Search results

In this article, we examine how person–possession relations vary across three stages of the role-identity cultivation processes. We explore stage-related variation in the accumulation of role-related consumption stimuli and their self-relevance in a cross-sectional sample of two freely chosen athletic role-identities. Results show that as individuals cultivate an identity they accumulate more role-related possessions, social ties, and media commitments, and evaluation of those elements becomes more positive, yet the impact of those stimuli on self-conception declines. Ultimately, the results suggest that a full understanding of person–possession relations must include consideration of how role-identity cultivation stage moderates relations between people and consumption stimuli.

Various mass shooters have explained their violent actions as a response to failing at dominant forms of masculinity, including rejection from women and negative social comparisons to other men. The affect control theory of self (ACT-Self) posits that interactions that violate one's sense of self cause inauthenticity. This disequilibrium motivates behaviors that restore self-meanings, which may partially explain the link between challenges to the self and compensatory violence.

In Study 1, we use ACT-Self to examine the relationship between inauthenticity, violent fantasies, and physical aggression in the autobiography of one mass shooter. We quantify self-sentiments and inauthenticity using ACT-Self measures and methods, and perform a thematic analysis of the shooter's interpretations of and responses to disconfirming events. In Study 2, we examine the relationship between these same concepts in a survey of 18-to-32-year-old men (N = 847).

Study 1 shows that the shooter's inability to achieve popularity, wealth, sex, and relationships with beautiful women (compared to other men) produced inauthenticity that he resolved through violent fantasies, increasingly aggressive behavior, and ultimately, mass violence. Study 2 finds that inauthenticity arising from reflected appraisals from women predicts self-reported violent fantasies and physical aggression in a convenience sample of men in emerging adulthood.

This work leverages a formal social psychological theory to examine the link between self-processes and violence. Our findings suggest that men's inauthenticity, particularly produced by reflected appraisals from women, is positively associated with violent fantasies and acts. Further work is needed to assess whether this relationship is causal and for whom.

The purpose of this chapter is to review the historical development of identity theory from 1988 to the present, and then outline some thoughts about future directions for the theory.

The chapter discusses major advances in identity theory over the past 25 years such as the incorporation of the perceptual control system into the theory, the introduction of “resources” in which symbolic and sign meanings are important, new views of the social structure, the relevance of the situation in influencing the identity process, the idea of different bases of identities, broadening our understanding of multiple identities, studying identity change, and bringing in emotions into the theory.

Throughout the review, empirical work is identified and briefly discussed that supports the major advances of the theory.

The chapter suggests a number of ways that identity theory may be developed in the future such as examining negative or stigmatized identities. Additionally, there is a discussion as to ways in which the theory may be tied to other theoretical traditions such as affect control theory, exchange theory, and social identity theory.

Identity theory has had a number of applications to various areas in society, including understanding crime, education, race/ethnicity, gender, the family, and the environment.

This is the most recent overview of identity theory over the past 25 years. It becomes clear to the reader that the theory offers a way of understanding the person as a cognitive, emotional, and behavioral agent who influences the structure of society but who is also influenced by the social structure.

Purpose – This chapter explores the effects of persistent identity nonverification on the emotional, cognitive, and behavioral responses used to “reclaim” an identity within the perceptual control model of identity theory.

Methodology/Approach – We conducted a within-subjects experiment invoking the “student” identity to examine the relationship between the persistence of nonverification and emotional, cognitive, and behavioral reactions.

Findings – Contrary to identity theory, we find the effect of persistent nonverification on negative emotion and behavior change is curvilinear (rather than linear). Low persistence produced the least negative emotion, but medium and high persistence produced comparably higher levels of negative emotion. For behavior change, the relationship is curvilinear and opposite what identity theory would expect: low persistence produced the greatest (rather than least) behavior change. For cognitive reactions, we find support for identity theory: persistent nonverification has a negative (linear) effect on the perceived accuracy of feedback. We conclude that while individuals accurately perceive the degree to which identity-relevant feedback is discrepant, “too much” nonverification produces excessive negative emotion and dismissal of social feedback with little behavioral modification.

Practical Implications – Program interventions based on identity theory may focus on maximizing identity verification as a means of shaping positive identities and behaviors. Our research suggests that there may be a “goldilocks zone” where small amounts of nonverification lead to more positive outcomes.

Originality/Value of the Chapter – This chapter examines persistence of identity nonverification in connection with more or less immediate cognitive and behavioral (not just affective) responses, which has not yet been done in identity theory research.

