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Chapter to appear in Oxford Handbook of Personality and Social Psychology (2nd ed.), edited by Kay Deaux and Mark Snyder.
Identity: Personal AND Social
Vivian L Vignoles
University of Sussex, UK
Identity refers to how people answer the question, “Who are you?” This question may be posed
explicitly or implicitly, at a personal or a collective level, to others or to oneself. Schools of
thought within the identity literature tend to emphasize either personal or social contents and
either personal or social processes. However, I argue here that identities are inescapably both
personal and social, in their content and in the processes by which they are formed, maintained,
and changed over time. The personal and social nature of identity gives the construct its greatest
theoretical potential—namely to provide insight into the relationship between the individual and
society. However, doing justice to this potential requires integrating perspectives on identity and
self-processes from social and personality psychology, developmental psychology, cultural,
critical and discursive psychology, and beyond. In this chapter, I outline some key parameters
for such an integrative understanding of identity. I examine the extensive and interconnected
nature of identity content, and then consider the confluence of sociocultural, relational and
individual processes by which identities are formed, maintained, and change over time.
Introduction
The question “Who are you?” is one of the most important
questions that most people will ever face. We can ask it of
ourselves and of others. We can face it as individuals and as
members of social groups or categories. Sometimes, we may
consider explicitly: “Who are you?”; “Who am I?”; “Who are
we?” More pervasively, however, the question is involved
implicitly in a wide range of psychological and social
processes: the choices we make, goals we pursue, our
emotional experiences, relationships with others, friendly or
hostile treatment of different groups of people, and thus
ultimately our own and others’ psychological and physical
well-being. The study of identity is, at heart, the study of how
individuals and groups answer the “Who are you?” question
(Vignoles, Schwartz, & Luyckx, 2001): the explicit and
implicit meanings of their answers (identity content), the
psychological and social processes involved in reaching,
maintaining and sometimes revising their answers (identity
processes), and the personal and social consequences of these
contents and processes.
Given the breadth of the topic, thus defined, perhaps it is
unsurprising that theorizing and research into identity extend
well beyond the confines of personality and social psychology.
Identity has been a major focus for numerous disciplines,
including philosophy (Appiah, 2005; Noonan, 1993),
sociology (Giddens, 1991; Woodward, 2002), anthropology
(A. Cohen, 1994; Sökefeld, 1999), political theory (Calhoun,
1994; Crenshaw, 1991), gender studies (Butler, 1990; Segal,
2010), and psychoanalysis (Erikson, 1968), as well as across
social (Spears, 2011; Tajfel & Turner, 1979), personality
(McAdams, 2011), developmental (Schwartz, 2001),
discursive (Benwell & Stokoe, 2006; Shotter & Gergen, 1989)
and cross-cultural (P. B. Smith, 2011; Wan, 2015) fields of
contemporary psychology.
Conceptualizations of identity vary greatly within and
across disciplines, so that the concept of identity often seems
difficult to pin down. Identity has been defined as “unitary” or
“multiple”, “real” or “constructed”, “stable” or “fluid”,
“personal” or “social”, and in many other ways that often seem
to contradict each other (Vignoles et al., 2011). Hence, some
authors have proposed that any attempt at integration would
be counterproductive (Wetherell, 2010), or even that the term
“identity” may be too broad to be meaningful (Brubaker &
Cooper, 2000). Against these views, I believe that it is by
looking at these seeming contradictions that some of the most
interesting and potentially important questions about identity
come to the fore: How can identities be experienced as unitary,
stable and real, if they are also multiple, fluid and constructed?
And what would it mean to conceptualize identities as
simultaneously personal and social? The latter question is the
main focus of this chapter.
The ‘personal-social’ dichotomy
One of the first things a psychology student may learn
about identity is that personal (or individual) and social (or
group) identities should be distinguished. This seems
intuitively appealing, since an individual is evidently not the
same thing as a group, and it also resonates with a broader
tendency in Western thought to consider individuality and
sociality as opposing forces (e.g., Brewer, 1991; Triandis,
1995; for critiques, see Guisinger & Blatt, 1994; Kağıtçıbaşı,
2005). Yet, on closer inspection, the conceptual distinction
between personal and social identity becomes less clear. In
what sense is personal identity ‘personal’ and not ‘social’, and
in what sense is social identity ‘social’ and not ‘personal’?
One intuitive answer is that personal and social identity
refer to different classes of identity content. Tajfel (1978)
famously defined social identity as
“that part of an individual’s self-concept which derives
from his knowledge of his membership of a social group
(or groups), together with the value and emotional
significance attached to that membership” (p. 63).
By implication, although not stated in Tajfel’s definition,
personal identity might be what is left over from this: those
parts of the self-concept that are derived from the individual’s
knowledge of other kinds of self-attributes. In this view, then,
personal and social identity are different subsets of identity
content (Trafimow, Triandis, & Goto, 1991). However, as I
discuss later, research and theorizing within the social identity
Identity: Personal AND Social 2
tradition make distinguishing between personal and social
identity in terms of content rather problematic. Seemingly, it
is only people’s interpretation of a given aspect of identity
content as ‘social’ or ‘personal’ that makes it so—and this may
also be highly variable across contexts. In the right
circumstances, even characteristics as seemingly personal as
one’s preference between paintings by two quite similar artists
can become a basis for social identification and intergroup
relations (Tajfel, Billig, Bundy, & Flament, 1971). Thus,
however intuitive it may seem, classifying certain identity
aspects as ‘personal’ and others as ‘social’ does not seem
tenable.
Alternatively, one might argue for a distinction between
personal and social identity processes. In this view, social
identity is ‘social’ not because of its content, but because it is
understood to be located in social interactions and cultural
discourse that happen between people, rather than within the
intrapsychic processes of each separate individual (Rattansi &
Phoenix, 2005; Shotter & Gergen, 1989). However, I will
argue that it is precisely the confluence of processes at these
different levels that gives identity dynamics their importance.
Much of the classic theorizing on social identity involves
intrapsychic processes (Tajfel & Turner, 1979; Turner, Hogg,
Oakes, Reicher, & Wetherell, 1987), and much research and
theory attests to the importance of interpersonal as well as
cultural processes in the genesis of people’s personal self-
conceptions (Markus & Kitayama, 1991; Swann & Bosson,
2008). Thus, intrapsychic processes, social interaction, and
wider sociocultural processes are all involved in identity
construction and maintenance, and focusing on any of these
levels in isolation leads to a reductionist and impoverished
view of what matters about identity.
In what follows, I consider the implications of viewing
identities as inescapably both personal and social—not only in
their content, but also in the processes by which they are
formed, maintained, and changed over time. Although
different schools of thought within the identity literature tend
to emphasize either personal or social contents (however
defined) and either personal or social processes, I will argue
that it is precisely the ‘both personal and social’ nature of
identity that gives the construct its greatest theoretical
potential—to provide insight into the relationship between the
individual and society. An integrative perspective doing
justice to this complexity could speak to researchers and
theorists across the social sciences.
Identity Content
Researchers generally agree that the contents of identity
are broad and multifaceted, extending well beyond the limits
of the physical body of an individual. An early statement of
this position was William James’ (1892) definition of what he
called the “Me”:
“In its widest possible sense, […] a man’s Me is the sum
total of all that he CAN call his, not only his body and his
psychic powers, but his clothes and his house, his wife and
children, his ancestors and friends, his reputation and
works, his lands and horses, and yacht and bank account.
All these things give him the same emotions. If they wax
and prosper, he feels triumphant; if they dwindle and die
away, he feels cast down—not necessarily in the same
degree for each thing, but in much the same way for all”
(p. 177, italics in original).
The psychological process described here might now be
termed identification. Much research has now explored how
people identify their ‘selves’ not only with their individual
physical and psychological characteristics, but also with
significant others, groups or social categories, material
objects, and places—resulting in the concept of an extended
self (Belk, 1988).
The extended self: Personal as well as social
Below, I review research illustrating how people may
identify with significant others, groups or social categories,
material objects, and places. This is not intended to be an
exhaustive list, nor a categorical system, but rather to illustrate
the breadth of what can be considered as identity content. All
of these aspects can be considered as attributes of an extended
self (Belk, 1988), in that they extend beyond the physical body
and psychological characteristics of the individual. However,
what gives them their psychological importance is that people
identify with them personally, experiencing them as ‘part of
the self’ or part of their answers to the question, “Who are
you?” Thus, far from being separate from personal identity, it
is precisely because they are closely associated—or even
cognitively interchangeable—with one’s sense of personal
identity, that such aspects of the ‘extended self’ matter so
greatly.
Relational identification
The idea that significant others can be experienced as ‘part
of the self’ has been extensively investigated by Aron and
colleagues. Aron, Aron, Tudor, and Nelson (1991) reported a
series of experiments showing that close others were treated as
interchangeable with the self when allocating resources and in
memory and reaction-time tasks. Moreover, the extent of ‘self-
other overlap’ in romantic relationships was strongly
associated with feelings of closeness and love, and it predicted
relationship maintenance after three months (Aron & Fraley,
1999). A pictorial measure of self-other overlap—the
inclusion of other in the self (IOS) scale (Aron, Aron, &
Smollan, 1992)—is now widely used in personal relationships
research (Aron et al., 2004; Le, Dove, Agnew, Korn, & Mutso,
2010).
While the IOS perspective focuses on specific
relationships, another line of research has examined individual
differences in the tendency to view close relationships in
general as important and self-defining: Cross, Bacon, and
Morris (2000) developed the Relational-Interdependent Self-
Construal scale to measure these tendencies, including items
such as “My close relationships are an important reflection of
who I am” and “Overall, my close relationships have very little
to do with how I feel about myself” (reverse-scored). Scores
on this scale were only modestly correlated with a relationship
partner IOS measure, but they predicted the extent to which
individuals took account of others when making a significant
life decision, as well as the degree to which participants were
perceived as responsive in a dyadic interaction (Cross et al.,
2000). Moreover, higher scorers had more detailed cognitive
representations of close relationships and better memory for
relational information (Cross, Morris, & Gore, 2002).
