Social stereotypes and social groups; Henri Tajfel (in red book)

Pg 133 – “…Stereotypes can become social only when they are shared by large numbers of people within social groups or entities – the sharing implying a process of effective diffusion.”

~ Sharing something makes it social. Since culture requires at least two people sharing something to be a culture, then culture is inherently social. Identity, on the other hand, is not.

Pg 134 – “Two social functions of stereotypes will then be considered: first, their role in contributing to the creation and maintenance of group “ideologies” explaining or justifying a variety of social actions; and, second, their role in helping to preserve or create positively valued differentiations between one’s own and other social groups.”

~ The purpose of the article.

Pg 134 – “The basic cognitive process in stereotyping is categorization, the structuring of sense data through grouping persons, objects and events (or their selected attributes) as being similar or equivalent to one another in their relevance to an individual’s actions, intentions or attitudes. The essential cognitive function of stereotyping is thus to systematize and simplify information from the social environment in order to make sense of a world that would otherwise be too complex and chaotic for effective action. When G. W. Allport discussed the categorization process in his classic (1954) book on prejudice, he assigned to it the following “five important characteristics” (pp. 20-22):
1. It forms large classes and clusters for guiding our daily adjustments.
2. Categorization assimilates as much as it can to the cluster.
3. The category enables us quickly to identify a related object.
4. The category saturates all that it contains with the same ideational and emotional flavour.
5. Categories may be more or less rational.

~ So categorization leads to stereotyping. But categorization (in some other set of notes) also leads people to feeling less (or in the case of stereotyping, more) threatened. Categorization, therefore, is what tries to keep change at bay by making the categories more or less stationery.

Pg 136 – “They help us to predict when and how various aspects of these categorizations fit or do not fit requirements posed by the need to systematize the information which individuals receive or select from their environment.”

~ What categories do.

Pg 142 – …A stereotype does not become a social stereotype until and unless it is widely shared within a social entity. As long as individuals share a common social affiliation which is important to them (and perceive themselves as sharing it), the selection of the criteria for division between ingroups and outgroups and of the kind of characteristics attributed to each will be directly determined by those cultural traditions, groups interests, social upheavals and social differentiations which are perceived as being common to the group as a whole.”

~ Ingroups and outgroups are the point of categorization. People want to be in the ingroup if they feel a certain personal (non-social) identity threatened in order to keep that personal identity from being threatened. Really, you could almost say that any culture or collective identity stems from a non-social, personal identity’s need to not be threatened. (Also I think really important to my theory).

Pg 144 – “The point is that we shall never be able to formulate adequate guidelines for research on collective social behaviour if we do not go beyond constructing sets of independent variables seen as functioning in a social environment which is assumed to be psychologically unstructured in its homogeneous and all embracing ‘inter-individuality’.” (quoting other source).

~ So by constructing variables we are categorizing things already, trying to create ingroups and outgroups and keep our own knowledge and personal identity from being threatened.

An Integrative theory of Intergroup Conflict; Henri Tajfel and John Turner (in red book)

Pg 95 – “…The interaction between two or more individuals that is fully determined by their interpersonal relationship and individual characteristics, and not at all affected by various social groups or categories to which they respectively belong.” (interpersonal)

~ If one does not share any cultures with someone it becomes completely interpersonal (Impossible)

Pg 95 – “The other extreme consists of interactions between two or more individuals (or groups of individuals) which are fully determined by their respective memberships in various social groups or categories, and not at all affected by the interindividual personal relationships between the people involved.” (intergroup)

~ If one shares all cultural aspects with someone it becomes completely intergroup. (Impossible)

Pg 96 – “The belief system of “social mobility” is based on the general assumption that the society in which the individuals live is a flexible and permeable one, so that if they are not satisfied, for whatever reason, with the conditions imposed upon their lives by membership in social groups or social categories to which they belong, it is possible for them (be it through talent, hard work, good luck, or whatever other means) to move individually into another group which suits them better.”

~ Possible selves are possible because we accept that positive change can happen. The problem is that if positive change can happen, so can negative change. The same reason we join cultures (to feel less threatened) is the same thing that creates motivation for us to do better and join other cultures (change).

Pg 96 – “At the other extreme, the belief system of “social change” implies that the nature and structure of the relations between social groups in the society is perceived as characterized by marked stratification, making it impossible or very difficult for individuals, as individuals, to invest themselves of an unsatisfactory, underprivileged, or stigmatized group membership.”

~ So this is saying that if a culture feels threatened people have a hard time identifying with it because the very reason one joins a culture cannot be the reason why one associates with a culture.

Pg 100-1 – “We can conceptualize a group, in this sense as a collection of individuals who perceive themselves to be members of the same social category, share some emotional involvement in this common definition of themselves, and achieve some degree of social consensus, about the evaluation of their group and of their membership of it. Following from this, our definition of intergroup behavior is basically identical to that of Sherif (1966, p. 62): any behavior displayed by one or more actors’ identification of themselves and the others as belonging to different social categories.”

~ Good definition of culture/collective identity.

Pg 101 – “Social categorizations are conceived here as cognitive tools that segment, classify, and order the social environment, and thus enable the individual to undertake many forms of social action. But they do not merely systematize the social world; they also provide a system of orientation for self-reference: they create and define the individual’s place in society.”

~ Categorizations are both for the one to understand themselves better and for the self to understand others better.

Pg 101 – “Social groups, understood in this sense, provide their members with an identification of themselves in social terms.”

~ Why social groups exist, in part.

