Three Faces of Identity - majorsmatter.netmajorsmatter.net/gender/Readings/Three Faces Of Identity.pdf · share salient characteristics. So, being an Arab American may be an identity

SO36CH23-Smith-Lovin ARI 3 June 2010 1:46

Three Faces of IdentityTimothy J. Owens,1 Dawn T. Robinson,2

and Lynn Smith-Lovin3

1Department of Sociology, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana 47907;email: [email protected] of Sociology, University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia 30520;email: [email protected] of Sociology, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina 27708;email: [email protected]

Annu. Rev. Sociol. 2010. 36:477–99

First published online as a Review in Advance onApril 20, 2010

The Annual Review of Sociology is online atsoc.annualreviews.org

This article’s doi:10.1146/annurev.soc.34.040507.134725

Copyright c© 2010 by Annual Reviews.All rights reserved

0360-0572/10/0811-0477$20.00

Key Words

self, group, situation, social movement

Abstract

We review three traditions in research on identity. The first two tra-ditions, which stress (a) the internalization of social positions and theirmeanings as part of the self structure and (b) the impact of culturalmeanings and social situations on actors’ identities, are closely inter-twined. The third, the burgeoning literature on collective identity, hasdeveloped quite independently of the first two and focuses more ongroup-level processes. Unlike previous reviews of identity, which havefocused on the sources of internalized identity (e.g., role relationship,group membership, or category descriptor), we focus here on the the-oretical mechanisms underlying theories of identity. We organize ourreview by highlighting whether those mechanisms are located in the in-dividual’s self-structure, in the situation, or in the larger sociopoliticalcontext. We especially attempt to draw connections between the socialpsychological literature on identity processes and the distinct, relativelyindependent literature on collective identity.

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INTRODUCTION

Most reviews of research on identity organizetheir presentation around the sources of theidentity (e.g., Thoits & Virshup 1997, Owens2003). Identities that guide social action cancome from role relationships, affiliation withsocial groups, identification with social cate-gories, or personal narratives. Here, we take adifferent tack. We highlight the theoretical pro-cesses that are the central mechanisms in themajor treatments of identity. These theoreticalmechanisms operate across the identities thatcome from the sources listed above.

We first draw a distinction between iden-tity theories that focus on internalization of so-cial positions within a self-structure and thosethat focus on how consensual, cultural identitymeanings are implemented within situationsthat evoke them. The former theories (e.g.,Stryker’s and Burke’s Identity Theory) focus onhow stable, internalized aspects of social identi-ties are formed and how they affect behavior asthe social actor moves from one situation to thenext. Implicitly, these internalization theoriesassume a socialization process through whichrepeated social interactions lead to the develop-ment of personalized identity meanings; thesemeanings then become incorporated into a sta-ble, trans-situational self-concept. The lattertheories (e.g., Tajfel’s Social Identity Theoryand Heise’s Affect Control Theory) emphasizehow social contexts elicit certain identities andshape their meanings. These theories focus onhow consensual cultural meanings associatedwith identities are imported by actors into localinteractions and how situational environmentsshape the localized meanings of the situation-ally relevant identities. The situation and theculture within which it is embedded are morecentral than any internalized aspect of the actor.

After developing this (somewhat subtle)distinction between personal, internalizedidentity theories and situational, culturallybased identity theories, we then examine aliterature that places the concept of identity atthe group level. Cerulo (1997) reviewed thisliterature on collective identity, emphasizing

its roots in classic sociological constructs likeDurkheim’s collective consciousness, Marx’sclass consciousness, Weber’s Verstehen, andTonnies’s Gemeinscaft. Here, we draw outthe connections between this fast-growingliterature (located primarily in the study ofpolitics, social movements, and culture) and themore social psychological theories of identityin the microsociological literature (see Owens& Aronson 2000, Stryker et al. 2000). Sincethe collective identity literature only fleet-ingly refers to the more social psychologicaltreatments, we attempt to identify areas wherethose connections can enrich both subfields.

Before reviewing our three faces of the iden-tity literature, we illustrate how the concept ofidentity is nested in the broader concepts of selfand self-concept. Identity occupies an interest-ing position vis-a-vis these broader concepts. Itis both a nested component of the more generalself-structures, yet also refers to social positionsthat exist outside the individual actor that areavailable to be ascertained, enacted, and poten-tially internalized. This dualism motivates theorganization of our review.

SELF, SELF-CONCEPT, ANDIDENTITY: NESTED CONCEPTS

For theorists who emphasize the internalizednature of identity within the context of a sta-ble self-structure, the concept of identity isnested within the more inclusive concepts of theself and the self-concept. As specified by Mead(1934), the self is a phenomenon of the humanmind born out of reflexive action, stemmingprimarily from a person’s interactions with oth-ers. Mead especially stressed the ability to imag-ine oneself from the standpoint of another per-son. The self consists of two components: the“I” and the “me” (Mead 1934). The “I” (orsubject) is the dynamic, novel, spontaneous as-pect of the self that constitutes the individualas knower and actor. The “me” (or object) isall the learned perspectives a person takes to-ward him- or herself and the attitudes that the“I” assumes toward one’s own person, especiallywhen taking the role of the other. The vast

478 Owens · Robinson · Smith-Lovin

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majority of work in sociology is on the “me” as-pect of the self, which includes the self-conceptand the identities that are incorporated into it.

Once the self emerges in the human or-ganism, a nascent self-concept soon follows.Rosenberg (1979) defined self-concept as thetotality of a specific person’s thoughts andfeelings toward him- or herself as an object ofreflection. The self-concept (or the “me”) canbe thought to consist of three broad classesof individual attributes (Rosenberg 1979,pp. 15–17): self-referring dispositions, physicalcharacteristics, and identities. Self-referringdispositions denote the abstract categoriespeople develop over their life courses andthen use to shape their response tendencies,including attitudes such as liberalism, traitssuch as altruism, values such as patriotism,and abilities such as athletic skill. Thoits &Virshup (1997) refer to these elements as one’sindividual identity because they represent waysto differentiate oneself from others (as opposedto representing communalities with othersthrough roles or group membership).

Physical characteristics include one’s exter-nal attributes such as being obese, deaf, or tall.These physical characteristics become socio-logically interesting when they are also incor-porated into a person’s self-image and thus havethe potential to shape one’s behavior or one’ssocial and psychological well-being. They also,of course, have an external character that influ-ences how others respond to us, shaping theirinternalization into the self-concept.

The third component of Rosenberg’sself-concept is the focus of our review here:identity. There are four key sources of iden-tity characterizations: personal or individualidentity, role-based identity, category-basedidentity, and group membership–based iden-tity. Personal identity is the most elementarytype of identity, defined here as the socialclassification of an individual into a categoryof one (Rosenberg 1979). It denotes a uniqueindividual with self-descriptions drawn fromone’s own biography and singular constellationof experiences. Examples include: I am RoySmith, Pat Smith’s spouse; I served in Patton’s

Third Army during World War II; I was bornin Robeson County Hospital at 3:14 PM; mymother had a cousin named Edna; I drovethe school bus during my junior year in highschool. Although personal identity consists ofunique identifiers and an individual narrative,it is social and institutional in origin. As such,soldiers are identified and differentiated fromother soldiers by their names, ranks, and serialnumbers; academics by their names, ranks,departmental affiliations, and the institutionsfrom which their highest degree was awarded.These distinctions are created and organizedby the institutions within which they occur.

As individualized as it is, one’s personal iden-tity information is the basis for one’s otheridentities. “If an individual could not be recog-nized from one occasion to another as the sameperson, no stable social relationships could beconstructed” and no other identities could beformed (McCall & Simmons 1966, p. 65). Wedistinguish between these individuated narra-tives in personal identities and what Thoits& Virshup (1997) termed “individual iden-tity.” They defined individual identity as self-ideas abstracted from one’s biographical detailsand framed in terms of broader social cate-gories such as working class, Midwesterner, di-abetic, snowbird, or progressive. When suchabstracted self-categorizations are internalized,they often correspond to group or categoricalidentities as described below.