Collective identification
The idea that groups or social categories form an important
part of identity has been extensively researched within the
social identity tradition (for a recent review, see Spears, 2011).
Although not always portrayed thus, a central premise of
Identity: Personal AND Social 3
social identity theory is that in certain respects group identity
processes operate similarly to individual self-evaluation
processes: Just as individuals strive to see themselves
positively, or as better than relevant others on dimensions that
they care about (Wills, 1981), so will they strive to see the
groups they identify with as positively distinguished from
relevant out-groups on valued dimensions of comparison
(Tajfel & Turner, 1979). A wealth of research supports this
prediction. Just as people defend their identities against threats
to personal self-esteem or self-integrity (Breakwell, 1988;
Sherman & Cohen, 2006), they similarly engage in a wide
range of social identity maintenance strategies that may help
restore positive group distinctiveness when this is threatened
or undermined—including individual mobility, social
competition, intergroup discrimination and various ways of
securing the boundaries of their ingroup identity (Ellemers,
1993; Hunter et al., 2005; Jetten, Summerville, Hornsey, &
Mewse, 2005; Marques & Páez, 1994; Mummendey, Klink,
Mielke, Wenzel, & Blanz, 1999; van Rijswijk, Haslam, &
Ellemers, 2006).
As was the case with personal relationships, individuals
differ in the extent to which they identify with the groups they
belong to. Numerous measures of social identification have
been developed, capturing various ways in which an individual
can feel more or less connected to their group (see Ashmore,
Deaux, & McLaughlin-Volpe, 2004). Researchers have
attempted to distinguish facets of group identification: self-
categorization, group commitment and group self-esteem
(Ellemers, Kortekaas, & Ouwerkerk, 1999), importance,
commitment, superiority, and deference (Roccas, Sagiv,
Schwartz, Halevy, & Eidelson, 2008), identification and
disidentification (J. C. Becker & Tausch, 2014), or group-level
self-definition (comprising self-stereotyping and ingroup
homogeneity) and self-investment (comprising solidarity,
satisfaction, and centrality; Leach et al., 2008). No consensus
yet exists regarding which, if any, of these dimensional models
should be preferred, and the picture is complicated further by
a lack of clarity about the conceptual boundaries of
‘identification’. On the one hand, some theorized facets, such
as collective self-esteem and ingroup homogeneity, arguably
might be better conceptualized as correlates of identification,
rather than components of it. On the other hand, dimensions
that potentially fit much better within the conceptual sphere of
identification are often treated as separate constructs. For
example, the concept of identity fusion—involving a visceral
feeling of ‘oneness’ with the group, and sometimes measured
with a pictorial measure adapted from the IOS scale—is
conceptually at the heart of the identification construct as
defined here, but it has been represented in empirical research
as a separate construct (Gómez et al., 2011; Swann, Jetten,
Gómez, Whitehouse, & Bastian, 2012).
Material identification
One unfortunate consequence of the ‘personal-social’
dichotomy in theorizing about identity is that forms of self-
extension that are not easily categorized as either ‘personal’ or
‘social’ may be overlooked. A case in point is that of material
possessions. In an early empirical study, Prelinger (1959)
asked a group of male soldiers to rate a series of items on a
dimension from “self” to “non-self”; participants consistently
rated possessions (along with body parts, psychological
processes, and personal characteristics) as closer to “self” than
to “non-self”. People frequently mention possessions when
asked to respond to the question “Who am I?” (Dixon & Street,
1975; Gordon, 1968). Moreover, possessions show a strong
implicit association with the self as indexed by reaction times
and categorization errors (Oyamot, 2004), and victims of
property crime report emotional reactions indicative of
violations of the self, comparable to the experiences of victims
of physical assault, albeit milder in degree (Wirtz & Harrell,
1987).
Individual-differences research in this area has usually
focused on the construct of materialistic values (Richins &
Dawson, 1992), which includes three facets: a desire to acquire
possessions, a belief that acquiring possessions is the route to
happiness, and a belief that success is defined by one’s
possessions. Materialistic values negatively predict various
dimensions of personal well-being (Dittmar, Bond, Hurst, &
Kasser, 2014) as well as pro-environmental behavior (Hurst,
Dittmar, Bond, & Kasser, 2014). However, the prevailing
conceptualization of materialistic values focuses on a
relatively narrow range of functions that material possessions
might serve for individuals—reflecting the values and beliefs
emphasized within mass consumer culture. If material
possessions are used to serve more positive functions, such as
reminding the individual of present or past relationships
(Gardner, Pickett, & Knowles, 2005), then one might expect
that identifying with them would have more positive
consequences.
Place identification
Beyond relationships, groups and possessions, people may
also identify with places. Proshansky (1978) introduced the
term, place identity, defined as:
“those dimensions of self that define the individual’s
personal identity in relation to the physical environment by
means of a complex pattern of conscious and unconscious
ideas, beliefs, preferences, feelings, values, goals, and
behavioral tendencies and skills relevant to this
environment” (p. 155).
Similar to collective identification, this definition suggests that
place identification will be multifaceted. Measures of place
identification vary widely in content. Droseltis and Vignoles
(2010) distinguished three dimensions: self-
extension/attachment (“this place is part of who I am”),
environmental fit (“this is the place where I fit”), and place-
self congruity (“this place reflects the type of person I am”).
Hinds and Sparks (2008) developed a measure of
‘environmental identity’, focused on the benefits for identity
of contact with nature (“engaging with the natural
environment gives me a greater sense of who I am”). In
contrast, Rollero and De Piccoli (2010) measured place
identification in terms of identifying with people who belong
to a place. As with other forms of identification, clarity is
needed about the conceptual boundaries, and the
dimensionality, of place identification (Devine-Wright &
Clayton, 2010).
Despite the conceptual ambiguities, measures of place
identification have been shown to predict cognitive, affective
and behavioral outcomes relevant to the place in question.
Consistent with the idea of place as part of an ‘extended self’,
Bonaiuto, Breakwell, and Cano (1996) found that residents of
seaside towns who identified more strongly with their town
were more likely to underestimate the scale of beach pollution,
and Stedman (2002) found that property owners with stronger
place identification were more likely to engage in behaviors
Identity: Personal AND Social 4
that maintain or enhance valued attributes of their setting (see
also papers in Devine-Wright & Clayton, 2010).
The individual self: Social as well as personal
However, not all aspects of identity extend so clearly
beyond the physical boundaries of an individual. Can we then
think of an individual’s physical or psychological
characteristics as ‘personal’, but not ‘social’? Philosophers
have often focused on bodily or psychological continuity as
potential criteria for personal identity (although such criteria
are debated: Noonan, 1993). Indeed, the physical body—
especially the central nervous system—is considered as the
location of all subjective experience, including the sense of
personal identity. Nonetheless, the subjective meanings and
functions of an individual’s bodily and psychological
characteristics are not necessarily any less ‘social’ than those
of the identity domains just discussed.
The physical body
Rather than focus on the role of the body as locus of
subjective experience, social scientific research has often
emphasized the social meanings and functions of the body as
an ‘object’. Bodily characteristics provide one major source of
information (although not the only one) that people draw on to
define themselves and others in terms of conventional social
categories such as gender (West & Zimmerman, 1989),
ethnicity (Maddox, 2004), and even nationality (Cheryan &
Monin, 2005). In most cultures, secondary sexual
characteristics will have considerable importance for how a
person is categorized and therefore expected to behave from
birth onwards; certain other features may also be treated as
important bases for social categorization in particular cultures,
such as skin pigmentation in many of the world’s
contemporary cultures, whereas other bodily features may be
accorded little or no importance. Thus, the body is an
important basis for collective identity.
The relationship between the body and collective identity
is bidirectional: Once grouped within a particular social
category, individuals may be expected to embody the physical
characteristics associated with that category. For example,
people in contemporary Western societies are often expected
to conform to idealized prototypes of ‘feminine’ and
‘masculine’ appearance, which form part of the prevailing
societal definitions of female and male gender identities.
Correlations between self-rated appearance and global self-
esteem are sometimes as large as .80, and longitudinal research
has supported a prospective effect of body image concerns on
self-esteem among female adolescents (Tiggemann, 2005).
Crucially, there is strong evidence for the sociocultural origins
of body image concerns: Body dissatisfaction is triggered by
social comparison (Myers & Crowther, 2009), especially in
response to media images that portray unattainable—often
digitally enhanced—standards of attractiveness (Clay,
Vignoles, & Dittmar, 2005; Grabe, Ward, & Hyde, 2008).
Initial studies documented these processes among female
adults and adolescents, especially regarding an ultra-thin
sociocultural ideal of female attractiveness (Cafri, Yamamiya,
Brannick, & Thompson, 2005), but similar processes have
now been documented among young girls in relation to the
thin ideal (Dittmar, Halliwell, & Ive, 2006; Dohnt &
Tiggeman, 2006), as well as among men facing a muscular
ideal of masculine attractiveness (Barlett, Vowels, & Saucier,
2008). Thus, body image is inextricably linked not only to
personal self-esteem but also to collective identity.
Psychological traits
Even if the body is closely tied to social identity, might
one’s psychological traits—such as their intellectual abilities
or personality dispositions—be considered as purely
‘personal’ aspects of identity? This, too, seems problematic, as
psychological traits are socially defined, interpreted and
valued, in relation to cultural ideals and social category
definitions. Research has shown that definitions of intelligence
vary across cultures (Sternberg, 2004), and normative
performance on IQ tests has changed dramatically across
generations in contemporary Western societies (Flynn, 1987),
resulting in periodic changes to the scoring of standard IQ
measures (Neisser et al., 1996). Thus, to label oneself as
“intelligent” only makes sense within the bounds of a
particular culturally-defined value system and a comparative
context that changes over time even within cultures.
