Self and Identity Part II (BS2 CH2) Flashcards
Social factors in identity formation
Identity is largely defined by social class origins and socioeconomic status.
Other factors that influence social identity are education, cultural background, race, gender, and nationality. (For more detail, see chapters: 6 and 7: Social Categories and Social Class.)
Identifying one’s social class identity may not be straightforward.
People born into the lower classes grow up identifying themselves as lower class. Becoming middle or upper class may not fully erase the influence of the early social class identification or sense of class inferiority.
Role theory
Identity and behavior can depend on context.
Individuals assume different roles, such as leader, follower, mother, worker, teacher, etc., in order to test them for suitability.
A role is a set of behaviors performed by individuals holding a given status or position in a group, organization, or within society at large. A role may also apply to a group of individuals.
Roles typically carry an aspect of expectation (see role expectation below).
Role structure
Role structure describes the set(s) of roles present in a social setting: For example: players, referees, fans, and coaches in a soccer game.
• Individuals experience the expectations, benefits, and drawbacks of the roles they take on.
Roles often come with well-defined responsibilities.
Role expectation is the societal conception of how a role should be performed by an individual or group.
Role performance describes the actual behaviors of an individual (or group) playing a given role.
Recognizing and meeting the requirements of roles make the world more predictable.
role confusion
Role confusion occurs when an individual is uncertain regarding which of multiple roles to play in a given situation. For example, if a student at a school is a child of one of the instructors, does that instructor act like a parent or a teacher when they see the child crying in the classroom?
role conflict
Role conflict can occur when mutually exclusive demands arise, making it difficult or impossible for the individual to function simultaneously in multiple roles—say, as manager and wife, or police officer and friend. Role conflict may arise because of time constraints, social constraints, etc. and may occur when—or because—two roles may be incompatible (e.g., mother and emergency department surgeon when the patient is the surgeon’s child).
• Role conflict arises from the interaction between two roles that an individual may be serving at a given time.
Role Strain
Role strain results from challenges to an individual’s capacity to perform the necessary functions of a given role as a consequence of changing (and possibly stressful) external or internal conditions.
Role strain may reflect various aspects of the emotional, psychological, or physiological responses to serving a given role. For example, a mother may have difficulty parenting a newborn child because of post-partum depression.
Role strain arises with reference solely to one role that an individual may serve.
Role embrace
Role embrace is the process of completely adopting a role. If taken to the point that the role may subsume the individual’s self, role embrace becomes role engulfment. For example, high-level athletes who engaged in role embrace regarding their sport (“I am a hockey player”) may be unsure what their role will become once they retire from playing.
Role distance
Role distance describes partial disengagement from a role to put separation between one’s self and the role served.
- Role distance may be expressed in a variety of ways, often through (feigned) indifference or mockery.
- For examples: A teenager acting mockingly about blowing out birthday cake candles to distance themselves from their changing role from a dependent child to a maturing adolescent. An aspiring actor-waiter in a Los Angeles restaurant behaving with disdain and disregard toward customers to display that the waiter job is not their primary focus.
Role reversal
Role reversal occurs when two individuals switch previously held roles, such as when an adult child becomes a caregiver to an elderly parent.
Role exit
Role exit is the process of disengaging from a role that was central to one’s self-identity in order to establish a new role and identity. Such individuals are most likely engaging in role transition.
Looking-glass self:
The individual’s understanding of how others perceive them shapes their sense of self.
In other words, an individual’s sense of self develops in part as a reflection of how they believe others see them and how they are treated, especially in childhood.
Social influence
Social influence refers to the idea that an individual’s social milieu may affect their emotions, opinions, or behavior in positive or negative ways, encouraging either social or antisocial behavior.
• This influence may be the result of membership in various social groups, such as the family, school, and workplace, but may also result from broader cultural messages disseminated via mass media.
Forced compliance
Forced compliance refers to how an authority figure can cause an individual to act against their best interests.
Persuasion backed by authority may be used to encourage compliance.
Example: A military leader may insist that soldiers under his command lie about a fatal accident caused by negligence. Soldiers may feel compelled to comply both because of the possibility that not doing so will affect their chances of promotion (and they may be persuaded in this notion by the leader) but also because of the command position of the military leader.
Imitation
Imitation is learning behavior by observing and copying parents, siblings, friends, teachers, strangers, etc.
• Imitation may help to perpetuate customs and traditions, especially from generation to generation.