Pg 101 – “There are at least three classes of variables that should influence intergroup differentiation in concrete social situations. First, individuals must have internalized their group membership as an aspect of their self-concept: they must be subjectively identified with the relevant in-group. It is not enough that the others define them as a group, although consensual definitions by others can become, in the long run, one of the powerful causal factors for a group’s self-definition. Second, the social situation must be such as to allow for intergroup comparisons that enable the selection and evaluation of the relevant relational attributes. Not all between-group differences have evaluative significance (Tajfel, 1959), and those that do vary from group to group…Third, in-groups do not compare themselves with every cognitively available out-group: the outgroup must be perceived as a relevant comparison group. Similarity, proximity, and situational salience are among the variables that determine out-group comparability, and pressures toward in-group distinctiveness should increase as a function of this comparability. It is important to state at this point that, in many social situations, comparability reaches a much wider range than a simply conceived “similarity” between the groups.”

~ How ingroups and outgroups understand themselves. They must understand themselves, identify themselves, compare others in their ingroup and compare themselves with similar outgroups. This is how they work to keep the ingroup from being overly threatened by other outgroups. It is how personal identities maintain their connection to a certain culture.

A contextual model of the Japanese: Toward a methodological innovation in Japan studies; Hamaguchi Esyun

Pg 293 – “When Japanese join a group, they regard the “field” (frame) to which they wish to belong as a more important criterion than any particular “qualification” (attribute) they possess. A group is formed on the basis of the frame rather than a common attribute. In contrast to cases where one can simultaneously belong to different groups depending on one’s various qualifications, in Japan withdrawal from a “field” implies the loss of one’s group membership.”

~ So to the Japanese the culture is more important than the individual, whereas in the United States we view the individual more important than the culture, although, in essence, we join cultures for the exact same reason. To eliminate a threat. In the United States we just view the way to eliminate the threat slightly differently. We want to eliminate the threat while keeping the other identities we have, whereas the Japanese seem to wish to eliminate any threat completely.

Pg 293 – “Hence in Japan it is inevitable for people to belong to a single group totally and unilaterally, resulting in the formation of what may be called a “single society.””

~ Completely eliminating the threat of losing an identity rather than partially eliminating many threats.

Pg 293 – “When groups are composed of those who have similar qualifications, horizontal networks tend to develop. But in a “single society” like Japan where a group is composed of members with different qualifications, theoretically, vertical networks of relationships must develop. For this reason, Nakane defined Japan as a “vertical society.”9”

~ Back to the idea of horizontal versus vertical identity (in other notes somewhere).

Pg 301 – “Before entering interpersonal relations, an individual-according to the Euro-American model-is assumed to be unique at the core of his personality. In order for an individual to exist as such, he must be able to maintain a sure sense of his own existence as well as a self-reliant attitude (the ability to act aggressively based only on his own ability and to accept responsibility for the outcome of his actions). This central core of the individual has been called his ego.”

~ So the Japanese do not have this version of ego. And maybe our version of ego is wrong? Perhaps, instead, our ego is really more like our core self, the set of identities that make us feel “home” whereas the other identities are more of the possible selves and make us feel more threatened and homeless.

Pg 304 – Model

Identity as tree rings, or water droplets

Collective identity and social movements; Francesca Polletta and James M. Jasper

Pg 285 – “To avoid overextension of the concept, we have defined collective identity as an individual’s cognitive, moral, and emotional connection with a broader community, category, practice, or institution. It is a perception of a shared status or relation, which may be imagined rather than experienced directly, and it is distinct from personal identities, although it may form part of a personal identity. A collective identity may have been first constructed by outsiders (for example, as in the case of “Hispanics” in this country), who may still enforce it, but it depends on some acceptance by those to whom it is applied. Collective identities are expressed in cultural materials –names, narratives, symbols, verbal styles, rituals, clothing, and so on – but not all cultural materials express collective identities. Collective identity does not imply the rational calculus for evaluating choices that “interest” does. And unlike ideology, collective identity carries with it positive feelings for other members of the group” (Collective identity vs. culture)

~ Collective identity versus culture. Says that collective identity can be a culture, can be more than a culture, or can be less than a culture.

Pg 289 – “But as Fireman & Gamson (1979) and others have pointed out, individuals share prior bonds with others that make solidaristic behavior a reasonable expectation. “A person whose life is intertwined with the group [through friendship, kinship, organizational membership, informal support networks, or shared relations with outsiders]…has a big stake in the group’s fate. When collective action is urgent, the person is likely to contribute his or her share event if the impact of that share is not noticeable” (22).”

~ So the more one has invested into a group the more they are likely to stay if threatened because it makes up more of the global self and their self-conception and they find it easier to fight the threat than to change themselves to eliminate the threat. (Very important)

Pg 292 – “Many groups are torn between asserting a clear identity and deconstructing it, revealing it to be unstable, fluid, and constructed (J. Gamson, 1995; see also Epstein 1987, Seidman 1993, Phelan 1989, Fuss 1989). Where some members may see destabilizing a collective identity as an important goal in and of itself, with ramifications beyond the group, others may understandably see it as a threat to group unity or as confusing to the public…”

~ This is why some groups deconstruct and then reform. Because some want to change and some want to stay the same.

Pg 294 – Example of how personal identity provides framework for collective identity

Pg 296 – “First, changing identities is often a primary movement goal. This may be clearest in religious or self-help movements, but many movements have it as one goal alongside others. The development of group pride is a form of identity work. Identity talk within movements may be aimed not only at building solidarity but also at changing selves and relationships in ways that extend beyond the movement (Lichterman 1999, Breines 1989, Epstein 1991).”

~ Changing collective identity changes personal identity, and vice versa.