Moreover, judgments of intelligence can form a basis for
social categorization—and thus group formation—in
educational contexts (Jackson, 1964) and in adult life (Mensa,
2016). Thus, to be “intelligent” is as much a social identity
position within a particular sociocultural frame of reference as
it is a personal characteristic.
Many personality traits are intrinsically social, in that they
describe how an individual relates to others: one cannot be
honest, kind, rude, assertive, or even independent, without
someone to be honest, kind, rude, assertive, or independent
towards (or from). Personality traits are also closely linked to
collective identities, as they give meaning to gender, ethnic,
national, age, occupational and many other social identity
categories (Reid & Deaux, 1996). As I discuss later, people
may come to internalize traits that are associated with
important social categories through processes of self-
stereotyping and behavioral confirmation (Klein & Snyder,
2003). An individual may also project their self-perceived
personality traits onto the social categories that they belong to
through a process of self-anchoring (van Veelen, Otten,
Cadinu, & Hansen, 2016). In short, personality traits are as
inescapably social as are any other aspects of identity.
Autobiographical memories and life stories
Autobiographical memories and life stories are often
viewed by researchers and their participants alike as defining
features of identity (McAdams, 2011; McLean, Pasupathi, &
Pals, 2007). Self-defining memories may seem highly
idiosyncratic and personal, but research has shown that these
memories often have a high proportion of relational content:
In studies with younger and older participants, “relationship”
was identified as the primary theme for between 27% and 44%
of self-defining memories (e.g., Singer, Rexhaj, & Baddeley,
2007; Thorne, McLean, & Lawrence, 2004), and
“communion” is a prevalent theme in personal narratives
(McAdams, Hoffman, Day, & Mansfield, 1996). Moreover,
both the content and form of autobiographical memories and
narratives are socially and culturally shaped. These features of
identity are not just thought about but also told to others, and
they may be co-constructed by the narrator and their audience
in this process (McLean & Thorne, 2006; Pasupathi, 2006).
Members of different cultural groups emphasize different
kinds of content in self-defining memories (Jobson &
O’Kearney, 2008), and the telling of autobiographical
narratives often follows culturally established forms and
conventions (Gergen & Gergen, 1988; Hammack, 2008). In
short, these aspects of identity are as social as they are
personal.
Identity: Personal AND Social 5
Recognizing the multiplicity of identity content
By now, it should be apparent that any attempted
categorical distinction between personal and social identity
content is hard to maintain in practice. So-called “personal”
contents, such as bodily features, personal traits and
autobiographical narratives, gain much significance from their
social meanings, including their association with social groups
and categories. Conversely, so-called “social” contents, such
as relationships and group memberships, gain importance to
the extent that individuals identify personally with them.
Further aspects, such as material possessions and places, seem
to stand outside of the “personal-social” dichotomy, as a result
of which they are often marginalized from scientific discourse
about identity.
Shifting levels of self-categorization
Furthermore, theory and research in the social identity
literature emphasizes that the same identity content can be
viewed as ‘personal’ or ‘social’ in different contexts.
According to self-categorization theory (Turner et al., 1987),
rather than being different kinds of content, personal and
social identity should be understood as different states of
identity, or levels of self-categorization, whose salience
depends on the social context. Levels of self-categorization
can be thought of as ‘lenses’ through which identity content is
experienced: The same identity aspect may be emphasized or
de-emphasized, and its subjective meaning may shift,
according to the comparative frame of reference. Within an
interpersonal comparative context, an individual is expected to
see themselves in terms of multiple features that distinguish
them from other individuals in that context (i.e., personal
identity). Within an intergroup comparative context, on the
other hand, an individual is expected to see themselves in
terms of features that distinguish their group from the other
group(s) in that context, whereas features that distinguish them
from other group members will be de-emphasized (i.e., social
identity).
A classic empirical demonstration of how the same identity
content can shift from a ‘personal’ to a ‘social’ level of self-
categorization is the minimal group paradigm (Tajfel et al.,
1971). Minimal group studies have shown that people can
seemingly form a sense of group identity—evidenced by
discrimination against members of another group—when they
are placed into categories by an experimenter, even when the
categories are explicitly based on such apparently trivial and
highly ‘personal’ criteria as their aesthetic preferences among
two abstract painters, or their performance in a dot estimation
task (Diehl, 1990; Spears, 2011). Not only in artificial contexts
can the ‘personal’ become ‘social’: For example, Drury and
Reicher (2000) examined how participants at an
environmental protest, who were initially there to express their
personal views, came to form a novel, radicalized, shared
identity, defined in opposition to the state, as a result of the
unfolding contextual relations between protesters and police
during the event. Similarly, Brewer (2001) describes how
motherhood might be experienced at different times as a
central aspect of one’s personal identity, as a social role in
relation to one’s children, as a shared social identity with other
mothers, or as an important cultural value.
Interconnections among identity aspects
Any attempt to classify identity aspects into separate
‘baskets’ also misses the fact that identity aspects are often
closely linked to each other within the self-concept (cf. Reid
& Deaux, 1996; Trafimow et al., 1991). Researchers have
begun to explore various forms of interconnection among
multiple aspects of identity. Firstly, pairs of identity aspects
may be more or less strongly associated with each other.
Researchers can map ‘identity structures’ based on these
associations (Rosenberg & Gara, 1985), as well as identifying
which aspects of identity have the most extensive links
overall—and thus potentially the greatest importance (Batory,
2010). Secondly, pairs of identity aspects may be experienced
as more or less compatible, in terms of their pattern of
associations with further identity aspects (Turner-Zwinkels,
Postmes, & van Zomeren, 2015) or in terms of the values and
practices that they entail (Huynh, Nguyen, & Benet-Martínez,
2011; Koc & Vignoles, 2016). Here, conflicts or
incompatibilities between identity aspects are often seen as
threatening, and compatibility is important for psychological
well-being (Huynh et al., 2011). Thirdly, the meaning of
particular combinations of identity aspects may be greater than
(or different from) the sum of the parts, leading to an area of
theorizing known as intersectionality (Bowleg, 2008). For
example, the meaning of being a Scottish Muslim woman does
not simply involve adding together the meanings of being
Scottish, being a Muslim, and being a woman—instead it
requires negotiating a complex interplay of particular ways of
being Scottish, particular ways of being a Muslim, and
particular ways of being a woman (Hopkins & Greenwood,
2013). Notably, these various forms of interconnection among
multiple identity aspects are not necessarily stable; they may
fluctuate across social contexts, and they may change over
biographical and historical time.
Interim summary
Identity content is broad, multifaceted, fluid, and
interconnected, and thus it does not map neatly onto analytical
distinctions such as the ‘personal-social’ dichotomy. Hence,
any perspective that aims to focus exclusively on ‘personal’ or
‘social’ identity content (however defined) is likely to miss the
mark, providing only a partial understanding of what it seeks
to address. Although the multiplicity and interconnectedness
of identity content have long been recognized (e.g., Deaux,
1992), researchers are only recently beginning to find more
adequate ways to examine this (reviewed by Vignoles, 2014).
Doing better justice to the complexity and the fluidity of
identity content remains a significant challenge for future
research.
Identity Processes
As well as focusing on different kinds of content,
theoretical traditions in the identity literature focus on
different kinds of identity construction processes, and thus
they locate identity conceptually at different levels of
explanation (Doise, 1986). Theoretical perspectives in social
and personality psychology variously emphasize the
psychological processes of an individual person (e.g.,
Sedikides & Strube, 1997; Turner et al., 1987), relational
processes that occur between individuals (e.g., Bamberg,
2010; Swann & Buhrmester, 2012), group and intergroup
processes (e.g., Drury & Reicher, 2000; Tajfel, 1978), or wider
sociocultural and historical processes (e.g., Markus &
Kitayama, 1991; Shotter & Gergen, 1989). Thus, researchers
may define identity as ‘personal’ or ‘social’ according to the
processes that they consider most important in identity
construction.
Identity: Personal AND Social 6
However, focusing on processes occurring at any single
level in isolation will give only a very partial—and potentially
reductionist—account of how identities are constructed,
maintained, and transformed over time. If one views the
person as an embodied social actor, who not only inhabits but
also contributes to shaping his/her physical, social and wider
cultural environment (Yamagishi, 2010), then an adequate
account of identity construction must consider the interplay of
personal, interpersonal, group and cultural processes, playing
out over timescales of individual development and historical
change. This requires connecting the insights provided by
diverse theoretical perspectives (Doise, 1986; Hampson,
1988).
In what follows, I attempt to sketch out some key
parameters for such an account: I suggest that identity
construction begins with a particular sociocultural and
historical context. Within this context, constructing one’s
identity involves negotiating who one is through social
interactions with significant others. These relational dynamics
are complemented by intrapsychic processes, focused around
satisfying core identity motives. Social comparison and self-
categorization processes locate the individual in particular
identity positions, which can vary in response to different
contexts and over time. Together, these various processes and
dynamics help to explain why identities tend towards stability,
but also how they can change.
Reflexive and symbolic self-awareness
Constructing an identity clearly relies considerably on
humans’ capacity for reflexive self-awareness. Many species
show basic forms of self- and other-awareness (e.g.
recognizing themselves in mirrors, and anticipating what
others might do), but humans have especially elaborate
symbolic representations of themselves and others (Sedikides
& Skowronski, 1997). Humans represent themselves not only
as ‘objects’, but also in terms of abstract, symbolic concepts
and categories that are grounded in language and
communication. Because symbolic self-awareness relies on
language, it cannot occur in a social vacuum. In fact, the
human capacity for symbolic self-awareness is thought to have
evolved partly for social reasons, as it serves adaptive
functions for group coordination and cohesion (Sedikides &
Skowronski, 1997). Thus, from an evolutionary perspective,
the self-concept is irreducibly social.