Identities based on role relationships arethe most central in the theories that stressinternalization of identity meaning into theself-structure. We define role-identity as a so-cial position a person holds in a larger socialstructure,1 considers self-descriptive, and en-acts in a role relationship with at least oneother person (Thoits 1995). Because it is self-descriptive and internalized, it becomes partof one’s self-concept. Role-identities are pred-icated on recurrent interactions between role

1Here we adopt Stryker’s (2008) definition of social structureas socially patterned interactions and relationships noted fortheir regularity, resistance to change, and capacity to repro-duce themselves.

www.annualreviews.org • Three Faces of Identity 479

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partners and provide the self with meaning be-cause they carry recognized role expectations,whether complementary (teacher-pupil), com-peting (union negotiator–business executive),or counter (detective-criminal) (e.g., Hogg et al.1995, Weinstein et al. 1966).

McCall & Simmons (1966) tended to ascribemore individual volition to the crafting of one’srole-identity than do most identity theorists.To McCall & Simmons, role-identity entailedthe “character and the role that an individualdevises for himself as an occupant of a particu-lar social position,” including “his imaginativeview of himself as he likes to think of himself be-ing and acting as an occupant of that position”(p. 67; emphasis in the original). Their concep-tualization illustrates clearly the internalized,individuated nature of identity meanings, eventhose identities that arise from social structuralpositions.

The two final bases of identity are formedby similarities that we see between ourselvesand others, rather than the role relationshipswith another actor. Identities can be based onperceived membership in a socially meaningfulcategory (e.g., Arab or American) or on actualmembership in a bounded, interconnectedsocial group (e.g., a Girl Scout or a member ofEarth First). The distinction between the twobases is blurred because of the homophilousstructure of interactions (McPherson et al.2001, 2006): We are much more likely tointeract with those actors with whom weshare salient characteristics. So, being an ArabAmerican may be an identity that comes froma category of people, but is likely reinforcedby interactions within mosques or ethnicallyidentified churches, ethnic neighborhoodenclaves, and other culturally meaningfulgroup activities.

Our summary of these bases on which iden-tities are formed makes clear why we choose toorganize this review around theoretical mech-anisms and the distinct intellectual traditionsthat they create, rather than the more commonclassification around the source of identity(e.g., personal/individual, role based, socialcategory based, group based). First, the distinc-

tion among the sources is blurry and has littlerelationship to how theorists believe that iden-tities organize and motivate action within socialcontexts (Smith-Lovin 2007, Burke 2004).Second, identities are elements of both the so-cial structure and the individual self-structuresthat internalize them. While individuals mayincorporate meanings associated by social po-sitions and distinctions into their view of them-selves, the menu from which they choose todo so is created by a larger social environment.Therefore, some theories of identity operateat levels other than the self-structure. In par-ticular, this is true of the identity theories thatemphasize situational or contextual elements(our second section here) and the literature oncollective identity (our third section). Beforeturning to these aspects of identities theories,however, we begin with a review of themore traditional theories that emphasizethe internalization of identity meanings intothe self-structure.

THEORIES EMPHASIZINGINTERNALIZEDROLE-IDENTITY MEANINGS

One has no identity apart from society; one has noindividuality apart from identity.

—Nelson N. Foote (1951, p. 21)

The fact that we internalize how others seeus is a core insight of classic symbolic interac-tion (Mead 1934, Cooley 1902). At least sinceFoote’s (1951) classic article on identification asa basis for motivation, sociological researchershave focused on how the social positions thatpeople occupy become stable, internalizedaspects of their self-concepts. In this section,we examine the class of theories that emphasizeidentities that are attached to and internalizedby individuals, particularly, but not necessarily,in structured role relationships. The theoriescovered in this section are Role-IdentityTheory (McCall & Simmons 1966), IdentityTheory (Stryker 1968, 1980), Identity Accu-mulation Theory (Thoits 1983), and IdentityControl Theory (Burke 1991). However,


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before discussing the specific theories, webriefly address motivation as it generallyapplies to these internalization theories.

Nearly six decades ago, Foote (1951) at-tempted to clarify role theory by using a so-cial psychology of motivation that both rejectedbiological determinism (“the person impelledfrom within”) and cultural determinism (“theperson driven from without”) (p. 21). Foote’stheory of situated motivation is based uponsymbolic interactionist notions of language andidentification. Specifically, language is centralto motivation because it helps shape behaviorby enabling individuals to meaningfully under-stand and label their past actions in order to for-mulate present and future outcomes. Throughidentification, people appropriate and committo particular identities. People have multipleidentities, and their identities give their behav-ior meaning and purpose. However, becausepeople also perform roles that are attached toparticular identities, the role/identity nexus isalso an important ingredient in motivation andchoice. Indeed, the very notion of identity insymbolic interactionism connotes an intimatelinkage between self and role (Burke & Tully1977) such that human beings are confrontedregularly with choices between alternative com-mitments and actions.

Two influential mid-range identity theorieswere developed in the 1960s to represent theways in which structural role positions and theirinternalizations guided choices that actors makein social interaction. Both McCall & Simmons(1966) and Stryker (1968) attempted to link thestructural-functional insights about role rela-tionships and their functions in larger sociologythat dominated the mainstream sociology of theday with the dynamic, processual insights aboutself that dominated microsociological thinking.The result was a remarkably fruitful theoreticaltradition that grew out of these two similar per-spectives on identity.

Role-Identity Theory

McCall & Simmons (1966) defined role-identity in dramaturgical language as the

character that individuals devise for themselveswhen occupying specific social positions. Andas discussed earlier, they saw role-identities asstemming from the preferred perceptions thatone has of oneself as one occupies various so-cial positions. In this case, role-identities in-fluence people’s everyday lives by serving astheir primary source of personal action plans.The theory has a view of people capable of cre-ativity and improvisation in the performance oftheir roles, yet within the overall requirementsand restrictions of their social position(s). Thiscommingling of individuality, idiosyncrasy, andimpulsiveness with behavior constrained by so-cial convention occurs through a dialog be-tween the “I” and the “me” bounded by thebroad dictates of one’s role-identity.

Because people have multiple and oftencompeting role-identities, which also come andgo during one’s life course, an important theo-retical problem in McCall & Simmons’s theoryis to explain which role-identities people valuemost and will thus attempt to perform. Theyargue that a person’s various role-identitiesget organized into a hierarchy of prominence,where a role-identity’s prominence reflects therelative value it has for his or her overall concep-tion of one’s ideal self.2 In this way, one’s promi-nence hierarchy is equivalent to one’s ideal self(McCall & Simmons 1966, pp. 76–80, 264).Prominence itself is predicated on many factors.First, people must assess the degree of commit-ment they have to a particular role-identity and,by extension, how much their self-esteem isbound to its successful activation. That is, com-mitment signifies how deeply a person stakeswho he or she is by virtue of his or her role-identity and its performance. This conceptu-alization is directly relevant to James’s (1890)definition of self-esteem as the ratio of one’sperceived success in a particular role-identityto one’s desired level of success.

2Their concept of ideal self, which traces back to Horney(1945), is part wish and part obligation with regard to anindividual’s most personal aspirations and wants for him- orherself (e.g., to be a distinguished professor, a loving mother,a successful businessperson).


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Second, when considering their ideal selvesvis-a-vis particular role-identities, people eval-uate how their prior actions generally comportwith their role-identity performances and howmuch they are living up to their ideal selves.Third, as a sign of the importance of reflectedappraisals, people try to determine how theirsignificant others will evaluate and appraise therole when and if it is activated. Fourth, indi-viduals assess the rewards they may or may nothave received from the prior activation of a role-identity, a notion consistent with social learningtheory (e.g., Bandura 1977).

Identity Theory

Stryker’s Identity Theory (1968, 1980, 2008)has been the dominant perspective on self andidentity within structural symbolic interaction-ism for the past four decades. Since Stryker(2008) recently offered a focused treatment ofhis theory in the Annual Review of Sociology, weonly review its basic form here (see also Owens2003). Identity Theory sees a multifaceted selfcomposed of multiple identities arranged hier-archically in an identity salience structure. Themore salient an identity, the higher is the prob-ability of its being invoked in an interactionalsituation that allows some agency or choice.The salience itself is based on two dimensions ofone’s commitment to the identity: interactionaland affective. Interactional commitment is theextensiveness of the interactions a person hasin a social network through a particular iden-tity (e.g., the number of persons one interactswith based on the identity). Affective commit-ment is a person’s emotional investment in re-lationships premised on the identity (e.g., howemotionally close others in the role relation-ship are to the individual). Note that Stryker’suse of the term “commitment” is more multidi-mensional and less psychological than the use ofthe same concept label in McCall & Simmons’sRole-Identity Theory above.

