Showing papers on "Identity (social science) published in 2014"

Ethnic and racial identity during adolescence and into young adulthood: an integrated conceptualization.

Abstract: Although ethnic and racial identity (ERI) are central to the normative development of youth of color, there have been few efforts to bring scholars together to discuss the theoretical complexities of these constructs and provide a synthesis of existing work. The Ethnic and Racial Identity in the 21st Century Study Group was assembled for this purpose. This article provides an overview of the interface of ERI with developmental and contextual issues across development, with an emphasis on adolescence and young adulthood. It proposes a metaconstruct to capture experiences that reflect both individuals’ ethnic background and their racialized experiences in a specific sociohistorical context. Finally, it presents milestones in the development of ERI across developmental periods.

Reframing medical education to support professional identity formation.

Abstract: Teaching medical professionalism is a fundamental component of medical education. The objective is to ensure that students understand the nature of professionalism and its obligations and internalize the value system of the medical profession. The recent emergence of interest in the medical literature on professional identity formation gives reason to reexamine this objective. The unstated aim of teaching professionalism has been to ensure the development of practitioners who possess a professional identity. The teaching of medical professionalism therefore represents a means to an end.The principles of identity formation that have been articulated in educational psychology and other fields have recently been used to examine the process through which physicians acquire their professional identities. Socialization-with its complex networks of social interaction, role models and mentors, experiential learning, and explicit and tacit knowledge acquisition-influences each learner, causing them to gradually "think, act, and feel like a physician."The authors propose that a principal goal of medical education be the development of a professional identity and that educational strategies be developed to support this new objective. The explicit teaching of professionalism and emphasis on professional behaviors will remain important. However, expanding knowledge of identity formation in medicine and of socialization in the medical environment should lend greater logic and clarity to the educational activities devoted to ensuring that the medical practitioners of the future will possess and demonstrate the qualities of the "good physician."

Moral character predominates in person perception and evaluation.

Abstract: What sorts of trait information do people most care about when forming impressions of others? Recent research in social cognition suggests that "warmth," broadly construed, should be of prime importance in impression formation. Yet, some prior research suggests that information about others' specifically moral traits--their moral "character"--may be a primary dimension. Although warmth and character have sometimes been conceived of as interchangeable, we argue that they are separable, and that across a wide variety of contexts, character is usually more important than warmth in impression formation. We first showed that moral character and social warmth traits are indeed separable (Studies 1 and 2). Further studies that used correlational and experimental methods showed that, as predicted, in most contexts, moral character information is more important in impression formation than is warmth information (Studies 2-6). Character information was also more important than warmth information with respect to judgments of traits' perceived fundamentalness to identity, their uniquely human quality, their context-independence, and their controllability (Study 2). Finally, Study 7 used an archival method to show that moral character information appears more prominently than warmth information in obituaries, and more strongly determines the impressions people form of the individuals described in those obituaries. We discuss implications for current theories of person perception and social cognition.

Running with the Devil: Power, Gender, and Madness in Heavy Metal Music

Abstract: A Choice Outstanding Academic Book. A musicologist and cultural critic as well as a professional musician, Robert Walser offers a comprehensive musical, social, and cultural analysis of heavy metal in Running with the Devil. Dismissed by critics and academics, condemned by parents and politicians, fervently embraced by legions of fans, heavy metal music attracts and embodies cultural conflicts that are central to our society. Walser explores how and why heavy metal works, both musically and socially, and at the same time uses metal to investigate contemporary formations of identity, community, gender, and power.