Sociocultural repertoires of identity categories and
positions
Social constructionist perspectives in social psychology
and neighboring disciplines often focus on documenting—as
well as questioning or criticizing—the nature and meanings of
the identity categories that are available and/or dominant in
particular sociocultural and historical contexts (e.g.,
Anderson, 1991; Garland-Thomson & Bailey, 2010; Gill,
2006; Patton, 2010; Segal, 2010). In these perspectives,
identities may be viewed as cultural representations (ways of
thinking), discourses (ways of talking), or practices (ways of
life): Constructed and transmitted through the combined
actions of many individuals, their existence and nature
transcend the experience or actions of any single individual,
and thus they are not reducible to an individual level of
explanation. In this view, identities are ‘located’ on a cultural
level of reality, rather than at an individual psychological
level.
This is not to say that culture-level constructions of identity
categories are thought to be separate from, or unimportant for,
identity processes at the individual psychological level. On the
contrary, as Shotter and Gergen (1989) put it:
“Cultural texts furnish their ‘inhabitants’ with the
resources for the formation of selves; they lay out an array
of enabling potentials, while simultaneously establishing a
set of constraining boundaries beyond which selves cannot
be easily made” (p. ix).
Thus, culture-level constructions of identity categories have
both an enabling and a constraining function for individuals.
The range of identity categories and positions that people
commonly talk about, think about, and enact in a given cultural
and historical setting provides a pool of “cultural resources”
that enables individuals to construct identities that others will
recognize as such. However, individuals’ choices are
constrained by the limitations of the cultural resources
available. Although not impossible, it is much harder to
construct an identity that does not fit well with the identity
categories and positions that are commonly recognized by
others in one’s cultural and historical setting.
Evidence of the constraining role of cultural discourse on
identity construction was found by Kitzinger and Wilkinson
(1995) in a study of lesbian women who had previously lived
for at least 10 years as heterosexuals. Over 70% of women
interviewed described at some point having rejected the idea
that they could be a lesbian, despite same-sex erotic
experiences, because they did not see themselves as fitting
with the prevailing image of a lesbian in their cultural milieu:
“I can’t be a lesbian because I … have children/enjoy
cooking/have long hair/can’t fix my own car” (p. 99).
Seemingly, a prevailing social construction of lesbians as
‘unfeminine’ (according to locally conventional criteria for
femininity) meant that these women felt constrained to choose
between either being feminine or being lesbian—the identity
position of a feminine lesbian was not available to them in
their cultural environment at that time.
Crucially, the range of culturally available identity
categories and positions differs over time and across contexts,
affording different possibilities for identity construction.
Pehrson, Vignoles and Brown (2009) conducted a multi-level
analysis looking at the relationship between national
identification and prejudice across 31 national samples.
Inspired by critical discourse theory (e.g., Parker, 1992), they
theorized that macro-level ideological discourses (in this case,
particular social constructions of nationhood) make certain
identity positions easier to occupy and others less so (in this
case, how easy it is to be strongly identified with one’s nation
while simultaneously espousing positive attitudes towards
immigrants). Their results showed that, in nations where
national membership was defined to a greater extent in terms
of shared language, national identification was correlated with
negative attitudes to immigrants: people living in these nations
could either identify with the nation or have a positive attitude
to immigrants, but the ideological climate seemingly made it
difficult for them to do both simultaneously. In contrast, in
nations where national membership was defined in terms of
shared citizenship, no such correlation was found: in these
nations, the discursive climate allowed people to express
national identification together with positive attitudes towards
immigrants.
Not only the meanings of particular identity categories, but
also the meaning of selfhood may vary historically and across
Identity: Personal AND Social 7
cultures (Burkitt, 2011; Markus & Kitayama, 1991). Historical
studies of selfhood are rare in psychology, and are usually
based on secondary sources (for a notable exception, see
Harbus, 2002). On the other hand, Vignoles et al. (2016)
recently conducted a systematic exploration of models of
selfhood across cultural groups spanning all inhabited
contents. Against the common view of a cultural divide in
“independence” versus “interdependence” (Markus &
Kitayama, 1991), they found that cultural groups in different
parts of the world tended to emphasize different ways of being
both independent and interdependent, and these differences
were predictable in part from the socioeconomic development
and religious heritage of the groups sampled. This suggests
that cultural models of selfhood may be societal adaptations to
particular economic and environmental circumstances. In turn,
the prevailing cultural models of selfhood will afford different
ways of “being a self” (i.e. different forms of identity) for
individuals who inhabit different societal contexts.
Identity formation and negotiation in social relationships
Within a given socio-cultural and historical milieu,
psychological research and theorizing suggests that
individuals construct their identities by negotiating “who they
are” with significant others (Swann & Bosson, 2008). Through
relational processes of identity negotiation, culturally
available identity categories and positions can be transformed
into the actions and self-understandings of individuals—and
thus perpetuated. Identity negotiation processes may be
implicit, including subtle self-fulfilling prophecy effects, or
explicit, such as telling one’s life story to others or asking their
opinions about possible future identities. These processes
share the implication that identity categories and positions
cannot occur solely in the minds of individuals—they depend
on recognition by others (Marková, 1987).
Self-fulfilling prophecies in identity enactment
The formation of an individual’s personal sense of identity
begins with their cultural and historical context. Before the
individual is born—long before they can get involved actively
in constructing an identity—parents, friends, and relatives
begin the process of identity construction by choosing names,
imagining what the child will be like, and shaping an
environment for the child to inhabit. In doing so, they will have
little or no individuating information about the child, beyond
what may be obtained from ultrasound scans or other pre-natal
medical checks, and so they are likely to position their ideas
about the child in relation to prevailing conceptions of a
typical person of this gender, family, class, ethnicity, or
nationality that may be emphasized in their local or wider
social context. In this sense, the construction of an individual’s
identity is—from the very start—a collaborative social
process, occurring within a specific sociocultural context at a
particular historical time.
These social processes continue after birth. For example,
parents often ‘color-code’ their newborn infants with clothing
to signal their gender category (e.g., blue for boys, pink for
girls). These clothing choices matter, as they can affect how
adults, guided by culturally available gender stereotypes, react
to the infant’s behavior (C. Smith & Lloyd, 1978). As well as
acting differently towards the child, adults may structure the
child’s environment differently according to its gender
category, for example choosing color schemes and images to
mark the child’s “territory” (e.g., their bedroom or their play
area) or regulating which kinds of toys are available.
Moreover, parents may reward children intentionally or
otherwise for behavior that fits with prevailing gender norms,
whereas surprise, laughter, or even punishment may signal the
inappropriateness of opposite-gender behaviors (Banerjee,
2005). These social processes, rather than biological
differences, potentially might explain how infants often come
to show certain gendered behaviors, such as preferring gender-
typed toys, before they are old enough to categorize
themselves or others into gender groups (e.g., Serbin, Pulin-
Dubois, Colburne, Sen, & Eichstedt, 2001). In this way, many
gender differences—and similarly other aspects of identity
content—may come to appear self-evidently ‘natural’, even if
they are socially constructed, suggesting that they may be
understood as self-fulfilling prophecies (Merton, 1948).
The occurrence of self-fulfilling prophecies in identity
formation is not restricted to infancy, but extends into
adulthood and old age (e.g., Levy, 2009). Experimental studies
of behavioral confirmation have illustrated how randomly
manipulated expectations about a target person can lead others
to treat that person accordingly in social interactions, and this
treatment in turn elicits behavior from the target that confirms
the initially false expectations (reviewed by Snyder & Stukas,
1999). In an early study, research participants (‘perceivers’)
were randomly led to expect that another participant (‘target’)
would be hostile (or not), before interacting with each other;
in the ensuing interaction, perceivers treated the target
participants differently, according to the expectations they had
been given; consequently, despite not knowing that they had
been labeled, target participants came to behave in a
significantly more (or less) hostile manner, according to what
the perceivers had been told (Snyder & Swann, 1978).
Similar findings have been obtained across a wide range of
identity labels and attributes: For example, female targets who
were unknowingly labeled as physically attractive (or not)
came to behave in a more (or less) sociable and friendly
manner in a telephone interaction with a male perceiver
(Snyder, Tanke, & Berscheid, 1977); subordinates who were
unknowingly described to their supervisors as intrinsically (vs.
extrinsically) motivated came to develop more (or less)
intrinsic interest in a task (Pelletier & Vallerand, 1996);
children playing a game with another child who had been told
they were younger (or older) went on to choose an easier (or
harder) game to play subsequently (Musser & Graziano,
1991); basketball players whose coaches were told they had
high (or low) free-throw shooting ability were given more (or
fewer) opportunities, which led to better (or worse) shooting
performance and confidence in their shooting ability (Weaver,
Filson Moses, & Snyder, 2016).
Although behavioral confirmation has mostly been
examined in brief laboratory studies, there is evidence that
similar processes occur over a longer time-frame. A notorious
example is the “Pygmalion in the classroom” study of
Rosenthal and Jacobson (1968), in which the authors gave
randomly assigned expectations to primary school teachers
about which pupils in their class were likely to be “growth
spurters” in scholastic achievement: Over the next year,
especially in the youngest age-groups, children who had been
labelled as “growth spurters” showed striking gains in IQ
performance, compared to their peers. Similarly, a
longitudinal study by Madon, Guyll, Spoth, and Willard
(2004) showed that mothers’ beliefs about their children’s
alcohol consumption significantly predicted consumption one
year later, while controlling for actual baseline consumption
levels as well as other known risk factors.
Identity: Personal AND Social 8
Furthermore, even if behavioral confirmation studies have
not typically involved intergroup encounters, there is some
evidence that stereotypes of social groups may be perpetuated
through behavioral confirmation (Klein & Snyder, 2003). In
one study, female targets who had been labeled to a perceiver
as male (or female) came to behave in a more stereotypically
masculine (or feminine) manner in a computer-mediated
interaction (Skrypnek & Snyder, 1982). In another study,
subliminal activation of an African American stereotype in
(Caucasian) perceivers resulted in (Caucasian) targets
behaving towards the perceiver in a more hostile manner (M.