In an early empirical test of the theory,Serpe (1987) showed that college students’commitments to their student-related identitiesat Time 1 impacted those identities’ saliences

at Time 2, whereas Time 2 student-identitysalience impacted contemporaneous commit-ment to that identity. This pattern suggestedthat commitment precedes salience. However,the degree of structural freedom students hadin choosing one role-identity over another(i.e., coursework versus dating) was key. Onlysituations involving choice showed the pattern.More recently, Owens & Serpe (2003) foundthat behavioral and affective commitment wereboth significantly related to family identitysalience for Hispanics, but only behavioralcommitment was predictive of family-identitysalience for Anglos and blacks. They arguedthat the significance of affective commitmentfor Hispanics was heightened by the family’sparticular importance for this group.

Finally, Stryker et al. (2005) recentlydiscussed an ongoing problem in IdentityTheory—how multilevel social structures fa-cilitate or constrain one’s opportunity for,and the strength of, commitment to particu-lar role-identities (i.e., family, work, and vol-unteerism). They show that intermediate-levelsocial structures (e.g., neighborhood or school)influenced commitment most by fostering in-group identity-based relationships. Proximal-level social structures, though important, hadless impact than intermediate structures. Theproximal-level represents social embeddednessin multiple networks of social relations (e.g.,number of workmates who are also one’s rela-tives). Finally, large-scale stratification systems(e.g., gender, race, socioeconomic status) hadthe least impact on commitment to a particularidentity.

Identity Accumulation Theory

Thoits (1983, 1986, 2003) drew heavily onRole-Identity Theory (McCall & Simmons1966) and Identity Theory (Stryker 1968, 1980,2008) in her formulation of Identity Accumula-tion Theory, her description of the importancethat multiple role-identities can have for a per-son’s psychological and emotional well-being.Her theory asserts that multiple role-identitiescan be psychological resources that help reduce


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emotional distress (depression) and fosterglobal self-esteem in complex selves. Under-pinning Identity Accumulation Theory are twokey assumptions. The first, an essential aspectof symbolic interactionism, is that identitiesprovide individuals with meaning and purposeby answering the question: Who am I? Second,roles give individuals structure and organiza-tion by answering the question: What shouldI do? By extension, multiple role-identitiesprovide the person with an orientation towardlife situations that help foster well-being. AsAhrens & Ryff (2006) point out, more rolesalso are associated with beneficial individualresources, such as social connections, power,and prestige. The more options one has toobtain these resources, the better the outcome.

Numerous recent empirical studies supportthe hypothesis linking multiple role-identitiesto lower levels of psychological distress(Kikuzawa 2006, Sachs-Ericsson & Ciarlo2000, Wethington et al. 2000), fewer physicalhealth problems ( Janzen & Muhajarine 2003),or both (Barnett & Hyde 2001). Conversely,Brook et al. (2008) cited other studies in-dicating that multiple role-identities canactually increase or prolong depression whenrole-identity demands are incompatible withother behavioral expectations or when the role-identity claims too much of a person’s time anddrains her energy. Brook et al. (2008) claimedthat the key to understanding the differencebetween positive and negative benefits of mul-tiple roles is the mediating effect of positive ornegative emotions on the interactions betweenthe number of identities a person holds, theirsubjective importance to the person, and howharmoniously they interact with each other.

Jackson (1997) added an important statusdimension involving race and ethnicity toIdentity Accumulation Theory and showedthat the multiple role-identities were associatedwith lower depression and greater happinessamong non-Hispanic white and MexicanAmerican men and women but not AfricanAmericans. Kikuzawa (2006) added a person’slocation in the life course to race/ethnicity ina cross-cultural study of depression levels for

Americans and Japanese age 60 and over. Shefound that role accumulation (spouse, parent,and community volunteer) benefited olderAmericans’ mental health, but any role beyondbeing either a spouse or a parent had no impacton well-being for older Japanese. Theoreticalunderstanding of these varying patterns indifferent racial, ethnic, and age groups is stillneeded.

A common thread running through manystudies of multiple identities, including thework above on Identity Accumulation Theory,is the importance of Stryker’s Identity Theoryin the framing of the empirical research. Few,however, actually employ Stryker’s conceptionsof role interactional and affective commitmentin their empirical analyses. Even among thosewho try to hew closely to Stryker’s theoreti-cal conceptualizations, differences in the waysalience and commitment are operationalizedhelp explain empirical inconsistencies in the re-lationship between multiple role-identities andwell-being.

Serpe (1987) and Thoits (2003) may offer animportant piece missing in Identity Accumula-tion Theory: assessing the degree of choice peo-ple have in enacting their many role-identities.If multiple role-identities are a resource, thenthe most consequential for well-being shouldbe the identities a person has some freedomto choose. For example, the mother role andworker role are more constraining because theyoffer less choice in enacting than the freedomto choose the PTA role and church choir role.

Identity Control Theory

Whereas Stryker’s Identity Theory focusedon identity choices, Burke developed anelaboration of the theory to specify howinternalized meanings guided action after anidentity was adopted within an institutionalcontext (Stryker & Burke 2000). Burke’s (1991,Burke & Reitzes 1991) theoretical develop-ments are often known as Identity ControlTheory to distinguish them from Stryker’smore structural focus on commitment andidentity enactment. Burke built on the work


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of Powers (1973) to represent the relationshipbetween internalized identity meanings andperceptions of an interactional situation as acontrol system or cybernetic feedback loop[Robinson (2007) provides a recent review ofcontrol theorizing in sociology]. Meaningsare typically measured using bipolar semanticdifferential scales (Osgood et al. 1957, 1975).The dimensions on which meanings vary areassessed in each institutional context and thenmeasured at the level of the individual actor.

Consistent with the other internalizationidentity theories summarized above, IdentityControl Theory emphasizes the importance ofunderstanding identity not just as a state ortrait characteristic of the individual, but as acontinuous process of affirmation and reaffir-mation in social situations. “An identity pro-cess,” according to Burke & Reitzes (1991), “isa continuously operating, self-adjusting, feedbackloop: individuals continually adjust behavior tokeep their reflected appraisals congruent withtheir identity standards or references” (p. 840,emphasis in the original). Furthermore, Burkeand associates follow mainstream symbolic in-teractionism by viewing an identity as a set ofmeanings applied to the self in a social role[although later presentations of the theory ex-plicitly expand its scope to consider identitiesthat come from group or category membership(e.g., Burke 2004, Burke & Stets 2009)]. Thesemeaning-sets act as a standard or reference forunderstanding who one is in a given situationand what are the expectations in order to main-tain that identity in the eyes of self and others.

When an identity is brought into play in aninteraction situation, a feedback process ensuesvia reflected appraisals. That is, a cyberneticcontrol process balances any identity discrep-ancies that may arise when a particular identitystandard (the internalized meanings of self inrole, group, or category) is compared to theidentity’s situated meaning via a comparator.It is hypothesized that people behave so as tocounter and reduce any discrepancy that arisesfrom interaction. Since actions are generatedto reduce discrepancies, they can vary inquality, depending on the disturbing events.

This feature of the theory allows it to describehow actors respond creatively to circumstancesother than normal role performances.

Identity Control Theory is thoroughlyreviewed in Burke & Stets (2009). Here wedescribe only a few studies as exemplars ofthis research tradition. In one of the initialstatements of the theory, Burke (1991) poseda challenge to prevailing views of social stressby positing that disruption of the otherwisecontinuous identity process and the inability toclose the gap between disapproving reflectedappraisals and an identity standard will resultin distress. Burke & Stets (1999) show howself-processes can influence social structure,while Stets & Tsushima (2001) have extendedthe theory to an examination of the moderatinginfluence of group-based identities and role-based identities on how people experience andcope with the potent emotion of anger. Morerecently, Burke et al. (2007) combined IdentityControl Theory, Status Characteristics Theory(discussed briefly at the end of the next section),and Legitimacy Theory in an experiment onhow gender factors into leader and subordinateidentity verification. They studied task-oriented groups of four people (two womenand two men) when leadership is conferred by ahigher, legitimate authority (the experimenter).Among their findings are that female leaders(who were legitimated by the experimenterwhen the group was formed) and males (whowere not legitimated) both had higher levelsof identity verification than others. This studyillustrates an interesting new theme in IdentityControl Theory—the relevance of resources tothe ability of an actor to verify his or her identity(see Burke & Stets 2009, pp. 79–82, 229–33).This emphasis on a larger structure brings thetheory closer to the situational/cultural empha-sis of the theories reviewed in the next section.