Pg 296 – “Mansbridge (1995), for instance, argues that being a feminist does not require membership in a feminist organization, but only sense of accountability to an ideal of feminism. Its behavioral requirements differ across social and historical contexts, but the core collective identity continues to shape an individual’s sense of self.”

~ This is one differentiation that is easier to explain collective identity versus culture. One can identify as a feminist and be in the collective identity of feminists without being in a feminist culture. They might live in a society of men, or around women who do not identify as feminists, but they still identify as a feminist, and others do, too. So, in essence they do not share with others their feminist ideas making a collective identity a non-social joining of ideas, and culture as a social joining of ideas.

Pg 298 – “Collective identities are in constant interplay with personal identities, but they are never simply the aggregate of individuals’ identities. If collective identity describes what makes people occupying a category similar, personal identity is the bundle of traits that we believes make us unique. Not is collective identity coextensive with culture; there are many cultural meanings that do not imply images of bounded groups. Collective identity is not the same as common ideological commitment. One can join a movement because one share its goals without identifying much with fellow members (one can even, in some cases, despise them). Likewise, people can develop collective identity on the basis of their distinctive know-how or skills, but such know-how and skills can have influence even in the absence of collective identities around them. Those skilled in explosives may favor bombing as a protest tactic, but this does not necessarily give them a shared collective identity. Movements contain, symbolize, and ritualize all kinds of people and attributes; only some of them are collective actors. Collective identities are one particular form of culture, although they may be built on other forms.”

~ Really good definition of collective identity, personal identity, and culture.

Possible Selves; Hazel Markus and Paula Nurius Pt. 2

Pg 955 – “To be sure, this self-knowledge is of a different type than the self-knowledge of one’s gender, race, or the self-knowledge of one’s preferences or habits. Most obviously, as representations of the self in future states, possible selves are views of the self that often have not been verified or confirmed by social experience (cf. Epstein, 1973; Snyder, Tanke, & Berscheid, 1977; Swann, 1983).”

~ Good info on possible selves.

Pg 955 – “…Self-knowledge not only provides a set of interpretive frameworks for making sense of past behavior, it also provides the means-ends patterns for new behavior. Individuals’ self-knowledge of what is possible for them to achieve is motivation as it is particularized and individualized; it serves to frame behavior, and to guide its course. In this role possible selves function as the personalized carriers (representations) of general aspirations, motives, and threats and of the associated affective states. They serve to select among future behaviors (i.e., they are selves to be approached or to be avoided).”

~ Self-knowledge is the framework for possible selves and identity. Self-knowledge also forms the basis of self-schemas. Really self-knowledge might almost be what makes up the global self. It is the knowledge we know of ourselves. The more we know ourselves the more developed we can be, leading to the self-actualization of knowing how the groups we are in affect ourselves.

Pg 955 – “The second important function of possible selves derives from their role in providing a context of additional meaning for the individual’s current behavior.”

~ Good info on what possible selves do.

Pg 956 – “…Because possible selves are not well-anchored in social experience, they comprise the self-knowledge that is the most vulnerable and responsive to changes in the environment. They are the first elements of the self-concept to absorb and reveal such change.”

~ So possible selves are what are made to destroy threats by seeing ourselves differently, but they are also the part of ourselves that are the most threatened by change. So we do not always want to identify with possible selves because we know them to be threatened and we try to avoid threats. The easiest way is the status quo. That is why to achieve a new possible self means some form of development must have been made because a threat had to be taken.

Possible selves – development (have to see it, know it, want it, understand it to be it) develop

Verb tenses – look up

Pg 956 – Lots of good historical info on this approach

Pg 956 – “The link between the future and the self-concept is implicit in the writings of the symbolic interactionists who argue that the self as an organizer of behavior is always anticipating, always oriented to the future (Lindesmith & Strauss, 1956; Stryker, 1980).”

~ So the self is always thinking of possible selves because it is always looking towards the future.

Pg 956 – To Mead (1934), having a self implies the ability to rehearse possible coursed of action depending on a reading of the other person’s reactions and then being able to calibrate one’s subsequent actions accordingly.”

~ Interesting to think of the self as the ability to do some sort of action based off of someone else’s actions. This would leave one open to only social identities.

Pg 956 – “Foote (1951), for example, believed that all motivation was a consequence of the individuals set of identities. This individual acts so as to express his or her identity. “Its products are ever-evolving self-conceptions” (pg 17), and “When doubt of identity creeps in, action is paralyzed” (pg 18). LOOK UP for future research

~ I like the idea that identity is constantly changing self-conceptions. I do not agree with the second part though. If doubt of an identity creeps in then the identity is threatened. The person would either take actions to remove this identity or form a new one, not do nothing. Doing nothing means the person is happy where they are and feel unthreatened. If they are doubting, then they are inherently threatened, because they are threatening themselves. It’s like identity suicide, threatening your own identity by doubting it and then removing it.

Pg 957 – “Turner (1968), for example, discussed “the passing images of self arising and changing in every relationship the individual enters” (p. 94).” LOOK UP for future research

~ So the self constantly changes as the person enters new relationships. Goes into how identities are threatened.

Pg 957 – “The value of considering the nature and function of possible selves is most apparent if we examine not the self-concept, which is typically regarded as a single, generalized view of the self, but rather the current or working self-concept. Not all self-knowledge is available for thinking about the self at any one time. The working self-concept derives from the self of self-conceptions that are presently active in thought and memory. It can be viewed as a continually active, shifting array of available self-knowledge. The array changes as individuals experience variation in internal states and social circumstances.”

~ Working self-concept is easier to define than actual self-concept. I think it also is easier to see the effects of the working self-concept versus those of the actual entire self-concept.