Chen & Bargh, 1997). In both studies, actions of the perceiver
seemingly led targets to behave in accordance with the
stereotype of a given group, even when they were not a
member of the group in question. Thus, behavioral
confirmation may contribute to making group stereotypes self-
fulfilling—although, as I discuss later, there are likely to be
other mechanisms also involved.
Self-perception: From identity enactment to identity definition
Even if an individual is drawn into enacting a particular
behavioral role within a social interaction, they may not
necessarily internalize this behavior as part of their subjective
sense of identity. Nonetheless, one important route by which
people form a sense of identity is through observing and
drawing inferences from their own behavior. Research into
self-perception processes has examined how “individuals
come to ‘know’ their own attitudes, emotions, and other
internal states partially by inferring them from observations of
their overt behavior and/or the circumstances in which this
behavior occurs” (Bem, 1972, p. 2). Studies into self-
perception typically involve leading individuals either to
behave in a certain way or to think about their past behaviors
in a certain way, and then examining effects on their self-
concept—for example, beliefs about their personality traits or
their attitudes. Confirming early predictions of Bem (1972),
effects of behavior on self-perceptions appear to be strongest
when the behavior is interpreted as freely chosen rather than
constrained by the situation (thus, a situational attribution for
the behavior is less viable) and when the individual does not
already have a strongly held and cognitively accessible prior
self-belief or attitude (reviewed by Fazio, 1987). Moreover,
effects of behavior on self-perceptions can be stronger when
the behavior occurs in public, and even more so when the
individual is expecting future interactions with the audience of
the behavior (Tice, 1992); thus, rather than being purely
intrapsychic, the process of self-perception depends on one’s
relational context.
Studies of embodied social cognition have shown that self-
perception processes can be subtle and automatic, based on
implicit, non-verbal processing of one’s bodily states rather
than necessarily requiring conscious reasoning. Asking people
to smile, raise or lower their eyebrows, or wrinkle their noses,
can lead to corresponding changes in emotional experience
(Laird, 1974; M. B. Lewis, 2012). Across two studies, males
reported feeling more assertive and more esteemed by others,
and they showed stronger implicit associations between the
self and words related to power, when they had been asked to
make their hand into a fist, although similar effects were not
found for females (Schubert & Koole, 2009). In a similar
study, adopting an open, expansive posture led to greater self-
reported feelings of power (Carney, Cuddy, & Yap, 2010);
effects of posture were greater than those of remembering
instances of high or low power (Huang, Galinsky, Gruenfeld,
& Guillory, 2011), even if initial findings that power posing
led to hormonal changes and greater risk tolerance were not
replicated (Ranehill et al., 2015).
Combining behavioral confirmation effects with explicit
and implicit self-perception processes suggests a highly potent
route for identity formation. Notably, in the typical scenario of
behavioral confirmation, the target is unaware of the
perceiver’s initial expectations, and so plausible situational
attributions for their behavior would be harder to come by.
Indeed, it is easy to imagine how individuals would come
firstly to enact and subsequently to internalize identity
positions and categories that originated in their local or
cultural contexts, due to repeated interactions with significant
others (e.g. parents, teachers, peers), whose expectations are
based on these identity positions and categories (leading to
behavioral confirmation) and with whom the individual
expects many future interactions (leading to self-perception).
Moreover, such processes can occur at an implicit, non-verbal
level, and so they might begin during infancy—before the
individual has the prior self-beliefs, linguistic resources, or
cognitive faculties that might allow them to question the
inevitability of the identity they are constructing.
Self-verification: From identity definition to identity
enactment
Once an identity position or category has been internalized
within the self-concept, it is more likely that it will come to be
self-perpetuating. Classic and recent theorizing have
emphasized that individuals tend to act in accordance with
their existing self-conceptions (Lecky, 1945; Swann &
Buhrmester, 2012). Although psychologists sometimes view
self-presentation as a source of bias, which ‘contaminates’
psychometric measures and must be avoided or corrected in
order to get to the ‘reality’ underneath (after Crowne &
Marlowe, 1960), studies have repeatedly shown that people
mostly try to present to others an “authentic” (i.e. subjectively
accurate) impression of themselves, except in specific
situations such as job interviews or sales pitches (Leary, 1995;
Schlenker, 2012).
Self-verification theory (Swann & Buhrmester, 2012)
outlines three strategies that people may adopt in social
interactions, so as to elicit self-confirming feedback from
others: selective interaction, displaying identity cues, and
interpersonal prompts. Firstly, people often choose to interact
with others who see them as they see themselves. In one
experiment, participants preferred to interact with a partner
who saw them as they saw themselves, even compared to a
partner who saw them more positively than they saw
themselves (Swann, Pelham, & Krull, 1989, Study 3).
Similarly, naturalistic research has shown that marital partners
were less intimate with their spouse if the spouse’s evaluation
of them was either more positive or more negative than their
own self-evaluation (Swann, De La Ronde, & Hixon, 1994),
and that randomly assigned college roommates were more
likely to want to stay together if their roommate saw them as
they saw themselves (Swann & Pelham, 2002). Thus, people
can insulate their identities against the likelihood of change,
by selectively choosing to inhabit social interactive ‘bubbles’
in which they can expect to receive mostly self-verifying
feedback.
Secondly, people often display “identity cues” to signal
their identities to others, such as clothing choices, material
possessions or bodily alterations. Although this strategy has
received relatively little direct attention in empirical studies of
Identity: Personal AND Social 9
self-verification, it has been documented quite extensively
through research into symbolic self-completion theory
(Wicklund & Gollwitzer, 1982). This theory predicts that
people will display identity cues to others, especially when
they are committed to a particular identity category but their
claim to this identity is in some way insecure. Numerous
studies have supported this prediction: for example, first-year
students reported owning more articles displaying their
university’s logo than did fourth-year students (Braun &
Wicklund, 1989), academics with fewer annual publications
and citations were more likely to display their professional
titles in their e-mail signatures (Harmon-Jones, Schmeichel, &
Harmon-Jones, 2009), and adolescents who were committed
to materialistic values and whose families had experienced
either upward or downward changes in socio-economic status
were more likely to choose to show ‘status symbols’ to others
than those who were less committed to materialistic values
and/or whose family socio-economic status had been stable
(Carr & Vignoles, 2011). Seemingly, displaying identity cues
to others can help to bolster identity claims that are otherwise
“incomplete” or “insecure”.
Thirdly, people may prompt others directly to provide self-
verifying feedback. In one study, participants who perceived
themselves as dominant behaved in a more dominant fashion
in a social interaction, but they did so especially if they had
been told by a confederate that they did not appear to be a
dominant person (Swann & Hill, 1982). In another study,
participants who had been led to suspect that another person
saw them as either more or less likeable than they saw
themselves, tended to intensify their efforts to portray a
subjectively accurate view of themselves—even when this
was negative (Swann & Read, 1981). In two further studies,
when participants narrated personal events or experiences to a
friend, their subsequent private self-views appeared to have
been undermined if the friend was inattentive, but not if the
friend was attentive, nor if they tried to change the
participant’s mind (Pasupathi & Rich, 2005). Thus, the
success of self-verification seems to depend on having one’s
identity claims recognized by an audience—even if they are
not necessarily accepted.
Using these three strategies, an individual may steer the
relational dynamics of behavioral confirmation and self-
perception effects in a direction that will verify and thus help
to perpetuate their existing self-conception. Thus, although
predictions of behavioral confirmation and self-verification
theories can be contrasted, it is likely that these processes will
more usually occur in tandem, mutually reinforcing each other
to create an identity that is somewhat resistant to change.
Furthermore, when self-verifying feedback is not forthcoming
from the social environment, an individual has several
cognitive strategies at their disposal, such as selective
attention, selective recall, and biased interpretation, which will
potentially allow them to ignore or discount discrepant social
feedback (reviewed by Swann & Buhrmester, 2012).
None of this is to say, however, that identities are stable
across contexts. Identities are inherently flexible, as I discuss
shortly, and people may verify different identities within the
different relational contexts they inhabit (Swann, Bosson, &
Pelham, 2002). Nevertheless, research into self-verification
illustrates that when identities do not change over time, one
should not assume that nothing is happening: on the contrary,
people may be doing a great deal of ‘identity work’ to maintain
stability.
Possible future identities as pathways for development
Notwithstanding strivings for self-verification, people also
envisage how they might change, and who they might become,
in the future. Possible future selves/identities (Markus &
Nurius, 1986; Oyserman & James, 2011) are thought to
function both as important motivators for change and personal
development and as standards for evaluating the current self.
Supporting their role in self-evaluation, Knox, Funk, Elliott,
and Bush (1998) found that the perceived likelihood of
attaining desired possible selves positively predicted self-
esteem among male and female adolescents, whereas the
perceived likelihood of feared possible selves negatively
predicted self-esteem among female adolescents. In another
study, depression was associated with the perceived likelihood
of negative possible selves and a lower perceived likelihood of
positive possible selves (Penland, Masten, Zelhart, Fournet, &
Callahan, 2000). Crucially, desired and feared possible future
identities appear to play an important role in self-regulation of
behavior (e.g., Hoyle & Sherrill, 2006), especially to the extent
that they are well integrated into the self-concept and are
linked with plausible strategies for attaining them (Oyserman,
Bybee & Terry, 2006). Thus, focused strivings to attain
desired future selves or to avoid negative ones may contribute
towards achieving a more positive identity in the future.