Identity, Formation, Agency, and Culture : A Social Psychological Synthesis

Abstract: The goal of Identity, Formation, Agency, and Culture is to lay the basis of a theory with which to better understand the difficulties and complexities of identity formation. It provides an extensive understanding of identity formation as it relates to human striving (agency) and social organization (culture). James E. Cote and Charles G. Levine have compiled state-of-the-art psychological and sociological theory and research into a concise synthesis. This volume utilizes a vast, interdisciplinary literature in a reader-friendly style. Playing the role of narrators, the authors take readers through the most important theories and studies of self and identity, focusing on pragmatic issues of identity formation--those things that matter most in people's lives. Identity, Formation, Agency, and Culture is intended for identity-related researchers in the behavioral and social sciences, as well as clinicians, counselors, and social workers dealing with identity-related disorders. It also serves as a main or supplemental text in advanced courses on identity, identity and human development, social development, moral development, personality, the sociology of identity, and the individual and society taught in departments of psychology, sociology, human development, and family studies.

Hybrid Masculinities: New Directions in the Sociology of Men and Masculinities

Abstract: Hybrid masculinity refers to men’s selective incorporation of performances and identity elementsassociated with marginalized and subordinated masculinities and femininities. We use recent theoriza-tion of hybrid masculinities to critically review theory and research that seeks to make sense of con-temporary transformations in masculinity. We suggest that research broadly supports three distinctconsequences associated with recent changes in performances and politics of masculinity that workto obscure the tenacity of gendered inequality. Hybrid masculinities (i) symbolically distance menfrom hegemonic masculinity; (ii) situate the masculinities available to young, White, heterosexualmen as somehow less meaningful than the masculinities associated with various marginalized andsubordinated Others; and (iii) fortify existing social and symbolic boundaries in ways that often workto conceal systems of power and inequality in historically new ways. IntroductionAgrowingbodyofsociologicaltheoryandresearchonmenandmasculinitiesaddressesrecenttransformations in men’s behaviors, appearances, opinions, and more. While historical re-searchhasshownmasculinitiestobeinacontinuousstateofchange(e.g.,Kimmel1996;Segal1990), the extent of contemporary transformations as well as their impact and meaning is thesource of a great deal of theory, research, and debate. While not a term universally adoptedamong masculinities scholars, the concept of “hybrid masculinities” is a useful way to makesense of this growing body of scholarship. It critically highlights this body of work that seeksto account for the emergence and consequences of recent transformations in masculinities.The term “hybrid” was coined in the natural sciences during the 19th century. Initiallyused to refer to species produced through the mixing of two separate species, by the 20thcentury, it was applied to people and social groups to address popular concern with miscege-nation. Today, scholars in the social sciences and humanities use “hybrid” to address culturalmiscegenation – processes and practices of cultural interpenetration (Burke 2009). “Hybridmasculinities” refer to the selective incorporation of elements of identity typically associatedwith various marginalized and subordinated masculinities and – at times – femininities intoprivileged men’s gender performances and identities (e.g., Arxer 2011; Demetriou 2001;Messerschmidt 2010; Messner 2007). Work on hybrid masculinities has primarily, thoughnot universally, focused on young, White, heterosexual-identified men. This research is cen-trally concerned with the ways that men are increasingly incorporating elements of various“Others” into their identity projects. While it is true that gendered meanings change histor-ically and geographically, research and theory addressing hybrid masculinities are beginningto ask whether recent transformations point in a new, more liberating direction.The transformations addressed by this literature include men’s assimilation of “bits andpieces”(Demetriou2001:350)ofidentityprojectscodedas“gay”(e.g.,Bridges,forthcoming;

The Role of Instrumental, Hedonic and Ssymbolic Attributes in the Intention to Adopt Electric Vehicles

Abstract: The aim is to understand how private car drivers’ perception of vehicle attributes may affect their intention to adopt electric vehicles (EVs). Data are obtained from a national online survey of potential EV adopters in the UK. The results indicate that instrumental attributes are important largely because they are associated with other attributes derived from owning and using EVs, including pleasure of driving (hedonic attributes) and identity derived from owning and using EVs (symbolic attributes). People who believe that a proenvironmental self-identity fits with their self-image are more likely to have positive perceptions of EV attributes. Perceptions of EV attributes are only very weakly associated with car-authority identity.