Pg 957 – “The content of the working self-concept depends on what self-conceptions have been active just before, on what has been elicited or made dominant by the particular social environment, and on what has been more purposefully invoked by the individual in response to a given experience, event, or situation.”

~ What makes up the working self-concept: (1) What self-conceptions were used most recently; (2) what environment one is in; (3) what experiences are being had, or have been had recently.

Pg 957 – “Instead, he proposed that it is self-images which can be viewed as current working copies of the basic identities that guide performance.” (about Burke (1980))

~ Self-image is how we see ourselves, kind of like self-conception. Except self-conception is more like how we think of ourselves. The two are different, but just barely. It’s easiest to explain like this. An anorexic girl will have the self-image that she is fat and the self-conception that she is fat and needs to eat less. She can imagine herself eating less, making that a possible self. But she cannot have the self-image of her eating less because that is an action and self-image is more of a consistent thought.

Pg 958 – “A focus on possible selves is broadly construed as an effort to tie self-cognition to motivation, but as a consequence it also relates self-cognition to self-feelings or affect. Affect is generated in one of several ways.”

~ So possible selves are studied in order to connect self-knowledge to motivation. By doing this they determined that self-knowledge and motivation are intrinsically linked to self-feelings, as well. I almost want to say ‘duh’ to this. What motivates us? Typically a desire to be or do something different to feel better about ourselves (or less crappy). So of course we tie affect into motivation.

Pg 958 – “First, each identity or self-conception has a particular affect attached to it.”

~ Hence why some possible selves are negative and some are positive. No matter what identity or self-representation/self-conception/self-image we have we think of it with some set of emotions.

Pg 958 – “Heise (1977), in what he termed affect control theory, argued that identities serve as guidelines for interpreting and creating events.”

~ Interesting, might want to look up for future research. The idea that identities guide events would come from the fact that identities form the basis of the self-concept. When an identity becomes a part of the working self-concept it becomes part of the process that determines current behavior.

Pg 958 – “Second, affect derives from conflicts or discrepancies within the self-concept. To the extent that individuals can or cannot achieve particular self-conceptions or identities they will feel either positively or negatively about themselves.”

~ So most basic emotions about identities and self-concepts are positivity and negativity.

Pg 963 – “A possible self, like the Messiah prophecy, cannot be disproven. Only the individual himself or herself can determine what is possible, and only the individual can decide what is challenging, confirming, or diagnostic of this possibility.”

~ No one can end a possible self except for the person who knows and understands a certain possible self.

Pg 964 – “…Recent empirical work on processes in the service of the self-concept suggests that individuals will go to great lengths to avoid changing the self-concept and to maintain or verify their self-conceptions (Greenwald, 1980; Swann, 1983; Swann & Hill, 1982).”

~ People do not want to change because they feel threatened. Therefore, they will go to great lengths to try to not have to change their ideas of themselves or their own identities.

Possible Selves; Hazel Markus and Paula Nurius Pt. 1

Pg 954 – “Possible selves represent individuals’ ideas of what they might become, what they would like to become, and what they are afraid of becoming, and thus provide a conceptual link between cognition and motivation.”

~ Good definition of possible self.

Pg 954 – “Possible selves are important, first, because they function as incentives for future behavior (i.e., they are selves to be approached or avoided) and second, because they provide an evaluative and interpretive context for the current view of self.”

~ Possible selves give us something to judge our current selves off of and something to look forward to in the future.

Pg 954 – “Possible selves are the ideal selves that we would very much like to become. They are also the selves we could become, and the selves we are afraid of becoming.”

~ Interesting to think of them as the ideal selves. Although I do like that they are ideal, possible, and feared. This might play into the threatened idea of the self. Possible selves make us feel threatened by realizing that our current self could change (negatively or positively).

Pg 954 – “Possible selves derive from representation of the self in the past and they include representations of the self in the future. They are different and separable from the current or now selves, yet are intimately connected to them.”

~ Cannot separate possible self from current self because they are viewed of together. We are what we currently are because we are not what could be possible.

Pg 954 – “Possible future selves, for example, are not just any set of imagined roles or states of being. Instead they represent specific, individually significant hopes, fears, and fantasies.”

~ So the limits are only what you can imagine yourself possibly being.

Pg 954 – “These possible selves are individualized or personalized, but they are also distinctly social. Many of these possible selves are the direct result of previous social comparisons in which the individual’s own thoughts, feelings, characteristics, and behaviors have been contrasted to those of salient others. What others are now I could become.”

~ Social identities are also possible identities, perhaps even more so than personal identities. Since social identities are formed through meeting others which creates more possibility to make possible selves, whereas personal identities are only formed by what you interact with (minus social interaction).

Pg 954 – “An individual is free to create any variety of possible selves, yet the pool of possible selves derives from the categories made salient by the individual’s particular sociocultural and historical context and from the models, images, and symbols provided by the media and by the individual’s immediate social experiences. Possible selves thus have the potential to reveal the inventive and constructive nature of the self but they also reflect the extent to which the self is socially determined and constrained (cf. Elder, 1980; Meyer, 1985; Stryker, 1984).”

~ So possible selves can help determine constraints of society. The limits of the possible selves can be traced back to the original cultures that one is born into.

Pg 955 – “Past selves, to the extent that they may define an individual again in the future, can also be possible selves.”

~ Interesting that the past can become the future.

Pg 955 – “Development can be seen as a process of acquiring and then achieving or resisting certain possible selves. Through the selection and connection of possible selves individuals can be viewed as active producers of their own development (e.g. Kendall, Lerner, & Craighead, 1984; Lerner, 1982).”