Given these functions, it is important to understand how
possible future identities are formed. Research suggests that
the content of possible future selves is socially constructed,
based on the repertoires of identity categories and positions
that are dominant in the individual’s sociocultural context and
negotiated with significant others in the course of social
relationships. People imagine what is possible for themselves
by comparing with significant others (e.g., Carson, Madison,
& Santrock, 1987) and by internalizing expectations linked to
their important social identities (e.g., Kao, 2000). Individuals
learn not only what is possible but also what is desirable from
their social contexts. Possible selves have been studied as
‘‘joint projects,’’ constructed in interpersonal interactions
(Marshall, Young, & Domene, 2006). Interpersonal
relationships with positive role models in a particular domain
can make particular possible future career paths more
desirable and less feared (Burack et al., 1997). Studies have
shown differences in the contents of desired and feared future
selves among diverse ethnic and national samples, apparently
reflecting individualistic, collectivistic, and academic/career-
oriented cultural values (e.g., Unemori, Omoregie, & Markus,
2004; Waid & Frazier, 2003). Hence, Oyserman and Fryberg
(2006) portray possible selves as mediating effects of
sociocultural values on behavior: Sociocultural values
determine the desirability or otherwise of alternative possible
selves, which, in turn, regulate goal-directed behavior. Thus,
without external intervention, possible selves can be expected
to function as mechanisms for reproducing social differences.
Situated identities and the working self-concept
I have described how identity construction depends on
recognition of (but not necessarily agreement with) one’s
identity claims by an audience. Yet, in any complex society,
individuals will inhabit multiple social contexts involving
multiple audiences, and they may be expected to enact
different identities for different audiences—as a husband and
father at home, a teacher at work, a customer in the
supermarket, and so on (for an early statement of this point,
see James, 1892, on “social selves”). Concurrently,
individuals’ self-concepts are highly flexible: Since identity
Identity: Personal AND Social 10
aspects are stored in memory, some will be salient in working
memory at a given moment in time—known as the working
self-concept—whereas other aspects will be potentially
available and accessible, but not currently activated in
conscious awareness (Markus & Kunda, 1986; Markus &
Wurf, 1987; Turner et al., 1987). Thus, despite the pressures
towards stability discussed earlier, identities are always
flexible and in some ways provisional.
Situated co-construction of identity narratives
Although a single, overarching life story might give
coherence and unity to a person’s sense of identity (McAdams,
2011), discursive research has documented how people more
often narrate ‘small stories’ of minor episodes (McLean &
Thorne, 2006; Pasupathi, 2006), as well as shifting from
moment to moment between multiple versions of their ‘big
story’ (Abell & Stokoe, 2001; Bamberg, 2010), in the course
of everyday social life. This research has tended to emphasize
the strategic properties of narrating a particular episode in a
particular way, in order to accomplish some interactional
goal—such as to validate a particular identity claim, gain
acceptance, or excuse oneself from blame for a misdeed.
Moreover, the telling of the story is seen as an interactive
accomplishment of the narrator and the audience—who may
intervene, ask questions, or contradict the narrator in the
course of interactive turn-taking. Thus, it seems that
intersubjective coherence ‘in the moment’ matters more than
intrapersonal coherence over time for attaining a plausible
sense of identity (Bamberg, 2010). However, such analyses
tend to focus on the act of telling of the story in its own terms,
sometimes speculating on, but rarely addressing empirically,
what this might mean for the narrator’s private self-view.
Self-with-other representations and internalized audiences
Social cognitive research has examined how individuals
adjust their self-perceptions when different relational contexts
are salient (S. Chen, Boucher, & Kraus, 2011). Even in
supposedly ‘non-social’ situations—such as a laboratory
experiment—subliminal reminders of accepting or
disapproving others can lead to corresponding changes in self-
evaluation (Baldwin, 1994; Baldwin, Carrell, & Lopez, 1990).
Thus, people may use ‘internalized others’ as audiences for
their identities when an external audience is not available
(Baldwin, 1992). Extending this idea, S. Chen et al. (2011)
proposed that each person has a repertoire of relational
selves—cognitive representations of the self in relation to
specific others—which are activated in the working self-
concept when the relevant other is present, or when the
individual is reminded of that person. They reviewed evidence
that activation of relational selves can help explain the
phenomenon of ‘transference’—whereby dynamics of past
relationships resurface in current relationships—when a
potential new interaction partner reminds the individual of a
significant other for whom they have an established relational
self.
Self-categorization and self-stereotyping
According to self-categorization theory (Turner et al.,
1987), categorizing oneself as a group member—and hence
the possibility of group identification and group action—is
enabled by the fluid nature of identity. The theory asserts that
both the salience and the meanings of identity categories vary
predictably with changes in the comparative context. Three
factors are expected to determine the contextual salience of a
given identity category: (1) a ‘bottom-up’ principle of
comparative fit, or the extent to which perceived between-
group differences are greater than perceived within-group
differences, (2) a ‘top-down’ principle of normative fit, or the
extent to which the pattern of perceived differences matches
prior expectations about the groups involved, and (3) the prior
accessibility of the category, or perceiver readiness, which is
a function of the individual’s recent history, motives, goals,
and existing level of group identification (for evidence, see
Lea, Spears, & Watt, 2007; Oakes, Turner, & Haslam, 1991).
Principles of comparative and normative fit suggest
additionally that the meaning of an identity category will shift
according to the intergroup comparative context, so as to
maximize expected differences between the groups. Thus,
Scottish participants in one study rated the Scottish as more
hardworking, more organized, more aloof, and less warm if
they had just rated the Greeks on the same dimensions,
whereas they rated the Scottish as less aloof and more warm if
they had just rated the English, compared to a control
condition where they only rated the Scottish (Hopkins, Regan,
& Abell, 1997).
Perhaps the most controversial prediction of self-
categorization theory is that category salience leads to
depersonalization, a process of minimizing self-ingroup
differences and maximizing self-outgroup differences so that
the individual comes to see themselves as “interchangeable”
with other group members (Turner et al., 1987). Although
there is little evidence for the strong claim that category
salience leads to perceived interchangeability (see Postmes &
Jetten, 2006), research has supported a milder claim that
category salience often leads to self-stereotyping, whereby the
individual’s working self-concept shifts towards that of a
prototypical ingroup member and away from that of a
prototypical outgroup member. In several studies, gender and
cultural differences in self-rated independence and
interdependence were greater when participants rated
themselves in intergroup contexts, compared to intragroup
contexts (Guimond, Chatard, Martinot, Crisp, & Redersdorff,
2006; Heine, Lehman, Peng, & Greenholz, 2002). Moreover,
in a study of reaction times, when “Greek” identity was
activated among members of the fraternity/sorority system, the
normatively inconsistent identity of university student showed
reduced accessibility (Hugenberg & Bodenhausen, 2004).
Thus, the evidence to date indicates that salience of a given
identity aspect in the working self-concept can lead to
suppressing inconsistent aspects of identity; however, it is not
yet clear whether identity salience also leads to suppressing
other identity aspects in general.
Studies of stereotype threat (Steele, 1997) and stereotype
embodiment (Levy, 2009) have shown how individuals often
come to think and behave in accordance with negative
stereotypes of their group, in situations when the stereotype is
activated: For example, African Americans scored lower on
tests of verbal ability (e.g., Steele & Aronson, 1995), women
scored lower in math tests (e.g., Spencer, Steele, & Quinn,
1999), and older adults scored lower in memory tasks (e.g.,
Levy, 1996), when negative stereotypes were explicitly or
implicitly cued (for a recent review, see Spencer, Logel, &
Davies, 2016). However, performance is not impaired when
stereotypes are seen as irrelevant to performance (e.g., when
the test is not thought to measure the ability for which the
negative stereotype exists: Steele & Aronson, 1995), and it
may be boosted when positive stereotypes are activated (Levy,
1996). Stereotype threat effects can also be reduced by
stressing the changeable, rather than fixed, nature of the ability
Identity: Personal AND Social 11
in question (Froehlich, Martiny, Deaux, Goetz, & Mok, 2016).
The malleability of these effects shows clearly their status as
self-fulfilling prophecies—dependent on the negative
stereotype itself as well as a worldview that supports the
veracity of stereotypes.
Although stereotype threat research has focused mainly on
people’s performance in ability tasks, the self-fulfilling effects
of negative stereotypes potentially may be much more wide-
ranging, encompassing intergroup anxiety and interethnic
interactions, doctor-patient interactions, and even
cardiovascular health and longevity (Levy, 2009; N. A. Lewis
& Sekaquaptewa, 2016). Moreover, even if these effects
depend on contextual activation of the relevant stereotypes,
negative stereotypes are often chronically salient in everyday
life, and so they may have cumulative effects. Indeed, one
longitudinal study showed that people with more positive self-
stereotypes of ageing lived on average seven years longer than
their peers with more negative stereotypes of aging—even
after controlling for effects of demographic differences and
prior health status (Levy, Slade, Kunkel, & Kasl, 2002).
Identity motives: Maintaining a satisfactory identity
By now it should be apparent that identity construction is
an ongoing process, never completed. Even when an identity
appears fixed, people may be exerting much effort, knowingly
or otherwise, to maintain this illusion. This raises the question
what it is that people are striving to maintain or protect with
all this ‘identity work’. Several key perspectives suggest that
identity processes are motivated towards maintaining self-
esteem, or positive self-regard (e.g., Crocker & Canevello, this
volume; Pyszczynski, Solomon, & Greenberg, 2015;
Sedikides & Strube, 1997). On the other hand, as discussed
earlier, self-verification theory suggests that people invest
much effort into maintaining a stable and coherent self-
concept. Indeed, people often sacrifice potential gains in self-
esteem in order to maintain stability and coherence (Kwang &
Swann, 2010).
Integrating insights from these and many other
psychological perspectives, motivated identity construction
theory (Vignoles, 2011) proposes that people in all cultures
have at least six discrete identity motives, defined as
“tendencies toward certain identity states and away from
others, which guide the processes of identity definition and
enactment” (p. 405). The theory asserts that people are
motivated to see themselves positively (self-esteem), as
distinct from others (distinctiveness), that their past, present,
and future identities are connected (continuity), that their lives
are meaningful (meaning), that they are competent and capable
(efficacy) and that they are included and accepted by others
who matter to them (belonging). These six identity motives are
understood to have three common characteristics:
1. People will desire and strive for forms of identity that
satisfy these motives, whereas they will dislike and try to
avoid forms of identity that frustrate them.