It’s a Bittersweet Symphony, this Life: Fragile Academic Selves and Insecure Identities at Work

Abstract: This article demonstrates the importance of studying insecurity in relation to identities at work. Drawing upon empirical research with business school academics in the context of the proliferation of managerialist controls of audit, accountability, monitoring and performativity, we illustrate how insecurities in the form of fragile and insecure academic selves are variously manifested. Emerging from our data were three forms of insecurity—imposters, aspirants and those preoccupied with existential concerns, and we analyse these in the context of psychoanalytic, sociological and philosophical frameworks. In so doing, we make a three-fold contribution to the organization studies literature: first, we develop an understanding of identities whereby they are treated as a topic and not merely a resource for studying something else; second, we demonstrate how insecurity and identity are more nuanced and less monolithic concepts than has sometimes been deployed in the literature; and third, we theorize the conce...

Growing Up Wired: Social Networking Sites and Adolescent Psychosocial Development

Abstract: Since the advent of social networking site (SNS) technologies, adolescents' use of these technologies has expanded and is now a primary way of communicating with and acquiring information about others in their social network. Overall, adolescents and young adults' stated motivations for using SNSs are quite similar to more traditional forms of communication-to stay in touch with friends, make plans, get to know people better, and present oneself to others. We begin with a summary of theories that describe the role of SNSs in adolescents' interpersonal relationships, as well as common methodologies used in this field of research thus far. Then, with the social changes that occur throughout adolescence as a backdrop, we address the ways in which SNSs intersect with key tasks of adolescent psychosocial development, specifically peer affiliation and friendship quality, as well as identity development. Evidence suggests that SNSs differentially relate to adolescents' social connectivity and identity development, with sociability, self-esteem, and nature of SNS feedback as important potential moderators. We synthesize current findings, highlight unanswered questions, and recommend both methodological and theoretical directions for future research.

Funds of Identity: A new concept based on the Funds of Knowledge approach

Abstract: The main purpose of this paper is to articulate a theory of human identity from a Vygotskian perspective. In doing so, we use the term “funds of identity” inspired by the “funds of knowledge” appro...

Student Self-Formation in International Education:

Abstract: In research in cross-cultural psychology, international education is largely understood as an “adjustment” to host country norms and institutions, a notion that prioritizes social order and stability. The student is seen as in deficit in relation to these norms. The student’s home country identity becomes seen as a barrier to be broken down. In contrast, this article sees higher education, and within that international education, as a process of self-formation within conditions of disequilibrium in which student subjects manage their lives reflexively, fashioning their own changing identities, albeit under social circumstances largely beyond their control. International students form their self-trajectories somewhere between home country identity (which continues to evolve in the country of education), host country identity, and a larger set of cosmopolitan options. In piloting their pathways they draw on multiple identities and fashion new forms of hybrid identity. The article highlights the need for int...

Values, identity and pro-environmental behaviour

Abstract: The importance of understanding and promoting pro-environmental behaviour among individual consumers in modern Western Societies is generally accepted. Attitudes and attitude change are often exami...

How Groups Affect Our Health and Well-Being: The Path from Theory to Policy

Abstract: Considerable evidence now exists that people can draw on social groups in order to maintain and enhance health and well-being. We review this evidence and suggest that social identity theorizing, and its development in the social identity approach to health and well-being, can help us to understand the way that groups, and the identities that underpin them, can promote a social cure. Specifically, we propose that social groups are important psychological resources that have the capacity to protect health and well-being, but that they are only utilized effectively when individuals perceive they share identity with another individual or group. However, as powerful as shared identities may be, their consequences for health are largely ignored in policy and practice. In this review, we offer a novel direction for policy, identifying ways in which building and consolidating group identification can help to capitalize effectively on the potential of group membership for health. Using this as a basis to increase awareness, we go further to offer practical interventions aimed at assessing identity resources as substantial and concrete assets, which can be cultivated and harnessed in order to realize their health-enhancing potential.