~ Development along the possible self continuum. But, not really the kind of development I want to refer to. They speak of identity development. I speak of overall global self development through the interplay of various identities.

Pg 955 – “…The self-concept is viewed as a system of affective-cognitive structures (also called theories or schemas) about the self that lends structure and coherence in the individual’s self-relevant experiences (For a full discussion of these and related ideas, see Epstein, 1973; Greenwald & Pratkanis, 1984; Kihlstrom & Cantor, 1984; Markus & Sentis, 1982; Markus & Wurf, in press; Rogers, 1981).”

~ So the self-concept is how one makes sense of their environment (this is stated somewhere else, too).

Pg 955 – “Self-schemas are constructed creatively and selectively from an individual’s past experiences in a particular domain. They reflect personal concerns of enduring salience and investment, and they have been shown to have a systematic and pervasive influence on how information about the self is processed. In particular domains, these self-elaborated structures of the self shape the perceiver’s expectations.”

~ Self-schemas lend help to making sense of the world, too. Especially in terms of how one interprets their environment (works with the self-concept).

Pg 955 – “Moreover, they determine which stimuli are selected for attention, which stimuli are remembered, and what type of inferences are drawn (e.g., Greenwald & Pratkanis, 1984; Kihlstrom & Cantor, 1984; Markus, 1983; Markus & Sentis, 1982).”

~ This is how self-schemas and the self-concept help.

Pg 955 – “In this way, the self-concept becomes a significant regulator of the individual’s behavior.”

~ Important to know that the self-concept regulates actions of a person so they fit into their own identity construction.

Pg 955 – “But individuals also have ideas about themselves that are not as well anchored in social reality. They have ideas, beliefs, and images about their potential and about their goals, hopes, fear. This is particularly so in those domains that are important for self-definition.”

~ This is what forms possible selves.

Globalization and religious nationalism: Self, identity, and the search for ontological security; Catarina Kinnvall

Pg 741 – (abstract) “The globalization of economics, politics, and human affairs has made individuals and groups more ontologically insecure and existentially uncertain. One main response to such insecurity is to seek reaffirmation of ones self identity by drawing closer to any collective that is perceived as being able to reduce insecurity and existential anxiety. The combination of religion and nationalism is a particularly powerful response (“identity-signifier”) in times of rapid change and uncertain futures, and is therefore more likely than other identity constructions to arise during crises of ontological insecurity.”

~ Identity-signifier – a culture or collective identity one is in that determines more of their core self/global self than other cultures they inhabit.

Pg 742 – “As individuals feel vulnerable and experience existential anxiety, it is not uncommon for them to wish to reaffirm a threatened self-identity. Any collective identity that can provide such security is a potential pole of attraction.”

~ If one begins to feel lost or threatened they want to make sure they are ok by going to back to a self-identity they feel is being threatened. Any group that does that (whether it be the original culture they were in or another culture that reminds them of it) bring the person closer. Like hippies who felt like they were no longer going to be hippies who now live in Makanda and live the hippi-ish lifestyle because it reminds them of what was threatened.

Pg 742 – “Nationalism and religion are two such causes or “identity-signifiers” that are more likely than other identity constructions to provide answers to those in need.”

~ So nationalism and religion are big parts of one’s global self.

Pg 743 – “Old patterns of behavior have become undermined as traditional power relations have become democratized. There are two basic consequences of this: (1) Old ways of getting things done are eliminated, which tends to leave behind only uncertainty; and (2) the structures that identified the community and bound it together are also being eliminated, which has a disintegrative effect.”

~ The more uncertainty there is (1) the more lost and threatened people feel and the more likely they are to try to find other cultures that remind them of what is being threatened. The more (1) is eliminated the harder it is to find real communities that are exactly like the ones that used to be, so the more people have to make their own cultures or split from cultures. Almost a developmental stage…finding something that reminds you of old possible selves because they can never be possible again. For instance, school will always be there for children, but once you graduate you must find something that reminds you of the culture of school.

Back has diagram of identity thoughts

Pg 746 – “Identity in Erikson’s work, is seen as an anxiety-controlling mechanism reinforcing a sense of trust, predictability, and control in reaction to disruptive change by reestablishing a previous identity or formulating a new one (Kinnvall, 2004).”

~ So Erickson views identity as being a way to keep the self from being overly threatened. New identities are formed to create end the threat.

Pg 746 – “For Giddens, then, like Erikson, self-identity consists of the development of a consistent feeling of biographical continuity where the individual is able to sustain a narrative about the self and answer questions about doing, acting, and being.”

~ So development of any identity comes when a person is able to create a continuous identity that does, acts, and exists in a consistent manner.

Pg 747 – “Home, in this sense, constitutes a spatial context in which daily routines of human existence are performed. It is a domain where people feel most in control of their lives because they feel free from the social pressure that is part of the contemporary world. Home, in other words, is a secure base on which identities are constructed (Dupuis & Thorns, 1998, p. 28). Homelessness is exactly the opposite, as it is characterized by impermanence and discontinuity.”

~ So an identity is “home” when it becomes part of the daily habits of a person. Other identities that are not constant are “homeless.” So the more one practices “home” identities the more at peace they will be and the more they practice “homeless” identities the more threatened they will feel because they will be ignoring certain “home” identities. Home is this sense is like the global self and homeless like possible identities.

Pg 747 – “As Sigel (1989) has noted, “There exists in humans a powerful drive to maintain the sense of one’s identity, a sense of continuity that allays fear of changing too fast or being changed against one’s will by outside forces” (p. 459).”

~ So people want to be more “home” than “homeless” they want more of a global sense of self than possible selves.