THEORIES EMPHASIZINGCULTURE AND SITUATIONALCONTEXT

Presumably, a “definition of the situation” is al-most always to be found, but those who are in


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the situation ordinarily do not create this defini-tion, even though their society can be said to do so;ordinarily, all they do is to assess correctly whatthe situation ought to be for them and then actaccordingly.

—Erving Goffman (1974, pp. 1–2)

The theories of internalized identity meaningsreviewed in the previous section build on thefoundational insight of Mead and Cooley thatwe incorporate the social positions that we oc-cupy into our cognitive image of ourselves aspeople. Here, we shift attention to theories thatgive priority to situational, social structural, andcultural elements that lie outside the individ-ual. We caution that our categorization heredoes not imply competition or contradiction.Instead, theories (and the conceptualizationsembedded within them) necessarily simplify re-ality by focusing on some elements to the exclu-sion of others. So the theories described here donot reject the idea that social roles, group mem-berships, and category memberships are incor-porated into the self-image. Rather, they em-phasize how the elements of situations in whichactors are involved shape their behavioral, cog-nitive, and emotional reactions, rather than fo-cus on the intraindividual features of identity inthe self-structure that are carried from situationto situation.

This tradition of emphasizing the impor-tance of situational context for social actionbegan to develop in its modern form duringthe 1950s and early 1960s. It was partially aresponse to the sense that symbolic interac-tionism, and sociological social psychologymore generally, had lost its connection to thestructural focus of the larger discipline (Stryker2008). Foote’s (1951) influential theory of situ-ated motivation, discussed above, was publishedin this period, using the concept of identity tofocus attention on the actor-situation nexus.Goffman (1959, 1963) emphasized that actorspresented themselves to others in a mannerthat served to maintain certain images. HisPresentation of Self in Everyday Life was con-cerned more with the interactional presentationof self and how situational context supported or

undermined it than with the underlying char-acter of the “self” that was being presented [seeHochschild (1983, appendix A) for a relateddiscussion]. Similar intellectual movementswere afoot in psychology, as Heider’s (1946,1958) Balance Theory drew attention to config-urations of interaction and their implications.

Situated Identity Theory

An early attempt to develop a formal, empir-ically testable theory based on this situationalfocus was Alexander’s Situated Identity The-ory (Alexander & Knight 1971; summarized inAlexander & Wiley 1981). Building on Heiderand Goffman, Alexander conceptualized situ-ated identities not as properties possessed bypersons or as features located in some exter-nal environmental structure. Instead, the situ-ated identity defined the relationship betweenan individual and the environment (especiallythe other actors within it) at a given time.Like many situational theories that followed,Alexander focused initially on relatively sim-ple situations in which actors were assumed tohave similar perspectives; he restricted his ex-perimental work to situated activities that metthat consensus criterion. In his most cited study(Alexander & Knight 1971), he replicated a clas-sic cognitive dissonance experiment, showingthat the desirability of the situated identity as-sociated with an outcome predicted whetherpeople chose that outcome, often in violationof cognitive dissonance predictions. Althoughthis research tradition is not currently very ac-tive, it was a groundbreaking effort to considersystematically the impact of situational cues onidentity occupancy and social conduct flowingfrom that identity. It also pioneered the useof experimental methods in this domain withinsociology.

We now move to a review of currentlyactive theories that emphasize the impact of sit-uational and cultural features on social interac-tion. We discuss two traditions in sociology andpsychology—Affect Control Theory and SocialIdentity Theory—that conceptualize the so-ciocultural environment in very different ways.


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We then briefly discuss Status CharacteristicsTheory. Although this theoretical researchprogram is not based in the identity tradition,its findings have some important connectionsto the phenomena that we explore here.

Affect Control Theory

To make the connection between the inter-nalized and situational/cultural conceptions ofidentity clear, we begin our discussion of themore situational/cultural conception of identitywith Affect Control Theory (Heise 1979, 2007),which shares many elements with Burke’s Iden-tity Control Theory. Both theories drew di-rectly on Powers’s (1973) insight that much ofhuman processing of stimuli from the environ-ment was described by a control system ratherthan a direct translation of inputs into outputs.But even given this shared control imagery, thesubtle differences between the theories are anexcellent demonstration of the distinction thatwe make here between personal and social the-ories of identity. They also illustrate the dangerof making this categorization seem too rigid.

Affect Control Theory was developed byHeise (1979) by combining two psychologicalresearch programs—Osgood’s work on themeasurement of affective meaning (Osgoodet al. 1957, 1975) and Gollob’s (1968) workon impression formation—with Powers’s newideas about control systems. The resultingtheory had three elements. First, it usedOsgood’s work to create a measurementsystem in which meanings were concep-tualized on three dimensions of affectivemeaning—evaluation (good-bad), potency(powerful-powerless), and activity (lively-quiet). Measuring meaning on just these threedimensions missed some nuances but allowedall the elements of a social event (the actor, thesocial action, the object-person at whom theaction is directed, and later emotions, setting,nonverbal behaviors, status characteristics, etc.)to be mapped into the same three-dimensionalspace. The second element of the theory was anempirical framework for describing how eventschanged the meanings within a situation. Using

a paradigm developed by Gollob, Heise com-bined identity labels and social behaviors intosimple event sentences (e.g., the mother slapsthe child) to study how the initial meanings ofthe event elements (a mother, slapping some-one, a child) would be transformed by theircombination in the event (what do you think—on the three dimensions of affective meaning—of a mother who has slapped a child?).

The third element of the theory is thecontrol system, adapted from Powers (1973),which it shares with Identity Control Theory.When social interaction deflects meanings awayfrom their stable, culturally determined values,Affect Control Theory proposes that actors tryto create new events to bring the transitory,situated meanings back into line with the sta-ble, cultural meanings. Deflection of meaningsis defined mathematically, by the summed ab-solute differences between transient, situatedmeanings for event elements (actor, behavior,and object-person) and the culturally given ref-erence values for each of those elements. Thesearch for a new event that, when enacted, willminimize that deflection then becomes a searchfor a three-number profile: the evaluation, po-tency, and activity of a behavior (what could Xdo next to remedy the situation?), a new labelfor the actor (what kind of a person would dosuch a thing?), or a new label for the object-person (what kind of a person would deserve tohave that happen to them?). Once the profile isfound, one can search a cultural “dictionary” ofaffective meanings to find qualitative labels thatfit the affectively appropriate response.

The contrast between Affect Control The-ory and the more recently developed Iden-tity Control Theory is described extensivelyin Smith-Lovin & Robinson (2006). Thetheories differ in their approaches to measure-ment, formalization, and emotional response.Here we emphasize only the differences in per-sonal versus situational focus that are key to ourdiscussion.

The first contrast between the theories is thereference level that is being maintained by thecontrol system in each theory. Identity Con-trol Theory’s reference level is the internalized


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meanings that an actor incorporates into theself-structure. In Affect Control Theory, peo-ple try to maintain meanings associated withthe entire situation—their own identities, theidentities of others, actions, and behavior set-tings (Smith-Lovin 1979). A second differenceflows directly from the first. In Affect Con-trol Theory, the actions of others are explicitlyconsidered as possible remedies for meaning-deflecting events. In personal identity theories,the assumption is that people operate to main-tain their own identities. Affect Control The-ory explicitly considers how a situation in whichmeanings have been disrupted can be repairedby any of the actors that are copresent in a situ-ation, even those who were not involved in thedeflecting event.