2. In situations where these motives are frustrated, people
will intensify their strivings to satisfy them.
3. Motive satisfaction will have positive implications,
whereas frustration will have negative implications for
psychological well-being.
In these three respects, identity motives are thought to function
similarly to physiological needs such as hunger. However,
rather than being “hardwired” biological drives, identity
motives are viewed as cultural adaptations to pervasive human
concerns about social organisation and about the meaning of
existence. Since all societies face these concerns, identity
motives should be culturally universal. However, societies
may develop different ways of satisfying each motive. Thus,
identity motives can be seen as ‘culturally flexible universals’,
which link the individual’s psychological functioning to
his/her sociocultural and historical context.
Self-esteem and social regulation
Social psychological research has documented a wide
range of cognitive strategies that individuals use to enhance or
maintain their self-esteem, such as selectively taking credit for
one’s successes and blaming external circumstances for one’s
failures (e.g, Campbell & Sedikides, 1999), selectively
choosing targets and dimensions for social comparison on
which one will come out favorably (Wills, 1981), selectively
seeking positive rather than negative feedback on one’s
characteristics (e.g., Sedikides, 1993), selectively forgetting
negative feedback about core identity aspects when this occurs
(e.g., Sedikides, Green, Saunders, Skowronski, & Zengel,
2016), and selectively perceiving as more central and enacting
more to others those aspects of one’s identity that provide a
sense of self-esteem, compared to those that one sees more
negatively (Vignoles, Regalia, Manzi, Golledge, & Scabini,
2006). Moreover, people often underestimate their
susceptibility to self-enhancement biases, seeing themselves
as less biased than others (Pronin, Gilovich, & Ross, 2004).
Although accuracy does sometimes prevail, this seems to
happen especially in particular circumstances: For example,
people are more willing to entertain negative feedback on
characteristics that they believe to be modifiable—perhaps
because negative feedback may be useful for subsequent self-
improvement (still a route to positive self-evaluation in the
future) or because they can discount the negative feedback if
they believe the characteristic to be temporary (Sedikides et
al., 2016).
Although pursuing self-esteem might seem a rather
individualistic endeavor, research suggests that self-esteem
serves an important social function, signaling to the individual
their level of success (or otherwise) in tasks that are socially
or culturally valued. Thus, feelings of self-esteem (or
otherwise) are said to function as a sociometer (monitoring
social acceptance: Leary, 2005) or, more recently, as a
hierometer (monitoring social status: Mahadevan, Gregg,
Sedikides, & De Waal-Andrews, 2016). Against an
individualistic view of self-esteem, studies have repeatedly
failed to support the prediction that self-esteem would be
derived from success on dimensions that the individual
personally values (Marsh, 1995, 2008). Instead, a large cross-
cultural study recently showed that participants derived self-
esteem especially from dimensions that were more valued by
others in their cultural environments—irrespective of the
individual’s personal values (M. Becker et al., 2014). In this
way, beyond its functions for the individual, the motive for
self-esteem may have important benefits for society—
regulating the behavior of societal members towards goals that
are valued by the wider society.
Beyond self-esteem: five more identity motives
Notwithstanding the importance of self-esteem, there is
increasing evidence that people strive for more than just self-
esteem when constructing their identities. Across four studies,
Vignoles et al. (2006) found that participants rated as most
Identity: Personal AND Social 12
central and self-defining not just those identity aspects that
gave them self-esteem, but also those that gave them a sense
of distinctiveness from others, continuity over time in their
identities and meaning in their lives; and participants reported
enacting most in everyday life not only those identity aspects
that gave them self-esteem, but also those that gave them
feelings of efficacy and belonging. According to motivated
identity construction theory, each of these motives should
function as a “culturally flexible universal” (Vignoles, 2011).
This prediction has been examined most fully so far in relation
to motives for distinctiveness and continuity, as I detail below.
Distinctiveness has been viewed as a necessary condition
for a meaningful identity (Codol, 1981), as well as having
important functions for social life: Individual distinctiveness
enables recognition of ‘who is who’ within the group, and
hence the possibility of coordinating actions of multiple
individuals’ towards a common goal; group distinctiveness
enables people to distinguish ingroup members, who may be
relied upon to help with basic survival needs, from outgroup
members, who might be in competition for resources
(Vignoles, 2009). M. Becker et al. (2012) studied the
distinctiveness motive across 21 cultural groups varying in
individualism and collectivism, finding that participants from
all cultural groups tended to prioritize those identity aspects
that they perceived to distinguish them more from others.
However, distinctiveness was achieved in different ways in
different cultures: members of individualistic cultures showed
the greatest emphasis on difference from others, whereas
members of collectivist cultures showed the greatest emphasis
on social position, as sources of distinctiveness.
Similarly, continuity has been viewed as a defining feature
of identity (Erikson, 1968), which may be achieved in different
ways according to cultural beliefs and practices (Chandler,
Lalonde, Sokol, & Hallett, 2003). In a study across 55 cultural
groups, M. Becker et al. (2016) found that feelings of self-
continuity could be achieved in various ways: viewing oneself
as stable, creating a narrative, and experiencing associative
links to one’s past. However, ways of constructing self-
continuity were moderated by both cultural and individual
differences in immutability beliefs—the belief that human
attributes are unchanging.
Feelings of meaning may be important for making sense of
life, as well as for avoiding incapacitating fear that might
otherwise come from awareness of one’s mortality
(Pyszczynski et al., 2015; Steger, 2009). Again, research
suggests that meaning in life can be derived in multiple
ways—from feelings of coherence (that life makes sense),
purpose (a sense of directedness) and significance (a sense that
life is inherently valuable) (George & Park, 2016; Martela &
Steger, 2016). However, research has not yet examined how
these may differ across cultures.
Feelings of belonging and efficacy have both been
theorized as fundamental human needs (Baumeister & Leary,
1995; Deci & Ryan, 2000). Recent research suggests that
feelings of belonging can be derived either from interpersonal
bonds or from feelings of similarity to others (Easterbrook &
Vignoles, 2013; see also Yuki, 2011, for related cross-cultural
evidence). Meanwhile, feelings of efficacy can be derived
from individual or from collective achievements, and there is
some evidence that this differs across cultures (Markus,
Uchida, Omoregie, Townsend, & Kitayama, 2006).
Social identity maintenance: intergroup and intragroup
processes
A central claim of social identity theory is that people
typically strive for social identities that are characterized by a
sense of positive group distinctiveness (Tajfel & Turner,
1979). According to Tajfel and Turner, when people
experience their social identity as lacking in positive
distinctiveness—for example, belonging to a socially
devalued minority group—they may respond by using various
identity management strategies: Depending on features of the
intergroup context, such as the permeability of the group
boundaries, and the perceived stability and legitimacy of the
status differences between the groups, they might attempt to
move to a more positively distinctive group (individual
mobility) or they might try to improve the positive
distinctiveness of their existing group—whether by engaging
in direct competition with a relevant outgroup (social
competition) or by seeking to reframe the comparison between
groups in a more positive and/or distinctive light (social
creativity) (for empirical support see, e.g., Ellemers, 1993;
Mummendey et al., 1999; van Rijswijk et al., 2006).
Although social identity theory initially focused on
individualistic (i.e. mobility) and intergroup (i.e. competition
and creativity) strategies for maintaining positive group
distinctiveness, subsequent research suggests an equally
important role for intragroup strategies. One significant
extension of the social identity perspective, subjective group
dynamics theory proposes that people expend much effort on
patrolling the boundaries of their ingroups by excluding or
derogating deviant ingroup members, imposters and
newcomers (Marques, Abrams, Páez, & Hogg, 2001; see also
Jetten et al., 2005). Indeed, it has repeatedly been shown that
people evaluate ingroup members who deviate from group
norms significantly more harshly than outgroup members
showing the same characteristics or behaviors—the so-called
“black sheep effect” (Marques & Páez, 1994). Notably, the
black sheep effect is strongest when deviance is expressed on
attributes that are seen as central to the group’s social
representation of itself, suggesting it should be understood as
a mechanism of social regulation rather than just an individual-
level identity management strategy (Zouhri & Rateau, 2015).
The search for positive group distinctiveness has been
linked theoretically to identity motives for self-esteem,
distinctiveness, and/or meaning (Abrams & Hogg, 1988;
Hogg, 2007; Spears, 2011). However, this arguably provides a
reductionist account of the motivational underpinnings of
social identity processes. Firstly, research has supported the
role of all six identity motives, not only these three, as
predictors of group identification (Amiot & Sansfaçon, 2011;
Easterbrook & Vignoles, 2012; Smeekes & Verkuyten, 2015;
Vignoles et al., 2006, Study 2). Indeed, the continuity motive
may perhaps be especially important in explaining negative
attitudes towards ingroup deviants, imposters and newcomers
(such as immigrants), shifting attention away from social
comparison of one’s group with other competing groups
toward a focus on temporal comparison among past, present,
and possible future identities of one’s own group (Smeekes &
Verkuyten, 2015). From this perspective, perceived threat will
depend on the extent to which the inclusion of diverse
members is seen to change the perceived meaning of the
group’s identity: Can such changes be reconciled with the
perceived roots of the group identity in question, or is the
group’s identity “changed beyond recognition”?