Pg 747-8 – “The fact that individuals search for one stable identity does not mean, however, that such identities exist. Rather, we need to understand identity not as fixed natural state of being, but as a process of becoming.”

~ Love this, reminds me of Dilley. Even “home” or the global self is never complete, but always becoming.

Pg 748 – “Proceeding from Bahktin’s theory of dialogism, so-called dialogical self-narratives are linguistically constituted and reconstituted through people’s relationships. Rather than representing some kinds of “core selves,” these self-narratives become “as-if selves,” through which we present ourselves “as if” we were bearers of lasting identities. In reality, however, this process only refers to individuals’ current perception of themselves as constructed in the actual dialogue (Gergen, 2000). This is what Shotter (1985) called social accountability.”

~ So social interactions deal a huge part with possible selves and the global self. The more you interact with the same people the more they become “home” and a part of your global self. When you meet or interact with new people you form more possible selves and increase a feeling of being “homeless.”

Pg 748 – “Social constructionism, like poststructuralist perspectives more generally, has been criticized for not being able to determine meaning here and now, as identity is constantly negotiated and in flux (Kinnvall 2003). Like postmodernism, it has also been accused of providing descriptions of how reality looks at the same time as it denies any essentialist assumptions of the nature of reality. Thus, reality is “really” heterogeneous, constantly changeable, and open to interpretation (Flax, 1990). In addition, a constructionist perspective finds it difficult to account for the emotional underpinnings of identity construction as manifest in the actual need to construct a comforting story about the self, about ourselves.”

~ Goes into the problems of certain views on identity, need to look at for problems in my theory. Also need to pay attention to emotional needs of identity construction and needs of identity. Why do we need identity? (Good overall thought to base theory on)

Pg 749 – “This larger process is ultimately intersubjective, implying that internalized self-notions can never be separated from self/other representations and are always responsive to new interpersonal relationship (Ogilvie & Ashmore, 1991, p. 286).”

~ Everything is intertwined and you cannot ever separate identities out completely because they interact too much with other identities.

Pg 750 – “…Self-categorization theory conceptualizes self at different levels of abstraction (personal, intergroup, and interspecies) and expresses a more marked fluidity in identity formation as individuals constantly shift back and forth between an individual and a social identity (Monroe, Hankins, & Van Vechten, 2000; Oakes et al., 1994). Individuals are said to be more likely to think of themselves as members of social groups under conditions in which that group membership maximizes the similarities between oneself and other group members at the same time as it increases the dissimilarities with other groups’ (Turner et al., 1987; see also Huddy, 2001; Kinnvall, 2003; Monroe et al., 2000).”

~ So the global self is constantly in flux over personal and social identities. People think more of their social identity when around others and more of their personal identity when by themselves.

Pg 752 – “Volkan (1997, pp. 27-29), using object relations theory, suggested the analogy of a large-scale tent in order to explore group psychology in a more comprehensive way. He invited us to think of ourselves in terms of learning to wear, from childhood on, two layers of clothing, where the first layer fits snugly (the personal identity) while the second layer (the social identity) is a loose covering that protects the individual in the way a parent, close family members, or other caregivers protect the subject (the ethnic, emotionally bonded large group). Because this garment is not tight-fitting, it also shelters other members of the group and thus resembles a large canvas tent. The introduction of traumatic events is likely to raise anxiety in the tent and may jeopardize the collective sense of self.”

~ I like this because it also explains why a change in a piece of the tent (say a thread) can cause ripples. Like a pebble in a pond.
Sand & glass shattered and restored

Pg 753 – “Abjection is caused by that which disturbs identity, system, or order, such as traumatic changes in the light of globalization. Abject becomes a major ingredient of collective identity formation when the familiar “stranger” is suddenly recognized as a threat.”

~ Collective identities feel threatened due to abjection.

Pg 755 – “This process of turning the stranger into an enemy is an attempt to securitize subjectivity in times of uncertainty. Within this process, self and other are both seen as essentialized bodies, which means reducing self and other to a number of cultural characteristics. These characteristics although constructed and fabricated, come to be seen as natural, unified features for describing the group.”

~ So by defining self/culture of self with certain specific features (collectivizing) one is trying to stop abjection and end the threat. So really, one can break the reason why cultures are understood as having certain characteristics down into the human’s need to understand something as solid even if it is not to end the threat that the culture might have if they realize that they are constantly changing. The same could be said of identity. People feel the need to identify with something or create identities or possible selves because they feel threatened knowing that nothing is ever constant. By telling themselves something cannot change or by telling themselves they are a part of a culture with certain undeniable habits they are ending the threat of change. Really change is the ultimate threat. And if development means change the reason why development requires some form of dissonance is because people don’t like to change and feel threatened when it happens. (I feel like this is really important for my theory).

Self-actualize when understand identities interplay with one another, although identities still constantly changing and developing.

~ Self-actualization happens when people realize change is inevitable. This would be the end category of the theory.

Pg 761 – “…As Calhoun has phrased it (1997, p. 18), live in only one world at a time.” (opposite = good opening for paper)

~ It is impossible to do so because everything intertwines with something else.

Possible selves: Personalized representations of goals; Hazel Markus, Ann Ruvolo Pt. 2

Pg 228 – “When the working self-concept is dominated by positive possibility, it is these senses, images, and conceptions that will regulate the individual’s actions. This means that individuals will be extremely self-focused (cf. Carver & Scheier, 1982; Klinger, 1975), yet focused on future rather than on current selves.”