Finally, the theories differ somewhat in theirassumptions about the stability of meaning.Since Identity Control Theory focuses on per-sonal, internalized identity meanings, much ofthis research program looks at how these mean-ings shift as a result of interactions over aperiod of sustained interactions (e.g., Stets &Burke 2005). In Affect Control Theory, mean-ings are assumed to be quite stable and acquiredthrough long-term socialization processes fromthe culture at large. Most extreme dislocationsof meaning that cannot be resolved behaviorallyare resolved through relabeling a person or ac-tion. Since both theories share the core controlimagery of Powers (1973), much research thatsupports Affect Control Theory could supporteither theory (e.g., Robinson & Smith-Lovin1992, 1999), as well as self-consistency theoriesfrom psychology. Work that is more distinc-tive to this theoretical tradition looks at fea-tures other than the central actor. For example,one series of studies examines how emotion dis-plays (which signal transient meanings and de-flections from identity) lead to labeling after adeviant act (e.g., Robinson et al. 1994). Anotherlooks at how people work to manage the iden-tities of others, even at some cost to their ownself-image (C.L. Rogalin, D.T. Robinson, L.Smith-Lovin, submitted manuscript).

Since Affect Control Theory focuses on thesituation, it often deals with identities that are

not core to an actor’s self-structure. Smith-Lovin (2007) reported an experiential samplingstudy that found we actually spend most of ourtime in such noncore identities. In fact, AffectControl Theory had no real conceptualizationof a stable, organized self-structure during thefirst three decades of its development (Heise1979, Smith-Lovin & Heise 1988, MacKinnon1994); it was a theory about roles, identities, andsituated action.

Recent developments, however, make clearthat the boundary between personal and so-cial identity theories is indistinct and ever-changing. MacKinnon & Heise (2010) developa control theory of the self that is based on AffectControl Theory. The theory has two elements.First, actors use a “cultural theory of people”—the collection of categories and logical implica-tions among them—as a menu of possibilitiesfor self-identification and understanding oth-ers. Second, when self-identity meanings aredeflected in one situation (and if those deflec-tions cannot easily be behaviorally resolved),then actors seek out other possible identitiesin situations that, when maintained, will resolvethe deflection at the level of the self. Therefore,although it uses the mathematical control sys-tem from Affect Control Theory, this new iden-tity theory clearly moves back into the realm ofinternalized, personal identity theories by con-centrating on how people maintain a stable self-image over a series of situational encounters. Inthis case, they do so by agentically entering sit-uations that place them in different identitiesand lead to the experience of self-relevant situ-ated meanings. Notice the similarity to the ba-sic question posed (and answered) by Stryker’sIdentity Theory: How do people choose whichidentities to enact, when they have a choice?MacKinnon and Heise give a more formal an-swer to this question than Stryker, but they aredefinitely building in his domain.

Having discussed how two very similar the-ories differ in their emphasis on personal versussocial/cultural focus, we now turn to a perspec-tive that focuses on how contextual elementsaffect self-meanings that are derived from cat-egory memberships. Social Identity Theory


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deals with cognitions about categories of in-groups and out-groups (Tajfel & Turner 1979).Therefore, it would seem to be the prototype ofan intrapersonal identity theory. However, themechanisms described by the theory actuallycenter on the impact of the social environmenton those cognitions, placing this theory in thesituational/cultural category for our treatmenthere. We emphasize those contextual elementsof the theory in our description of it.3

Social Identity Theory

Social Identity Theory has its roots in work byTajfel during the late 1950s and 1960s on thesocial factors that influence perception. It wasfurther developed with Turner in the 1970s and1980s (Tajfel & Turner 1979, Turner & Tajfel1982; see also Hogg 1992). Like all the the-ories we review here, Social Identity Theorysees social actors as having multiple identitiesthat get activated by different social contexts.Here, the emphasis is on category memberships(e.g., being a Muslim or an Australian). Whena category membership becomes salient (rele-vant to the social context), self-perception andconduct become in-group normative. Percep-tions of other groups become out-group stereo-typical. Depending on the nature of the rela-tionship between the groups (e.g., whether it iscompetitive or status-ranked), self- and other-perceptions can shift toward different types ofperceptual discrimination.

Unlike the control theories of identityreviewed above, Social Identity Theoryassumes a self-enhancement motive. Afterself-categorization occurs in the context of asituation, actors are motivated to make compar-isons that favor the in-group (and sometimesdisparage the out-group). The strength of thistendency varies, depending on the potential formobility—it is stronger for immutable ascribedcategorizations (e.g., race, gender, nationality)

3Other treatments (e.g., Stets & Burke 2000) have empha-sized points of overlap between Social Identity Theory inpsychology and Identity Theory in sociology.

than it is for achieved categorizations (e.g., ed-ucational degree status, membership on sportsteams), especially if the higher status is withinreach. Therefore, it is the social environmentand, in particular, the relevant group contrastswithin that environment that determinewhat dimensions of self-perception, other-stereotyping, and intergroup competition/discrimination occur. If I think of myself as anAmerican and I am in a social context wherethe British are my out-group, I might thinkof my American self as egalitarian (as opposedto the class-oriented British). But if I am (still)an American and I am comparing myself toan Italian, I might think of myself as orderlyand institution-upholding (as opposed to theunsettled, fractious Italians). The hypothesesof Social Identity Theory typically focus onhow variations in the social situation (therelevant out-groups, the beliefs about thedegree of mobility and social change possible,etc.) influence the content of the operativemeanings for the in-group (i.e., situated selfmeanings) and the out-group (stereotypes anddiscrimination).

Notice that in Social Identity Theory, theconcept of salience has a very different meaningfrom that in Identity Theory. In Stryker’s Iden-tity Theory, identity salience is a stable part ofthe self—a result of commitment (frequent andaffectively valued relationships to others). It issomething that actors carry from situation tosituation. In Social Identity Theory, salience isconceptualized as the impact of the situation onself-categorizations. I might be an American inParis, but at a Civil War reenactment, I am aSoutherner, and in the American SociologicalAssociation, I am a professor and a socialpsychologist. And in each of these venues,I might have different meanings for thosecategorical identities, depending on the salientout-group at the time. In comparing Tajfel’sSocial Identity Theory and Stryker’s IdentityTheory, Hogg et al. (1995, p. 263) notedthat Tajfel’s theory put more emphasis onsocial context for identity and their meanings,whereas the sociological Identity Theoryfocused on self-structure for motivating the


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enactment of identities and long-term socialexperience for the internalized meanings.

To end our section on situational/culturaltheories of identity, we turn to a theory thatis not considered an identity theory at all—theStatus Characteristics Theory branch of the ex-pectation states theoretical research program.We include the theory in this review not tocover all of its rich contributions to microso-ciology, but to highlight the elements of thetheory that deal with the relationships amongidentity and interaction. The increasing use ofthe theory outside of its scope conditions byidentity researchers justifies its placement here.

Status Characteristics Theory

The intellectual roots of Status CharacteristicsTheory are not in symbolic interaction, but inthe exchange tradition (Correll & Ridgeway2003). When people work together on a taskand will be rewarded jointly for its successfulcompletion (the scope conditions of the the-ory), actors are motivated to assess who willcontribute most effectively to the task comple-tion. The actors for whom task expectationsare the highest are given action opportunities,receive positive evaluations, and have other in-teractional advantages. Actors’ characteristics(e.g., gender, race) become important withina situation when those characteristics areevaluated by self and others, and are perceived(either implicitly or explicitly) to be relevantto expectations about task performance. Thetheory’s core mechanism is that group mem-bers will exchange deference within the groupinteraction for the high-expectation actors’contributions to the task (resulting in higherbenefits for all group members, including thelower-expectation ones).

Note, however, the similarities betweenStatus Characteristics Theory and Affect Con-trol Theory (Ridgeway & Smith-Lovin 1994).Both theories posit that largely consensualcultural meanings are imported into a situationto organize action within that setting. Boththeories suggest that the identities (and, there-fore, cultural meanings) that are relevant are

determined by the situation, not by an internalself-structure. And both provide a generativeaccount of how action unfolds in the situation,given these meanings. The fact that StatusCharacteristics Theory is frequently nowapplied outside of its scope conditions of col-laborative, jointly rewarded task orientation—which nullifies the exchange mechanism—makes it closer to a situationally based identitytheory than the status-exchange theory of itsorigins. Researchers in both the Affect ControlTheory and the Identity Control Theory tradi-tions have used the theory to discuss how statusmeanings organize action within social situa-tions (Ridgeway & Smith-Lovin 1994, Rashotte& Smith-Lovin 1997, Stets 1997, Stets &Harrod 2004, Cast et al. 1999). For example,Stets & Harrod (2004) find that actors inhigher-status positions have interactionalresources that allow them to sustain theiridentity meanings within situations, avoidingnegative emotions that come with lack ofidentity maintenance.

