individual' and `thin social relational' view to the self and identity at one end, and those that adopt a `thin individual' and `thick social relational' view at the other. We close by suggesting that each perspective is worthy of consideration in its own right and that coexistence is possible despite their differences.

The Positive Aspects of Being a Lesbian or Gay Man

Abstract: The need to provide culturally competent training for counseling gay men and lesbians (as well as other sexual minorities) is limited by the relative scarcity of research. Extant research has focused on psychopathologies and negative life experiences with little attention to the positive aspects of the lives of gay men and lesbians. An online survey collected data on perceptions of the positive aspects of being a gay man or lesbian (N 553). Qualitative analyses revealed 3 domains with 11 themes. The positive aspects of gay or lesbian identity were belonging to a community, creating families of choice, forging strong connections with others, serving as positive role models, developing empathy and compassion, living authentically and honestly, gaining personal insight and sense of self, involvement in social justice and activism, freedom from gender-specific roles, exploring sexuality and relationships, and enjoying egalitarian relationships (lesbian participants only). These findings are discussed in light of recent literature on positive psychology and strength-based therapeutic approaches.

Governing by Managing Identity Boundaries: The Case of Family Businesses

Abstract: In this paper we illustrate how boundary theory can be a useful perspective to understand the dynamics of family businesses. We integrate insights from the family business literature with the work–family and identity boundary literatures to describe degrees of integration between the family and business identities in family firms and outline contingencies that influence this integration. We also develop the notion of “differential permeability” as a state of being both integrated and segmented on various aspects of identity and articulate costs and benefits to this state, as well as to high integration and high segmentation. Finally, we invoke the research on “boundary work” as a means of managing family business boundaries and conclude by outlining additional avenues of research that stem from using such a boundary theory lens.