~ The more positive one’s view of possibility is the more focused on the future they will be. Also could be interesting to study if depressed people focus more on the past because they are not as good at creating positive possible selves as those who are happier. Must have positive possible selves to move on? Do negative possible selves hold you back from development?

Pg 230 – “And the more elaborated the possible self, the more this will be true.”

~ The more detail something has the more likely it is to actually occur.

Pg 230 – “Positive feelings lead children to perform more efficiently and to recall more words in a memory test than children without these feelings (Barden, Garber, Duncan, & Masters, 1981; Masters, Barden, & Ford, 1979). Positive affect also increases the efficiency of decision making. Isen and Means (1983) showed that compared to control subjects, subjects who were put in a positive mood used a better decision strategy, ignored unimportant information more, and made decisions more quickly.”

~ If you are in a good mood with positive possible selves it is easier for you to make good decisions because you do not let negative possible selves drag you down.

Pg 230 – “Further, Isen (1984) suggests that positive affect leads to enhanced creativity; she argues that people in positive moods can create larger cognitive, more diverse categories.”

~ So the more positive you are the more possible selves you can create with different ending and the more you can accomplish through them.

Pg 231 – “Negative possible selves may be associated with anxiety which Sarason (1984) describes as “self-preoccupation about inability to respond adequately” (p. 930). Self-preoccupation is associated with internal distractors that hurt performance by reducing the amount of attention a person can give to the task. The more preoccupied the person is, the less well he or she performs (see also Wine, 1971). Covington (1986) describes anxiety as the anticipation of failure.”

~ So the more elaborated the negative self is the more one is likely to create a negative self-fulfilling prophecy. Does this mean one is at the same developmental level as one who can create a positive possible self and follow through with it, too? They both would be individuals who can fulfill their possible selves, just in different way. Something to think more about.

Pg 231 – “Cantor and her colleagues (Norem & Cantor, 1986) have identified individuals they call defensive pessimists who can harness their anxiety by anticipating the worst outcome and then working with great effort to ensure that it is not realized.”

~ Interesting, so these people create truly negative possible selves and then work against them to make sure they do not turn out that way. They might be at the same developmental level as someone else, but their self-schema and actions of their self-representation just happen to be different than those who try to follow through with their possible selves.

Pg 231 – “One can speculate, for example, that by envisioning and thereby partially enacting possible selves one may be able to recruit or construct some of the visual, auditory, kinesthetic, or visceral representations of the self in the future.”

~ The more one makes a possible self real the more likely it is to become real.

Pg 233 – “It is possible that a keenly experience possible self may function to focus or coordinate the autonomic, neural, or sensorimotor systems, or some aspects of these systems. In contrast, the presence of negative possible selves may disrupt the synchronous functioning of these systems.”

~ So having positive possible selves improves other aspects of identity and negative ones hurt other aspects of identity.

Pg 236 – “Most theorists of the self now concur about the active, dynamic nature of the self-system. It is not just a static repository of self-representations. Instead, it is assumed to forcefully mediate and regulate ongoing action.”

~ The features of the global self actively regulate the identities and cultures of an individual.

Pg 236 – “Possible selves are action-oriented structures (see Trzebinski, this volume) and in the course of constructing, recruiting, and deploying them parts of the required sequences of actions will be primed, partially activated, or “run.””

~ Possible selves exist to create actions.

Possible selves: Personalized representations of goals; Hazel Markus, Ann Ruvolo Pt. 1

Pg 211 – “The premise of our chapter is that needs and goals are fundamental elements of the self-system and that the precise nature of their functioning is best understood with reference to the self-system.”

~ Purpose of article/study.

Pg 211-212 – “A goal will have an impact on behavior to the extent that an individual can personalize it by building a bridge of self-representations between one’s current state and one’s desired or hoped-for state. The critical determinant of whether a given goal will guide and sustain instrumental action is thus the ability to create and maintain the possible selves that allow one to appropriate a desired end state and to make it one’s own.”

~ Possible selves also can be referred to as future selves, although not all possible selves will exist in the future; what makes a possible self a future self is whether or not a person takes action to do so (self-fulfilling possible self vs. unfulfilled possible self); actions have reactions; cannot simply change, must take something to change

Pg 212 – “Possible selves give specific, self-relevant form, meaning, and direction to one’s hopes and threats. Possible selves are specific representations of one’s self in future states and circumstances that serve to organize and energize one’s actions.”

~ Possible selves are the transition between what is and what is to be; you need a possible self to be able to develop into something else. This is almost the transition phase of any theory, is envisioning yourself as something different. Sometimes conscious and sometimes unconscious.

Pg 212-3 – “Self-schemas are affective-cognitive structures that are constructed creatively and selectively on the basis of one’s experience in a given domain. They organize and direct the processing of self-relevant information and these cognitive consequences have been documented at length (e.g., Markys & Sentis, 1982; Markus & Zajonc, 1985).

~ Self-schemas process information about life and possible selves. Therefore, self-schemas changing create a more complete developmental change than just a possible self changing.

Pg 213 – “Possible selves are thus viewed as the elements of the self-schema that give structure and meaning to the future in the individual’s domains of investment and concern.”

~ Basically what I put above.

Pg 213 – “Possible selves then can be seen as the elements of self-schemas that are essential for putting the self into action.”

~ Again, basically what I wrote above, but more concise. Possible selves are the action to the self-schema’s reaction to the environment around a person.

Pg 213 – “Individuals can construct all types of possible selves; they are limited only by their imagination, and all possible selves can have some impact on behavior.”

~ So development and actions can be caused by possible selves. Possible selves are basically limitless, so a person’s view of themselves is limitless, even if they’re actions are limited. Sane people can limit possible selves better because they realize actual physical, mental, and emotional limits whereas children and those still developing and learning about themselves do not always limit possible selves because of their personal view of reality (imagination vs. reality).