Having reviewed the systematically devel-oped theories of identity and action thatemphasize internalized meanings and situa-tional/cultural elements, respectively, we nowturn to a body of literature on collective iden-tity that has a very different emphasis. In-deed, a review of this literature a decade ago(Cerulo 1997) barely mentions social psycho-logical theories. Here, we try to summarizethe differing emphasis of this substantial lit-erature on collective identity and to draw outconnections between its treatment of identityand the social psychological literature reviewedabove.

COLLECTIVE IDENTITY

The solidarity that derives from similarities is at itsmaximum when the collective consciousness com-pletely envelopes our total consciousness, coincidingwith it at every point.

—Emile Durkheim (1893)

The sociological literature on collective iden-tity is less organized around distinct midrange


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theories than are the literatures on personalidentity and situated identity. Rather, it is awide-ranging literature coming out of a num-ber of traditions, including cultural sociol-ogy, social movements theory, feminist soci-ology, and cognitive sociology. Consequently,this section of our review is organized aroundconcepts and process rather than around spe-cific theoretical traditions. We attempt to drawconnections between this vibrant literatureand the midrange microsociological theoriesreviewed above.

The internal and situational identity pro-cesses reviewed in the section above can leadidentities to serve as an organizational force,binding us to those with commonalities of in-terest and providing a social glue that can serveas a foundation for mobilizing joint action. Col-lective identities should not be seen as a thirdtype of identity as much as an attempt by thisliterature to highlight another set of identity-related dynamics at the group level. Both inter-nalized identities and situational identities canunderpin the sense of connection and shareddestiny requisite for collective identification.Indeed, Nagel (1995, p. 21) refers to the col-lective variant of ethnic identity as “a dialec-tic between internal identification and externalascription.”

Most definitions of collective identityinclude a notion of identification with sharedfeatures along with a recognition of sharedopportunities and constraints afforded by thosefeatures (Melucci 1989). Taylor & Whittier(1999, p. 170) define collective identity as the“shared definition of a group that derives frommembers’ common interests, experiences, andsolidarity.” A sense of we-ness, or connectionto other members of the group/category, isan essential component of collective identity,but the concept goes far beyond that. Prenticeet al. (1994) specifically distinguish betweengroup identities based on common bonds(attachments to individual group members)and those based on common identities (at-tachments directly to the group or category).The latter form of attachment is necessary toproduce a collective identity.

Psychologists working in the social identityand self-categorization theoretical traditionsrefer to the “collective self” as nearly inter-changeable with “social identity” as used inthose theories (Brewer & Gardner 1996) andthus focus largely on its consequences forself-definition and interpersonal judgment.Sociological use of the term collective identityfocuses more on its consequences for mobiliz-ing joint action. This is closer to what Heise(1998) referred to as empathic solidarity. Heise(1998, p. 197) defines empathic solidarity as“a reciprocated sense of merged consciousnessand alliance, with faith in others’ commitmentsto shared purposes.” Heise argues that whenpeople take on the same identity, experiencethe same reality, and observe one another’sparallel emotions and collateral behaviors,a sense of common destiny and empathicconnection arises. It is this phenomenon,operating at the group level, that makes thesociological literature on collective identitydistinctive from the microsociological identityliterature that we review above.

Collective Identity and theNew Social Movements

A concern with understanding what mobilizesjoint action motivates much of sociology’s at-tention to collective identity. Collective iden-tity is a central organizing concept in the lit-erature on new social movements. New socialmovement theory (Larana et al. 1994; Melucci1989, 1994; Offe 1985; Turner 1969) juxtaposesmodern (post-1960s) movements with earliersocial movements, arguing that contemporarymovements are less about Marxist-style con-flict over material interests and more concernedwith identity meanings and other symbolic re-sources. For example, Turner (1969) relatedprotest participation to identity dynamics andreferred to the emerging number of “identityseeking” movements. The identity dynamicsdescribed by Turner focused on personal iden-tities and the identification/disidentificationwith various groups. Later researchers refinedthe notion of collective identity as a group-level


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phenomenon (Melucci 1989, 1994) central togiving a group or category the coherence andenergy necessary to mobilize its constituentsinto collective action. Nearly a decade ago,Polletta & Jasper (2001) reviewed the literatureon collective identity and social movements, re-vealing how identity processes are deeply re-lated to all aspects of social movements, includ-ing (a) movement emergence, (b) recruitmentand participation, (c) movement strategy, and(d) interpretation of outcomes (see Stryker et al.2000).

Boundary Work

Taylor & Whittier (1999) describe three factorsthat contribute to the development of a collec-tive identity capable of motivating group-levelaction: (a) the creation of social boundaries,(b) the development and recognition of socialcriteria that account for a group’s structural po-sition, and (c) negotiation of intergroup and in-tragroup meanings. Boundaries identify who isand is not a member of a collective, but it isgroup consciousness that gives significance to acollectivity (Taylor & Whittier 1999, p. 179).In the case of mobilizing collective conscious-ness in response to a dominant group or oppres-sive understanding, this significance takes theform of what Morris (1999) calls oppositionalconsciousness. Strategies and practices used bycollectives to create, maintain, and transformcultural categories are collectively referred toas boundary work (Nippert-Eng 2002).

Gamson (1995) points out that fixed cate-gories are the basis for both oppression andpolitical power. Consequently, boundary workregarding collective identities such as race,gender, and sexuality can sometimes vacillatebetween taking on the goal of deconstruct-ing boundaries (e.g., Lorber 2006) and tak-ing on the goal of fixing the boundaries tomobilize on the basis of them (e.g., Jenson1995).

Within this theoretical tradition, Lamont(1992) offered an in-depth analysis of the sym-bolic boundaries people draw when categoriz-ing self and others in her comparative study ofupper-middle-class culture in France and the

United States. Her work suggests that bound-ary work around collective identities operatesmultidimensionally and that the relative promi-nence of those dimensions can vary betweencultural settings (echoing some themes in SocialIdentity Theory). Her analysis distinguishedbetween three types of symbolic boundaries:moral, socioeconomic, and cultural. Accordingto Lamont’s research, French social and cul-tural specialists draw stronger cultural bound-aries, while social and cultural specialists inthe United States attend more to economicboundaries. More specifically, Lamont foundthat boundary-drawing activities in the UnitedStates vary with the degree to which they areembedded in occupational structures that aredependent on profit-making. U.S. social andcultural specialists in the nonprofit sector feltmore similar to, and connected with, other non-profit workers than to other social and cul-tural specialists who were dependent on profit-making. In contrast, French social and culturalspecialists identified more with the intellectualand cultural boundaries around their vocationsand less with the economic aspects.

The boundary work literature focusesprimarily on the strategies and practices thatgroups use to construct collective identitiesand to manage the symbolic boundaries aroundthose identities. However, theorists have alsoattended to how external structures createand constrain the emergence and salience ofcollective identities. Again, this work picksup some themes emphasized in the socio-cultural/situational theories of identity inmicrosociology.

Competition and Contact

Two opposing logics guide the theoretical lit-erature regarding the impact of external forceson the salience of collective identity boundariesand the strength of collective identity bonds.One is that direct competition strengthensgroup boundaries and mobilizes collectiveidentity-based conflict. Competition theory(Olzak 1994) argues that when economic anddemographic changes lead to a breakdown inlabor market segmentation, the increase in


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intergroup interaction and the intensificationof competition for scarce resources strain in-tergroup relations and, consequently, increasecollective identification—particularly ethnicidentification. Olzak and colleagues haveamassed considerable support for the idea thatincreased economic competition leads to surgesin ethnic protests and collective action (Olzaket al. 1994, 1996; Soule 1992). Nagel (1995),on the other hand, found that cultural renewalamong Native Americans has taken place underexactly the kinds of conditions that are thoughtto produce cultural decline. One argument isthat positive economic conditions set the stagefor this renewal. According to Nagel, structuralexternalities such as successful land claims,increases in federal spending, and minorityset aside programs have increased the sym-bolic and material value of Native Americanidentity.

In contrast to the idea that increasedinteraction and competition foster collectiveidentification, the cultural division of labortheory proposes that group solidarity andcollective identity arise when groups aredistinctively positioned in an occupationalstructure on the basis of cultural markers(Hechter 1978, 2000). Occupational segrega-tion increases intragroup interaction relativeto intergroup interaction and consequentlyincreases commonality of interests and futures.Thus, when cultural and economic boundariesoverlap, collective identity will arise on the basisof cultural, rather than economic, similarity.