A social constructionist account of grief: loss and the narration of meaning.

Abstract: In contrast to dominant Western conceptions of bereavement in largely intrapsychic terms, the authors argue that grief or mourning is not primarily an interior process, but rather one that is intricately social, as the bereaved commonly seek meaning in this unsought transition in not only personal and familial, but also broader community and even cultural spheres. The authors therefore advocate a social constructionist model of grieving in which the narrative processes by which meanings are found, appropriated, or assembled occur at least as fully between people as within them. In this view, mourning is a situated interpretive and communicative activity charged with establishing the meaning of the deceased's life and death, as well as the postdeath status of the bereaved within the broader community concerned with the loss. They describe this multilevel phenomenon drawing first on psychological research on individual self-narratives that organize life experience into plot structures that display some level of consistency over time, whose viability is then negotiated in the intimate interpersonal domain of family and close associates. Second, they explore public communication, including eulogies, grief accounts in popular literature, and elegies. All of these discourses construct the identity of the deceased as he or she was, and as she or he is now in the individual and communal continuing bonds with the deceased. Finally, they consider different cultural contexts to see how expressions of grief are policed to ensure their coherence with the prevailing social and political order. That is, the meanings people find through the situated interpretive and communicative activity that is grieving must either be congruent with the meanings that undergird the larger context or represent an active form of resistance against them.

You Can Form a Part of Yourself Online: The Influence of New Media on Identity Development and Coming Out for LGBTQ Youth

Abstract: Internet-based new media are increasingly utilized by lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) youth, yet little is known about the ways in which it influences their identity development. Employing grounded theory, this study explores the influence of online media on the identity development and coming out processes (n = 19) of LGBTQ youth. Results indicate that new media enabled participants to access resources, explore identity, find likeness, and digitally engage in coming out. Participants also discussed the expansion of these newly developed identities into their offline lives. Practice implications are addressed.

Responding to Institutional Complexity: The Role of Identity

Abstract: How organizations cope with multiple and sometimes conflicting institutional demands is an increasingly familiar yet little understood question. This paper examines how four French business schools responded to demands that they internationalize their management education whilst retaining their traditional identities. We trace the role played by field-level actors in pushing and articulating competing logics and the importance of institutional and organizational identity in how organizations respond. By highlighting the role of identity aspirations we show that what matters is not how an organization sees itself—i.e., what it is—but how it wants to see itself—i.e., what it wishes to become. Finally, we unpack and explain why status differences across organizations affect the nature of the opportunities that are perceived and the scale and format of the responses that are implemented.

Identity Politics and Politicized Identities: Identity Processes and the Dynamics of Protest

Abstract: Over the last decades, the concept of identity has become increasingly central in the social psychology of protest. Collective identity, politicized collective identity, dual identity, and multiple identities are concepts that help to understand and describe the social psychological dynamics of protest. In this article, I theorize about identity processes in the context of protest participation: how group identification establishes the link between social identity and collective identity, how multiple identities and dual identities influence protest participation, and how collective identity politicizes and radicalizes. I will illustrate my argument with results from research into collective action participation among farmers in the Netherlands and Spain, Turkish, and Moroccan immigrants in the Netherlands and New York, South African citizens, and participants in street demonstrations conducted by my research group at VU-University.

From Uncertainty to Extremism Social Categorization and Identity Processes

Abstract: Societal change and personal life events sometimes make one feel uncertain about one’s self and identity. According to uncertainty-identity theory, this self-uncertainty can motivate people to identify with social groups, particularly groups that provide a distinctive and clearly defined identity and associated normative beliefs and behavioral prescriptions. This process can make more extreme groups and behaviors attractive as a source of identification-contingent uncertainty reduction. People may zealously identify with highly distinctive groups that have strong and directive leadership and ideological and ethnocentric belief systems that proscribe dissent and prescribe group-normative behavior. This analysis has been extended to help illuminate how extremism may emerge in the context of religion, politics, gangs, leadership, and adolescent risk taking. This article describes uncertainty-identity theory, overviews empirical support for its main tenets, and outlines some directions for future research.