Pg 213 – “We assume that possible selves function as they become part of the working self-concept (Markus & Kunda, 1986; Murkus & Nurius, 1986). The working self-concept is drawn from the self-system, which contains a vast repertoire of self-representations (e.g., self-schemas, possible selves), plans, strategies, and rules for behavior. Some of these self-representations are core and some are more peripheral.”

~ So the working self-concept is basically reality. So possible selves can still exist that bend reality (imaginative possible selves) but only the possible selves in the working self-concept actually form the self-representation and relate to development of the individual.

Pg 213 – “The functional self-concept of a particular movement – the working self-concept – is a nonrandom sample from the universe of one’s self-conceptions.”

~ So the actual self-concept is non-random, means that an individual chooses those possible selves that they deem to be real or possible to be real.

Pg 213-4 – “The working self-concept can then be viewed as continually active, shifting array of accessible self-representations. Self-representations (semantic, imaginal, enactive) become active when they are triggered by self-relevant events or when they are more deliberately invoked by the individual in response to an event or a situation.”

~ So the working self-concept constantly changes, then the self-schemas and possible selves viewed of as possible constantly change, as well. Self-representations that go into the working self-concept become active when the environment one is in triggers a certain set of possible selves. Like when you are in a classroom and envision being a good student and then going out to dinner afterwards and envisioning the possible self of spending more time away from studying.

Pg 215 – “James (1890) proposed a central self, which was the source of attention, effort, and will. He saw this central self as a junction between thought and action and hypothesized that the self is closely connected with the “process through which ideas become outward acts” (p. 248).”

~ Interesting possible future research. Also, very early ideas of the central self. I like the idea of the self as a place where thoughts and actions combine and fight out what will actually happen.

Pg 217 – “We suggest that possible selves are the cognitive/affective elements that incite and direct one’s self-relevant actions.”

~ Good to keep for notes. They believe that possible selves are what direct one’s actions towards themselves.

Pg 219-20 – “In some cases, an individual may experience conflict between two positive possible selves (e.g., to finish reading a book, to go to bed); in this case whichever possible self is most fully elaborated in the individual’s current state will succeed in dominating the working self-concept. In other cases, there may not be a single positive possible self that is sufficiently compelling to dominate the working self-concept.”

~ So conflict between two possible selves occurs. What if the conflict is stronger than just finishing reading and going to bed? Is this the cognitive dissonance necessary to move one into other possible selves and also possible higher stages of development?

Pg 223 – “Likewise, positive expected selves will be stronger motivational resources, and maximally effective, when they are linked with representations of what could happen if the desired state is not realized.”

~ So positive selves will give more motivation to do something else positive if the positive possible self does not happen (instead of getting an ‘A’ in a class you get a ‘B’ but it makes you want to work harder).

Future research

Just a sampling of things I hope to be reading over winter break:

From:

Social Psychology of Identities; Judith Howard
Tajfel, H. (1981). Social stereotypes and social groups. In Intergroup Behavior, ed. Turner, J. C., Giles, H. Oxford: Blackwell.

Frietas, A., Kaiser, S. Chandler, H., Hall, C., Kim, J. W., Hmmidi, T. (1997). Appearance management as border construction: Least favorite clothing, group distancing, and identity – not! Soc. Inq. 67: 323-35.

Hall, S. (1996). Who needs ‘identity’? See Hall & Du Gay 1996, pp. 1-17.

Hall, S., Du Gay, P. eds. (1996). Questions of Cultural Identity. London: Sage.

Moscovici’s (1981) theory of social representations

Interactionist approach to identity

From:

Organizational identity, image, and adaptive instability; Dennie A. Gioia, Majken Schultz, Kevin G. Corley
Giddens, A. (1991). Modernity and self-identity: Self and society in the late modern age. Cambridge: Polity Press.

From:

From social to political identity: A critical examination of social identity theory; Leonie Huddy
Tajfel, H., Turner, J. C. (1979). An integrative theory of intergroup conflict. In W. G. Austin & S. Worchel (Eds.), The social psychology of intergroup relations (pp. 33-48). Monterey, CA: Brooks/Cole.

Turner, J. C., Hogg, M. A., Oakes, P. J., Reicher, S. D., Wetherell, M. S. (1987). Rediscovering the social group: A Self-categorization theory. Oxford: Blackwell.

Tajfel, H. (1981). Human groups and social categories. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

From:

A conceptual model of multiple dimensions of identity; Susan R. Jones, Marylu K. McEwen
Reynolds, A. L., Pope, R. L. (1991). The complexities of diversity: Exploring multiple oppressions. Journal of Counseling and Development, 70, 174-180.

From:

Forming identities in college: A sociological approach; Peter Kaufman and Kenneth A. Feldman
Goffman, E. (1959). Presentation of self in everyday life. Garden City, NY: Doubleday Anchor.

Goffman, E. (1963). Stigma: Notes on the management of spoiled identity. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.

From:

Gender and thought: The role of the self-concept; Hazel Markus and Daphna Oyserman
Hamaguchi, E. (1985). A contextual model of the Japanese: Toward a methodological innovation in Japanese studies. Journal of Japanese Studies, 11, 289-321.

Markus, H., Zajonc, R. B. (1985). The cognitive perspective in social psychology. In G. Lindzey and E. Aronson (Eds.), The handbook of social psychology (Vol. I, pp. 137-230). New York: Random House.
Also:

Markus, H., Oyserman, D. (1986) Possible Selves.

Other suggestions always welcome.