Identity: Personal AND Social 13
Clarity is needed about the level at which identity motives
operate when applied to group membership. Many writers
view group identity processes as parallel to, but functionally
separate from, individuals’ identity motives (e.g., Spears,
2011). However, there is growing evidence that they are
connected: Social identity maintenance strategies can be
triggered by threats to personal, as well as collective, self-
esteem or distinctiveness (Fein & Spencer, 1997; Pickett,
Silver, & Brewer, 2002), and personal self-esteem is actually
a better predictor than collective self-esteem of intergroup bias
(Aberson, Healy, & Romero, 2000). Conversely, threats to
group identity can lead to individualistic coping strategies
(Spears, Doosje, & Ellemers, 1997). This is not to say that
group identity maintenance processes are reducible to
personal identity processes, but rather that they are closely
connected. Thomas et al. (in press) recently reported first
evidence that personal, social and collective instantiations of
any given identity motive may influence group identity
construction: One might identify with a group because it
provides a sense of personal continuity (personal identity
motive), because one perceives the group identity as
continuous over time (social identity motive), or because the
group members collectively perceive the group identity as
continuous over time (collective identity motive). Unravelling
the unique and multilayered effects of each identity motive
will require multilevel research studying the combined effects
of multiple identity motives, instantiated at both personal and
social levels of self-representation and on both individual and
group levels of analysis.
Similarly, intergroup identity processes do not occur
purely in the minds of individuals—groups interact with each
other and respond to each other’s actions. Thus, the elaborated
social identity model (Drury & Reicher, 2009) conceptualizes
the intergroup relationship as a dynamically evolving “whole,”
with its own internal logic and emerging properties.
Personality and social psychologists often view context in
rather static terms, as an independent variable, so that the
analysis of identity processes begins with the individual or
group responding to a particular context that is seen as
preexisting or external to the identity dynamics that are
occurring. However, the elaborated social identity model
views context as an emerging—and dynamically changing—
property of the intergroup relationship itself. Thus, the identity
management strategies of one group constitute the context for
the identity processes of the other group, and vice versa. The
process of intergroup identity negotiation is iterative rather
than static, resulting in intergroup processes that are somewhat
analogous to the interpersonal identity negotiation processes
of behavioral confirmation and self-verification.
Identity change and sociocultural change
Up to now, I have sought to describe how sociocultural
practices and psychological processes mutually reinforce each
other to create identities—as well as cultural systems—that are
stable, reproduced over time, and somewhat resistant to
change. Yet, identity change and sociocultural change do
occur. I will now discuss how the personal-social dynamics of
identity construction reviewed above may help to explain not
only why identities and sociocultural systems are difficult to
change but also why and how they sometimes do change.
Change may result from (1) dissatisfaction of identity motives,
(2) external events that impact on identity dynamics, and/or
(3) people harnessing these dynamics to promote change.
Dissatisfaction of identity motives
Firstly, change may be expected when one or more identity
motives is unsatisfied. If people are motivated to maintain
feelings of self-esteem, continuity, distinctiveness, belonging,
efficacy and meaning in their identities, then situations where
one or more of these motives is frustrated should be expected
to lead to intensified strivings towards motive satisfaction.
When identity motive satisfaction is threatened or
undermined, people may adopt a wide range of coping
strategies, such as denying or discrediting the threatening
information (Reed & Aspinwall, 1998), aggression towards
the source of the threat (Bushman & Baumeister, 1998),
distancing oneself from others who are similar to an activated
feared self (Schimel, Pyszczynski, Greenberg, O’Mahen, &
Arndt, 2000), self-serving attributions (Campbell & Sedikides,
1999), self-stereotyping (van Rijswijk et al., 2006),
involvement in group activities (Ethier & Deaux, 1994),
intergroup discrimination and prejudice (Hunter et al., 2005),
and pro-social behavior (Nadler, Harpaz-Gorodeisky, & Ben-
David, 2009), to name just a few.
Some of these coping strategies may function to resist or
undo change, restoring the threatened sources of motive
satisfaction. Others, however, may be directed towards finding
alternative or new sources of motive satisfaction, which may
also lead to social change. For example, all three identity
maintenance strategies postulated in social identity theory
(Tajfel & Turner, 1979) may lead directly or indirectly to
societal change. Perhaps most obviously, social competition
may lead directly to changes in the status hierarchy, if a
disadvantaged group competes successfully with a more
advantaged outgroup. However, individual mobility can lead
indirectly to societal change by altering the cultural
availability of possible future identities for subsequent
generations—for example, the possibility of a female UK
Prime Minister or a black US President is no longer
unthinkable. Social creativity does little or nothing to change
societal inequalities in the present, but may foster shared
identification and pride among disadvantaged group members,
which in turn may have downstream consequences for
collective action—for example, the slogan “Black is beautiful”
did not in itself challenge the structural or economic
disadvantages faced by African Americans in the 1960s; yet,
by challenging internalized racism, it arguably fostered a more
positive sense of collective identity that subsequently
empowered African Americans to achieve tangible social
changes through the Civil Rights Movement. Indeed, research
has shown that a combination of collective identification,
perceived injustice, and political or collective efficacy
provides a potent set of factors predicting decisions to protest
against collective disadvantage (van Zomeren, Postmes, &
Spears, 2008).
External events that impact on identity dynamics
Major life changes can provide an impetus for identity
change. Existing identities may be challenged by negative life-
events such job losses, divorce and bereavement, but also by
positive events such as university graduation, marriage, or
parenthood (Breakwell, 1988). Even positive events such as
becoming a parent or getting into university may require major
reconfigurations of identity (Ethier & Deaux, 1994; Manzi,
Vignoles, & Regalia, 2009). If a major event happens to many
people together, such as a crowd event or a national disaster,
then a sense of common fate may trigger collective
identification, action and empowerment—and thus social, as
Identity: Personal AND Social 14
well as personal change (Drury, Brown, González, & Miranda,
2016; Drury & Reicher, 2009).
Major historical changes can transform the contexts within
which identities are formed. Given the importance of
recognition by an audience for identity construction, the
growth of internet communication and online social networks
radically alters the contours of the social space within which
identities are formed and negotiated, such that geographical
proximity is no longer necessary for everyday social
interaction. Online social networks provide opportunities to
conceal parts of the offline self (Bullingham & Vasconcelos,
2013). As a result, individuals may feel freer to express their
sense of “real self” online (Bargh, McKenna, & Fitzsimons,
2002), or they may use the affordances of online social
networks to create and verify fantasy selves (Donath, 1999).
Online social networks potentially make it easier for
individuals to construct multiple identities, each with a
separate audience (DiMicco & Millen, 2007), yet online
audiences often have permeable boundaries, and so self-
presentations may spill over to reach an unintended audience
(Greysen, Kind, & Chretien, 2010).
Another major change that affects identity formation is the
accelerating impact of globalization. Historical increases in
tourism, migration, and internet connectivity offer new
opportunities of direct and mediated intercultural contact for
people in developing as well as developed nations, so that
individuals potentially have access to much wider repertoires
of identity categories and positions than was previously the
case (Arnett Jensen, Jensen Arnett, & McKenzie, 2011; P. B.
Smith, Fischer, Vignoles, & Bond, 2013). This may have a
liberating effect on identity construction, especially for those
whose identities are stigmatized in their local context (Koc &
Vignoles, 2016). However, the availability of alternatives also
carries potential risks of increasing identity confusion, social
disengagement and marginalization (Arnett Jensen et al.,
2011; Norasakkunkit, Uchida, & Toivonen, 2012). When
people inhabit intercultural contexts, culture is predicted to
become a basis for self-categorization; thus, globalization may
transform ‘cultures’ into ‘cultural identities’, such that
perceived cultural differences in values and other
characteristics will come to be exaggerated and within-cultural
differences minimized (after Turner et al., 1987). This may
help to explain why commentators often perceive a “clash of
civilizations” between people living in different parts of the
world (e.g., Huntington, 1997), even when empirical findings
indicate that cultural membership explains only a rather small
portion of variance in value priorities across the world (Fischer
& Schwartz, 2011).
Harnessing identity dynamics for change
Finally, change may occur when people deliberately
harness identity dynamics, so as to steer people in a certain
direction. In self-affirmation research, identity dynamics have
been used to reduce defensive responses to identity threat
(Sherman & Cohen, 2006). When individuals are encouraged
to affirm important aspects of their identities—for example, by
spending a short time writing and reflecting on their most
important values—they show more willingness to consider
alternative points of view about significant social issues (e.g.,
Correll, Spencer, & Zanna, 2004), less defensive processing of
important but threatening health messages (e.g., Harris &
Napper, 2005) resulting in healthier behaviors (e.g., Epton &
Harris, 2008), and reduced discrimination against members of
negatively stereotyped out-groups (e.g., Fein & Spencer,
1997). Notably, self-affirmation interventions have been
shown to reduce fears of not fitting in at school, and to boost
academic engagement and performance, among members of
academically disadvantaged and underachieving groups (G. L.
Cohen, Garcia, Apfel, & Master, 2006).
On the other hand, individuals may also harness identity
dynamics for their own ends. Politicians often draw on social
identity dynamics to attract popular support—sometimes
stirring up interethnic, socioeconomic, or international
divisions and hostilities, in order to cement their own positions
of leadership. Reicher, Haslam and Hopkins (2005; Reicher &
Haslam, 2017) have described leaders who use such
techniques as “entrepreneurs of identity,” who rhetorically
manipulate the meanings of identity categories so as to
position themselves favorably within the group and to
selectively include or exclude others from group membership.
Conclusion
I have argued here that the commonly used distinction
between personal identity and social identity is often
unhelpful, obscuring both the similarities and connections
between these supposed ‘levels of identity’. Research in
personality and social psychology has shown how
psychological processes of identity definition and
sociocultural practices of identity performance mutually
reinforce and shape each other. This helps to explain how
identities can be experienced as real, unitary and stable, even
when they are actually constructed, multiple and fluid. I have
argued that the processes by which individuals regulate their
personal identities are inextricably linked to practices by
which societies and groups regulate their members.
Correspondingly, collective action and societal change are
inextricably linked to personal change. In all of these ways,
understanding identity as both personal and social reveals the
crucial role of identity dynamics in mediating the relation
between the individual and society.
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