Okamoto (2003) extended and synthesizedthese contrasting arguments into a theory aboutthe shifting, layered nature of ethnic identi-ties. In a study of the relationship betweeneconomic competition, cultural division of la-bor, and pan-Asian identity, Okamoto foundthat the collective identity boundaries trackedthe patterns of occupational segregation: WhenAsian ethnic groups occupy a shared place inthe occupational market, pan-Asian identitiesare more likely to emerge and mobilize pan-ethnic collective action. When separate Asianethnic groups are segregated into different oc-cupations, the separate ethnic identities remain

salient and pan-ethnic collective action is sup-pressed.

Nested Identities

As Okamoto’s work highlights, boundary workby collectives is not simply a matter of sharpen-ing contrasts between competing groups or em-phasizing distinctiveness from a larger oppres-sive culture. At times collective identificationis a process of crystallizing subgroup bound-aries that fractionalize a larger whole, or meld-ing subgroups into larger, cohesive collectives.Green (1999) describes four groups of sectarianevangelical Protestants whose efforts animatedthe first wave of a Christian Right movement,but whose intergroup conflicts ultimately con-tributed to the decline of the movement. Thesuccess of a second wave of the Christian Rightmovement, according to Green, was facilitatedby the development of a new collective identityfor these groups.

Similarly, in her study of the emergence ofa pan-tribal Native American identity, Nagel(1995) described the process by which sub-groups can join to form a larger common iden-tity. She referred to ethnic renewal as theprocess by which new ethnic identities arebuilt/rebuilt out of historical social and sym-bolic systems. Among Native Americans, ashared history of discrimination and oppres-sion, combined with some of the positive eco-nomic externalities described above, created acommon fate among ethnic groups with oth-erwise distinctive cultural histories. These de-velopments facilitated the collective processes(e.g., institution building via the establishmentof new organizations and religions) and culturalpractices (development of new shared ritualsand symbols) involved in ethnic renewal.

Identity, Emotions, and Mobilization

Close on the heels of renewed attention tothe role of identity in social movements hasbeen a revival of interest in how emotionsmobilize joint action. Scholars have recentlybecome more focused on how emotions create


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solidarity and energize collective bonds (Britt& Heise 2000, Collins 1990, Gould 2004,Heise 1998, Jasper 1998). Britt & Heise (2000)point out that shared emotion is not enoughto generate collective identification and action.Using arguments from Affect Control Theory,Britt & Heise (2000) argued that negative emo-tions that are low energy and low potency (e.g.,shame and depression) are not useful for activat-ing collective bonds or motivating joint action.In contrast, negative emotions that are higherin energy and potency (e.g., anger) can motivateindividual participation in collective actions—from mild protests to large-scale conflict. Totruly energize a mobilized collective identity,however, requires both energy and a positivesense of connection within the collective. Suchmobilization is facilitated, according to Britt& Heise, by positive, powerful, and energeticemotions like pride. Britt & Heise argued thatcertain emotion transformations (e.g., shame topride) are difficult to make without transition-ing between more affectively similar emotionsalong the way. They illustrated how aspectsof participation in the gay rights movementcould be seen as efforts to transform shame tofear to anger to pride in an effort to constructa solidary and energized collective identity.

In a participant observation study of politicalavoidance in several volunteer organizations,Eliasoph (2002) examined the complement tothis process. Eliasoph studied how political dis-engagement is socially produced in interaction.Her analysis focused on how individuals bal-anced ideas of citizenship with feelings of pow-erlessness. She described the process of “culturework” done by volunteers working to addresspolitical avoidance by transforming feelings ofpowerlessness into expansion of self-interest. Inthis way, Eliasoph showed how emotion trans-formation in an effort to protect personal iden-tity can also inhibit activation and mobilizationof a collective identity.

Collective Identity and Modernity

Much has been written about the relationshipbetween modernity and contemporary loci of

collective identity. The conventional argumentis that social and institutional complexity oflate modernity (Giddens 1991) or postmoder-nity (Gergen 1991) has fractionalized the con-temporary self. Wimmer (2002) speaks to thisidea in his study of nationalism and ethnicity,but argues for the opposite relationship. Ac-cording to Wimmer, contemporary notions ofidentity are responsible for the emergence ofmodernity. Wimmer distinguishes three posi-tions on the issue of nationalism and ethnicity.The first is that nations and ethnic groups aretruly modern phenomena. Second, nations andethnic groups as we currently understand themare transitory—what he refers to as “birth painsof modernity.” Third, national and ethnic iden-tities are perennial and basic to human socialorganization. Wimmer then presents what hedescribes as a radical modern argument: thatethnicity nationalism produced modernity aswe understand it. According to Wimmer, it wasthe fusion of three notions of peoplehood thatresulted in the modern politicization of ethnic-ity: (a) the notion of the people as a sovereignentity—with power by means of political (suchas democratic) procedures; (b) the notion ofpeople as citizens—with rights and responsibil-ities; and (c) the notion of people as an ethniccommunity bound by common political destinyand shared cultural features. The comminglingof these notions translated into three mod-ern political principles: democracy, citizenship,and national self-determination. Wimmer fur-ther argues that nations differ in the rela-tive salience of these principles. According toWimmer, the French and Swiss emphasizedemocracy and rely on the concept of democ-racy to derive the principles of citizenship andnationalism. In contrast, Wimmer argues thatGermany, Greece, and Israel stress nationalityand from it derive the principles of democracyand citizenship.

While social movement theorists focuson both aspects of collective identity—common interests/fate and common symbolicmeanings—there is a strong thread in themodernity/postmodernity literature thatdocuments a shift over time in the relative


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importance of these two aspects in shapingcategory-based action. Pre-1960s movementsare presumed to be motivated more by morestructural, ascriptive category membershipsand jointness of interest, whereas post-1960smovements are thought to be driven moreby meaning-based bonds (Larana et al. 1994,Melucci 1994, Offe 1985). This argument aboutthe trend away from the importance of struc-turally defined group identities toward morepersonally and culturally defined group iden-tities parallels the findings in social psychologyabout the transition (over a similar historicalperiod) from more structural/institutional def-initions of self to more personal/dispositionaldefinitions of self (Turner 1976).

Fractal Organizationof Identity Dynamics

Collective identities are to groups what so-cial identities are to individuals (Owens 2003,p. 227). Therefore, collective identity processescan sometimes mirror the processes describedby the theories about internal and situationalidentity dynamics reviewed above. The processof boundary work, often fueled by competitionor contact, can lead to the development of anidentity, making it available for members of acategory to see themselves as having a commonset of interests or fate. Sometimes new labelsare developed and added to a culture’s “culturaltheory of people” (MacKinnon & Heise 2010),making them available for individuals to adoptand incorporate into a self-structure. Further,intergroup dynamics can lead to situations thatallow groups and/or individuals to adopt differ-ent identity orientations at different momentsin a political/social process.

While identity accumulation theory (Thoits1983, 2003) and self-complexity theory(Linville 1987) argue that having access tomultiple role-identities can provide the selfwith resources that help provide a bufferagainst stress, the social movement literaturereveals that collective identities with layersof nested identities can provide a movement

with a richer set of resources for mobilizingeffective collective action (Heckathorn 1993,Lichterman 1999, Oliver & Marwell 1988,Richards 2004). Moreover, just as multipleidentities within self-structures can sometimeslead to identity conflict, competing or lay-ered identities within collectives can createopportunities for conflict and fractionalization.

