Examining Self-Perceptions of Identity Change in Person, Role, and Social Identities
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Examining Self-Perceptions of Identity Change in Person, Role, and Social Identities Michael J. Carter 1
&
Jen Marony 1
# Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2018
Abstract Recent work in the literature on identity has begun to examine differences in the operation of person, role, and social identities, and how each base of identity links to specific outcomes of the self. In this study we employ a cross-sectional research design and examine how individuals perceive that they have changed as a type of person, role player, and group member, and how these perceived changes link to specific outcomes of the self. An online survey was administered to 854 study participants to measure the magnitude and direction of change they perceived occurred in twelve discrete identities in a six-month period prior to completing the survey. The results show that in reflecting on their past experience, study participants perceived that they experienced more change in their role identities compared to their person and social identities. The results also show that the magnitude of perceived change in any type of identity relates to negative emotions, and when individuals perceive that their identity change is progressive in nature it relates to greater authenticity, self-efficacy, self-worth, and positive emotions. Implications of the findings are discussed. Keywords Identity change . Authenticity . Self-efficacy . Self-worth An identity is an “internal positional designation^ (Stryker, 1980) that represents who one is as a unique person (e.g., moral, attractive), role player (e.g., spouse, worker), or group member (e.g., Democrat, Mexican). These three identity types are commonly referred to as “person,^ “role^ and “social^ (or “group^1) identities. Together, they form the “bases of identity^ (Burke & Stets, 2009). For individuals, these three identity types combine to define the self as a distinct entity—a set of meaning structures that distinguish one from others. Identities characterize who we are, motivate our behavior, and influence emotional outcomes in one’s social environment (Brown & Capozza, 2016; Stets & Burke, 2014a; Thoits, 2013). Across the social sciences, one can find research that examines the nature and operation of each identity type. 1
It should be noted that the terms “social identity^ and “group identity^ are sometimes differentiated in the identity literature. For example, the term “social identity^ sometimes implies identification with others, while the term “group identity^ sometimes implies interaction with others. Following others (Burke and Stets 2009), we use the terms “social^ and “group^ identities interchangeably.
* Michael J. Carter [email protected] 1
Sociology Department, California State University, 18111 Nordhoff Street, Northridge, CA, USA
While identity scholars often theorize about similarities and differences among the bases of identity, few empirical studies directly compare the operation of person, role, and social identities. Rather, past studies tend to
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