The Power of Identity Claims

How We Value and Defend the Self

Dale T. Miller

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781000200928
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: History & Theory in Psychology
• Index: Psychology

This book draws on research in psychology and behavioral economics to show how striving to live up to our identity claims profoundly affects our daily lives. The author argues the claims we make about who we are and what we stand for powerfully influence us, and our social world.

Asking questions such as: Why do people resist the temptation to cheat when cheating would benefit them greatly and no one would find out? Why do people express different beliefs about climate change when they are first reminded of their political affiliation? Why do people prefer to be compensated for donating blood with cholesterol screening than with money? Miller puts forth a novel and compelling argument regarding how strongly our identity claims affect our daily lives. The book provides explanations for many forms of puzzling behavior, such as why people sometimes act against their economic self-interest, how they avoid situations that test their moral identities, and how they respond to failures to live up to their moral identities. It paints an intriguing picture of people's investment in their identity claims by showing how they seek opportunities to demonstrate their validity, avoid actions and circumstances that challenge their legitimacy, and employ psychological defenses when others challenge their legitimacy.

Based on extensive research in the fields of psychology, economics, and political science, this book is fascinating reading for students and academics interested in identity and the self. It also provides an expanded tool kit for those who seek behavioral change in their organization or community.

1

The Power of Identity Claims

Let us begin with the question: “Who are you?” Your answer, I suspect, will focus heavily on your identity. You might refer to your nationality, gender, race, religious denomination, or perhaps an interest group membership, such as a dancer or an environmentalist. Maybe you will mention self-defining traits, such as loyal or passionate. If you currently attend an American college, you might also indicate your gender pronouns: in my case, “he, him, his.” Identities are self-conceptions that derive from the categories in which we place ourselves, including demographics, such as gender and race, role categories (student, daughter), ideological categories (e.g., pro-life, libertarian), and social categories (e.g., Evangelical Christian, Democrat). Not surprisingly, given the centrality of our identities to our sense of self, they powerfully influence our psychological functioning and behavior.¹ They drive the actions we take, and our evaluations of those actions—whether we feel good or bad.

The Motivational Power of Identities

Embracing an identity is more than just endorsing a self-description; it involves making and defending claims about oneself. Think of people who identify as a political conservative. For self-identified conservatives to feel good about themselves, they must commit to the claim that in comparison to other ideological categories (i.e., liberal), the category conservative is desirable. They must also commit to the claim that they are a worthy version of a conservative, comparing favorably to others who claim that identity. Defending these claims will require them to embrace certain political beliefs and reject others and take specific political actions while avoiding others.

Importantly, identity claims focus not just on what “we are” but on what “we are not.” The power of an unwanted identity is illustrated by the market failure of a product known as the personal emergency response system (PERS). This product was dramatically demonstrated in a television ad where an elderly woman calls out, “I’ve fallen, and I can’t get up!” These systems are designed to function as a neck pendant that summons emergency services when pressed. Despite being simple, effective, and relatively inexpensive, less than 4% of the over-65 population in the U.S. have purchased this product.

Moreover, a study showed that when purchasers of this system did fall, 83% of the time, they didn’t use it. The identity claim in play here would seem to be a version of the assertion, “I am not old.” Older people’s commitment to this claim appears to deter them from taking action that could potentially save their lives. As one writer puts it, “many older people would sooner thrash on the floor in distress than press a button—one that may summon assistance but whose real impact is to admit, ‘I am old.’”²

From what I have said so far, it should be clear that the satisfaction and dissatisfaction people derive from identity-relevant actions are based less on what those actions do or do not do for them than on what those actions say about them. Identity-relevant acts are most appropriately seen not as instrumental acts (a means to an end) but as self-expressive acts (a claim about who you are).³ Often, the same behavior can be instrumental or expressive. For some people, athletic or academic achievement will be valued as a means to an end, that is, for the tangible outcomes it produces, such as awards, scholarships, and college admissions. Those who identify as scholars or athletes, however, will also value their achievements in these domains as expressive acts that show themselves and others that they have attributes that are important to their sense of self.⁴ Similarly, the decision by some seniors not to buy a PERS will reflect an instrumental calculation (“it would not be helpful in an emergency”). Still, for others, perhaps most, it is an expressive claim (“I am not old”).

Identities Differ in Their Power

Exactly how powerfully a particular identity affects us depends both on the strength of that identity and its momentary salience. Not all of our identities are equally important to us.⁵ For some of us, our racial identity will be more important to us than our gender identity and vice versa. Saying that one identity (race/gender) is stronger or more important to us than another (gender/race) conveys much about us. For one thing, it means that we will be more likely to see and describe ourselves in terms of characteristics of the more important identity. For another, it means that we are more likely to compare ourselves with others who share the more important identity. Additionally, it means we will be extra motivated to conform to the ideal image of the more important identity. For example, we will see later that those for whom the identity of being loyal is more significant than the identity of being fair are less likely to become whistleblowers.