Richards (2004) illustrates this point withher examination of the delicate balancing actrequired to mobilize and maintain collectiveidentity in the ethnically and economically di-verse women’s movements in Chile. She studiedthe relationships between the poor, working-class pobladoras, the indigenous Mapuche, andthe National Women’s Service (SERNAM).Nested class and ethnic identities set the stagefor potential fractures among these variousgroups involved in the women’s movement.Both the pobladoras and the Mapuche describebeing left out of the programs implemented bySERNAM. Pobladoras identified gender as im-portant in explaining their activism—yet ini-tially organized around roles as wives andmothers. Richards describes how the pobladoras’self-views became transformed through par-ticipation in the movement. Meanwhile, theMapuche claims of difference and disadvan-tage conflicted with SERNAM’s goal of equal-ity/sameness, causing schisms in both discourseand agendas. Richards’s work showed howmembers of the women’s movement navigatethe danger of fragmentation by suppressing theseparate identities in the superordinate collec-tive. This careful negotiation of a coherent,integrated collective identity echoes the find-ings of Lichterman’s (1999) study of a sexualminority activist group as it attempted to cre-ate and maintain a solidary collective identityas a coalition-building network. Lichtermanfound that compared to some of its con-stituent groups, the LGBT coalition-buildinggroup actively avoided reflective discourse andengaged in more unified talk carefully de-signed not to raise the specter of differenceor to activate potentially schismatic organizingprocesses.


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CONCLUSIONS ANDOPPORTUNITIES

This review, with its unusual structure and itscoverage of the relatively disconnected litera-tures on identity within the microsociology andsocial movements areas, is designed to allowreaders to see opportunities for enriching bothtraditions. We deal first with the opportunityfor connections within the microlevel traditionsand then with potential for enrichment acrossthe two distinct literatures.

The relatively subtle distinction that wehave drawn between theories that emphasizehow self-structures and internalized meaningsorganize social life, on the one hand, and howwe import cultural meanings and shape themwithin the context of situated interaction, onthe other, points to a need for two types of newresearch. While much of the microsociologicalliterature has used either surveys (to studyself-structure and internalized meanings) orexperiments (to study situated meanings andhow they shift in context), we may need newstudy of naturally occurring situations to fullyexploit the linkages between internalized struc-ture and situated action. Some insights fromStryker’s Identity Theory could be linked to thefast-growing literature on networks to developthe linkage between commitment and saliencemore fully and to explore how it impacts situ-ated action. The new work by MacKinnon &Heise (2010; see also Moore & Robinson 2006)about how people use movement from onesituation to another to maintain fundamentalsentiments toward the self could be linkedto Thoit’s work on identity accumulation toshow how situated action accomplishes mentalhealth benefits (or, among some categories ofpeople, fails to do so). Exploring the few com-peting theoretical predictions from IdentityControl Theory and Affect Control Theory(Smith-Lovin & Robinson 2006) might allowus to assess the relative value of emic, indi-vidualized meaning measurement (as used inBurke’s work) and mathematical formalization(as used by Heise). It might also reveal somescope conditions for when people privilege

internalized, idiosyncratic meanings over adefinition of situation that is institutionallyimposed.

Connections between the microsociologicalliterature and the group-level treatment of col-lective identity are more challenging. The obvi-ous point of departure is that the people who aremotivated by collective identities toward politi-cal or social action are undergoing the processesalready well described by the microsociologicaltheories. This fact alone might provide someleverage for determining when recruitment, re-framing of a social situation, and mobilizationmight succeed or fail. More interesting are theways in which the collective identity literaturecan suggest new topics for microsociological re-search. Much of this literature focuses on thestructural conditions under which new optionsare created for a definition of the situation. Thedefinition of the situation is a central processin microsociological identity theories, but it israrely studied explicitly. The collective identityliterature’s use of Goffman’s framing concept,and its attention to the inter- and intragroupprocesses that successfully motivate actors toview a contested situation in a new way, couldpoint to a useful exploration of these key pro-cesses at the microlevel. A second area of po-tential enrichment comes from the collectiveidentity focus on the group as a unit that gen-erates social action. As we noted above, thereis a parallel between processes at the individualand group levels, both in defining situations andin generating action. Although theorists shouldavoid loose analogies, the processes by whichgroups manage multiple, nested, layered iden-tities and use particular identities (and the emo-tional responses associated with them) to moti-vate organized collective action may mirror theprocess of managing nested identity structureswithin individual selves. An exploration of thisprocess might require a refocusing of attentionon group-level studies in microsociology. Wehave excellent midlevel theories of group pro-cess in sociological social psychology, and theyare becoming increasingly connected intellec-tually to the issue of identity [see, for an excel-lent example, Lawler et al.’s (2009) new book


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on affective commitments to groups]. We needto push these developments to see how groups

organize actions vis-a-vis other outside group-level interests.

DISCLOSURE STATEMENT

The authors are not aware of any affiliations, memberships, funding, or financial holdings thatmight be perceived as affecting the objectivity of this review.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We thank Tiffani Everett, Steven Foy, Robert Freeland, Elizabeth Hordge-Freeman, ChristopherD. Moore, Victor Ray, Kim Rogers, Daniel B. Shank, and Allison Wisecup for helpful commentson an earlier draft of this review.

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SO36-FM ARI 2 June 2010 4:38

Annual Reviewof Sociology

Volume 36, 2010Contents

FrontispieceJohn W. Meyer � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � xiv

Prefatory Chapter

World Society, Institutional Theories, and the ActorJohn W. Meyer � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 1

Theory and Methods

Causal Inference in Sociological ResearchMarkus Gangl � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � �21

Causal Mechanisms in the Social SciencesPeter Hedstrom and Petri Ylikoski � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � �49

Social Processes

A World of Standards but not a Standard World: Toward a Sociologyof Standards and StandardizationStefan Timmermans and Steven Epstein � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � �69

Dynamics of Dyads in Social Networks: Assortative, Relational,and Proximity MechanismsMark T. Rivera, Sara B. Soderstrom, and Brian Uzzi � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � �91

From the Sociology of Intellectuals to the Sociology of InterventionsGil Eyal and Larissa Buchholz � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 117

Social Relationships and Health Behavior Across the Life CourseDebra Umberson, Robert Crosnoe, and Corinne Reczek � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 139

Partiality of Memberships in Categories and AudiencesMichael T. Hannan � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 159

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Institutions and Culture

What Is Sociological about Music?William G. Roy and Timothy J. Dowd � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 183

Cultural Holes: Beyond Relationality in Social Networks and CultureMark A. Pachucki and Ronald L. Breiger � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 205

Formal Organizations

Organizational Approaches to Inequality: Inertia, Relative Power,and EnvironmentsKevin Stainback, Donald Tomaskovic-Devey, and Sheryl Skaggs � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 225

Political and Economic Sociology

The Contentiousness of Markets: Politics, Social Movements,and Institutional Change in MarketsBrayden G King and Nicholas A. Pearce � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 249

Conservative and Right-Wing MovementsKathleen M. Blee and Kimberly A. Creasap � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 269

The Political Consequences of Social MovementsEdwin Amenta, Neal Caren, Elizabeth Chiarello, and Yang Su � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 287

Comparative Analyses of Public Attitudes Toward Immigrantsand Immigration Using Multinational Survey Data: A Reviewof Theories and ResearchAlin M. Ceobanu and Xavier Escandell � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 309

Differentiation and Stratification

Income Inequality: New Trends and Research DirectionsLeslie McCall and Christine Percheski � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 329

Socioeconomic Disparities in Health BehaviorsFred C. Pampel, Patrick M. Krueger, and Justin T. Denney � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 349

Gender and Health InequalityJen’nan Ghazal Read and Bridget K. Gorman � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 371

Incarceration and StratificationSara Wakefield and Christopher Uggen � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 387

Achievement Inequality and the Institutional Structure of EducationalSystems: A Comparative PerspectiveHerman G. Van de Werfhorst and Jonathan J.B. Mijs � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 407

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Historical Studies of Social Mobility and StratificationMarco H.D. van Leeuwen and Ineke Maas � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 429

Individual and Society

Race and TrustSandra Susan Smith � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 453

Three Faces of IdentityTimothy J. Owens, Dawn T. Robinson, and Lynn Smith-Lovin � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 477

Policy

The New Homelessness RevisitedBarrett A. Lee, Kimberly A. Tyler, and James D. Wright � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 501

The Decline of Cash Welfare and Implications for Social Policyand PovertySandra K. Danziger � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 523

Indexes

Cumulative Index of Contributing Authors, Volumes 27–36 � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 547

Cumulative Index of Chapter Titles, Volumes 27–36 � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 551

Errata

An online log of corrections to Annual Review of Sociology articles may be found athttp://soc.annualreviews.org/errata.shtml

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Documents

Three Faces of Identity - majorsmatter.netmajorsmatter.net/gender/Readings/Three Faces Of Identity.pdf · share salient characteristics. So, being an Arab American may be an identity