Organizations are replete with groups working on complex, interdependent tasks. To successfully perform such tasks, group members must possess diverse skills and perspectives and be able to integrate their differences. This dual requirement poses a challenge because members’ identities are typically intertwined with their diverse skills and perspectives, making group interaction a breeding ground for threats to members’ identities. We explain how identity negotiation processes, especially those associated with self-verification, provide a way for members to defuse the identity threats that can otherwise impede integration. We describe empirical research on the interplay among diversity, identity negotiation processes, and group functioning, and then compare self-verification and self-categorization approaches to managing group diversity.

The purpose of this paper was to empirically integrate the structural and perceptual control programs in the identity theory. This integration involved examining how the structural concepts of prominence and salience moderate the impact that the perceptual control process of nonverification has role-specific self-esteem.

We use survey data from normative and counter-normative conditions in the parent and spouse identities to test a series of structural equation models. In each model, we test the direct impacts of prominence, salience, and nonverification on worth, efficacy, and authenticity. We also test interaction effects between prominence and nonverification as well as salience and nonverification on the three self-esteem outcomes.

Out of the 24 possible interaction effects, only three were significant. By contrast, the expected positive effects of prominence on worth were supported among all identities, while the expected positive effects of salience on self-esteem were supported only among normative identities. Also as expected, the negative effects of nonverification on self-esteem were supported, though most strongly among counter-normative identities.

Our findings indicate that the structural and perceptual control concepts have independent effects on self-esteem. Thus, future research should incorporate both programs when examining identity processes on self-esteem. However, depending on the normativity or counter-normativity of the identities of interest, research may find it useful to focus on concepts from one program over the other.

This paper is a test of integration of the two research paradigms in the identity theory, which addresses the micro–macro problem in a unique way.

For work organizations and their members, establishing and maintaining mutually satisfying employment relationships is a fundamental concern. The importance that scholars attach to employment relationships is reflected in research streams that explore the optimal design of strategic human resource management systems, the nature of psychological contract fulfillment and violation, and the factors associated with achieving person-environment fit, among others. Generally missing from theory and research pertaining to employment relationships is the perspective of individuals who reside at the employee-employer interface – managerial leaders. We argue that, for managerial leaders, a pervasive concern involves the tangible and intangible resource requirements of specific employees. We then provide the groundwork for study of the leader’s perspective on employment relationships by proposing a model that identifies how employees come to be perceived as low versus high maintenance and how these perceptions, in turn, influence leader cognition, affect, and behavior.

Business ethics provide a potent source of competitive advantage, placing increasing pressure on organizations to create and maintain an ethical workforce. Nonetheless, ethical breaches continue to permeate corporate life, suggesting that there is something missing from how we conceptualize and institutionalize organizational ethics. The current effort seeks to fill this void in two ways. First, we introduce an extended ethical framework premised on sensemaking in organizations. Within this framework, we suggest that multiple individual, organizational, and societal factors may differentially influence the ethical sensemaking process. Second, we contend that human resource management plays a central role in sustaining workplace ethics and explore the strategies through which human resource personnel can work to foster an ethical culture and spearhead ethics initiatives. Future research directions applicable to scholars in both the ethics and human resources domains are provided.

The purpose of this chapter is to contextualize mixed findings in the self-complexity literature. Self-complexity (when individuals' identity meanings do not overlap) theoretically buffers negative outcomes associated with distressing experiences, like identity non-verification (perceptions that others see individuals differently than individuals see themselves). However, research on self-complexity overlooks the social context in which these processes occur. Here, the author argues that multiplexity (when individuals are connected in two or more role relationships) provides meaningful context that influences whether self-complexity functions as a buffer. This leads to two competing arguments: (1) multiplexity enhances the self-complexity buffering effect and (2) multiplexity undermines the self-complexity buffering effect.

Using egocentric network survey data from 314 US adults, the author ran four regression models (two for the friend identity, two for the coworker identity). These models test whether self-complexity moderates the effect of non-verification on distress when individuals do (or do not) have multiplex ties in which they are close friends with their coworkers.

Multiplex ties amplify the buffering effect of self-complexity when non-verification occurs in the coworker identity, but multiplex ties weaken the buffering effect of self-complexity when non-verification occurs in the friend identity.

This work supports the idea that the benefits associated with self-complexity are conditional on social context as well as identity context. Future research should consider these realities when examining how identity and buffering processes relate to wellbeing.

This work integrates social network analysis and identity theory to reconcile mixed findings in the literature on self-complexity.