Tweets, Tweeps, and Signifyin’: Communication and Cultural Performance on “Black Twitter”

Abstract: This article explores the use of the Black American cultural tradition of “signifyin’” as a means of performing racial identity online. In the United States, race is deeply tied to corporeal signifiers. But, in social media, the body can be obscured or even imitated (e.g., by a deceptive avatar). Without reliable corporeal signifiers of racial difference readily apparent, Black users often perform their identities through displays of cultural competence and knowledge. The linguistic practice of “signifyin’,” which deploys figurative language, indirectness, doubleness, and wordplay as a means of conveying multiple layers of meaning, serves as a powerful resource for the performance of Black cultural identity on Twitter.

Explaining why more americans have no religious preference: Political backlash and generational succession, 1987-2012

Abstract: © 2014 Hout and Fischer. Twenty percent of American adults claimed no religious preference in 2012, compared to 7 percent twenty-five years earlier. Previous research identified a political backlash against the religious right and generational change as major factors in explaining the trend. That research found that religious beliefs had not changed, ruling out secularization as a cause. In this paper we employ new data and more powerful analytical tools to: (1) update the time series, (2) present further evidence of correlations between political backlash, generational succession, and religious identification, (3) show how valuing personal autonomy generally and autonomy in the sphere of sex and drugs specifically explain generational differences, and (4) use GSS panel data to show that the causal direction in the rise of the "Nones" likely runs from political identity as a liberal or conservative to religious identity, reversing a long-standing convention in social science research. Our new analysis joins the threads of earlier explanations into a general account of how political conflict over cultural issues spurred an increase in non-affiliation.

Looking across three generations of Alaska Natives to explore how culture fosters indigenous resilience

Abstract: Research has established connection between indigenous culture--often described in terms of cultural identity, enculturation, and participation in traditional activities--and resilience, the process by which people overcome acute and ongoing challenges. Despite correlations between culture and resilience, research has seldom described the ways these concepts are linked in indigenous people's narratives. Furthermore, little attention has been paid to the affect of historical trauma on different generations' understanding and deployment of "culture" in the context of hardship. This project, conducted in the summer of 2008 in an indigenous Arctic community, focuses on narratives from three generations who have experienced different degrees of cultural suppression in their lifetimes. From this starting point, the study explores how individuals make meaning and take strength from particular notions of culture, and illuminates the ways each generation accesses and deploys their cultural understandings in the face of hardship. By identifying the similarities and differences in both the challenges and sources of strength for each generation, the paper highlights how understandings of culture are shaped by historical experiences and modified through time. The differing ways that culture fosters strength, purpose, and fortitude (or does not) in indigenous young people's, adults' and Elders' life stories provide clues for enhancing indigenous youth resilience. Findings suggest that "culture" can galvanize Inupiaq people's sense of identity, feeling of commitment, and purpose, all of which are protective. However, young people need support in developing particular ideas around cultural identity and group membership that can contribute to resilience.

Being Transgender: The Experience of Transgender Identity Development

Abstract: This article is based on a grounded theory analysis of interviews with transgender-identified people from different regions of the United States. Participants held a variety of gender identities under the transgender rubric (e.g., crossdresser, transman, transwoman, butch lesbian). Interviews explored the participants' experiences in arriving at their gender identity. This article presents three clusters of findings related to the common processes of transgender identity development. This process was made possible by accessibility of transgender narratives that injected hope into what was a childhood replete with criticism and scrutiny. Ultimately, participants came to their identities through balancing a desire for authenticity with demands of necessity--meaning that they weighed their internal gender experience with considerations about their available resources, coping skills, and the consequences of gender transitions. The implications of these findings are considered in terms of their contribution to gender theory, research, and clinical support for transgender clients.