Identities differ not just in their general strength but also in their momentary salience (how accessible in consciousness they are). Because of this, the power of a particular identity will depend upon the circumstances in which we find ourselves. Consider someone who was born in one country but grew up in another. Which identity (country of birth or country of residence) will be central to that person and thus influence her psychological functioning more? To some extent, this will depend on which of these identities is more salient to her at the time in question, as psychologist Michael Ross and his colleagues (2002) demonstrated.⁶ These researchers had Chinese Canadians (people who were born in China but grew up in Canada) answer survey questions about themselves either in English or Chinese. The researchers reasoned that answering in Chinese would make the participants’ Chinese identity most salient to them, whereas answering in English would make their Canadian identity most salient to them. Further, they reasoned that the extent to which their Chinese rather than their Canadian identity was more momentarily salient to them, would affect their tendency to endorse common Chinese beliefs, such as “I try to improve every day, but people should not be especially proud of self-improvement” and “You should not feel good about your own achievements because there are many others who have achieved higher than you have.” And, just so, this was what the researchers found. When a situation highlights an important identity, people are disposed to embrace the value claims of their momentarily salient identity.⁷

Identity Tests versus Identity Opportunities

Obviously, not all our identities are going to be relevant to each of the situations in which we find ourselves. Moreover, not all identity-relevant situations exert the same pull on our identities. Consider a self-identified dog lover who is confronted with one of two requests by her local humane society: (a) buy a $1 raffle ticket organized by the Society; or (b) adopt an ailing dog who needs expensive medical treatment. Both of these requests are relevant to the person’s dog-loving identity claim, but complying or not complying with them has different meanings for that claim. In the first instance, refusing to buy the ticket has much more significance than complying, because refusing to buy the ticket undermines the dog-loving identity claim significantly more than buying it affirms it. In the second instance, complying has more significance than not because adopting the ailing dog conforms to the dog-loving identity markedly more than not adopting undermines it.

Situations that have the greatest pull on our identities represent identity tests. Failing an identity test (e.g., not buying a raffle ticket for a dog lover) undermines a person’s identity claim and thus threatens their identity. Passing an identity test defends the identity claim in question, but does little to strengthen it. Those situations that do provide the person with the means to affirm an identity claim (adopting an ailing dog for a dog lover) represent identity opportunities. While these situations can confirm an identity claim, they do not carry the potential to discredit it.⁸

As a second illustration of the identity test—identity opportunity distinction—contrast the act of getting a tattoo, say that of a tiger, for those whose college mascot is a tiger versus those whose gang’s insignia is a tiger. For gang members, getting the tattoo is likely to be an identity test. You cannot be a loyal, bona fide member of the gang without getting one. For college students, getting the tattoo may be an identity opportunity, but is unlikely to be an identity test. The decision by George Shultz, a former U.S. secretary of state and Princeton University graduate, to have the “Princeton Tiger” tattooed on his rear end indeed signified his identification with his college. Still, it was not a test of it. There is no doubt that his decision to do this expressed his commitment to his alma mater. Nevertheless, the choice of other Princeton students not to get a tattoo does not undermine their identity as a loyal alumnus.⁹

The material cost entailed by an action, as the previous examples suggest, is one determinant of whether an identity relevant action qualifies as an identity test or merely an identity opportunity. But it is not the only one. For example, refusing to adopting an ailing dog from her local humane society would constitute a failed identity test for a committed dog lover, not merely a passed-up identity opportunity, if she had previously promised to do so. The promise to take an action increases the obligation to do so and hence the psychological and social cost of failing to do so.¹⁰

Whether a person considers a situation to present an identity test or an identity opportunity depends significantly on cultural representations. Culture shapes both what identities people value and which behaviors are deemed relevant to those identities. Consider the various depictions that cultures have of the appropriate response for an honorable person to have to being insulted by another. In cultures of honor, not responding to an insult with violence, or at least the threat of violence, will be constructed as failing the honorable person identity test.¹¹ However, in cultures where impassivity and not losing face is paramount, reacting in kind to the provocation (letting it “get to you”) instead of turning the other cheek will be constructed as failing the honorable person identity test. Still, other cultures may neither prescribe nor proscribe retaliation to an insult, but instead construct the situation as one constituting an identity opportunity. Failing to turn the other cheek does not constitute a failed honorable person identity test, but choosing to do so provides a chance to affirm that identity. Finally, people in some cultures may view being the target of abuse as irrelevant to the honorable person identity, providing neither opportunities nor tests of the identity.

Cultural prescriptions and proscriptions about identity tests and opportunities typically are conditional on various particularities of the individual actor. A child’s obligation to help a person in physical distress is not the same as an adult’s. Moreover, a relative’s duty to assist a family member in physical danger is not the same as a stranger’s, and so on. Whether to help the victim in a crowded emergency situation might be an opportunity for a random individual, but a test for anyone who has received a supervisory role or specific training. For different people within the same culture, then, the same action may have different degrees of identity relevance and have different psychological consequences.

The Special Status of Moral Identity

Identifying differences in the identities they embrace is a conventional means of differentiating people. Studying identity, thus, often involves studying identity differences across people. For example, how do those with environmentalist or conservative identities differ from those who do not, or how do those who identify as more or less masculine differ? Interestingly, there is one identity that virtually everyone holds to some degree: that of a moral person. In one study, 100,000 English-speaking Internet users from 54 countries were asked to indicate how much they possessed each of 240 personality traits designed to assess the “character virtues” of justice, humanity, temperance, wisdom, transcendence, and courage.¹² Fairness, kindness, and honesty were the traits that participants across countries most ascribed to themselves. These were also the traits that were most commonly identified as moral across many different cultural and religious traditions around the world. People like to see themselves as ethical, presumably because for most people, being a respectable person means being a moral person.¹³

An important feature of people’s moral identity is that it does not require them to be as moral as possible—only to be “moral enough.” As we will see, people act as though they have a set point (a necessary resting level) concerning moral self-regard and are distressed ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• 1 The Power of Identity Claims
• 2 Defending Identity Claims
• 3 Avoiding Identity Tests
• 4 Failing Identity Tests
• 5 Neutralizing Identity Tests
• 6 Passing Identity Tests
• 7 Social Identity Tests
• 8 Incentives and Identity Claims
• 9 Changing the Identity Relevance of Behavior
• 10 Final Thoughts
• Bibliography
• Index