Feeling like a state: social emotion and identity

Abstract: Can one use emotion at anything other than the individual level of analysis? Emotion happens in biological bodies, not in the space between them, and this implies that group emotion is nothing but a collection of individuals experiencing the same emotion. This article contends that group-level emotion is powerful, pervasive, and irreducible to individuals. People do not merely associate with groups (or states), they can become those groups through shared culture, interaction, contagion, and common group interest. Bodies produce emotion that identities experience: group-level emotion can be stronger than, and different from, emotion experienced as an individual; group members share, validate, and police each others’ feelings; and these feelings structure relations within and between groups in international politics. Emotion goes with identity.

Reflections: an inquiry into medical students' professional identity formation

Abstract: Context Professional identity formation plays a crucial role in the transition from medical student to doctor. At McMaster University, medical students maintain a portfolio of narrative reflections of their experiences, which provides for a rich source of data into their professional development. The purpose of this study was to understand the major influences on medical students’ professional identity formation. Methods Sixty-five medical students (46 women; 19 men) from a class of 194 consented to the study of their portfolios. In total, 604 reflections were analysed and coded using thematic narrative analysis. The codes were merged under subthemes and themes. Common or recurrent themes were identified in order to develop a descriptive framework of professional identity formation. Reflections were then analysed longitudinally within and across individual portfolios to examine the professional identity formation over time with respect to these themes. Results Five major themes were associated with professional identity formation in medical students: prior experiences, role models, patient encounters, curriculum (formal and hidden) and societal expectations. Our longitudinal analysis shows how these themes interact and shape pivotal moments, as well as the iterative nature of professional identity from the multiple ways in which individuals construct meaning from interactions with their environments. Conclusions Our study provides a window on the dynamic, discursive and constructed nature of professional identity formation. The five key themes associated with professional identity formation provide strategic opportunities to enable positive development. This study also illustrates the power of reflective writing for students and tutors in the professional identity formation process.

Letting Go and Moving On: Work-Related Identity Loss and Recovery

Abstract: Transitions in work memberships, relationships, and roles can result in work-related identity loss. This article contributes to a growing body of research examining identity transitions by providing a dynamic model to explain these identity losses. Our model incorporates principles from identity research and grief research to predict how employees will react to the loss of a work-related identity. We conceptualize the transition period as one of liminality, during which individuals engage in sensemaking and emotion regulation to determine who they were and who they are becoming. Specifically, the process involves cognitive and emotional processing in two domains: loss orientation and restoration orientation. We propose that emotions experienced (and their associated regulatory foci) are critical for determining whether individuals experience adaptive or maladaptive identity-related outcomes.

Deny, Distance, or Dismantle? How White Americans Manage a Privileged Identity

Abstract: Social scientists have traditionally argued that whiteness-the attribute of being recognized and treated as a White person in society-is powerful because it is invisible. On this view, members of the racially dominant group have the unique luxury of rarely noticing their race or the privileges it confers. This article challenges this "invisibility thesis," arguing that Whites frequently regard themselves as racial actors. We further argue that whiteness defines a problematic social identity that confronts Whites with 2 psychological threats: the possibility that their accomplishments in life were not fully earned (meritocratic threat) and the association with a group that benefits from unfair social advantages (group-image threat). We theorize that Whites manage their racial identity to dispel these threats. According to our deny, distance, or dismantle (3D) model of White identity management, dominant-group members have three strategies at their disposal: deny the existence of privilege, distance their own self-concepts from the White category, or strive to dismantle systems of privilege. Whereas denial and distancing promote insensitivity and inaction with respect to racial inequality, dismantling reduces threat by relinquishing privileges. We suggest that interventions aimed at reducing inequality should attempt to leverage dismantling as a strategy of White identity management.