Erikson Meets the Postmodern: Can Classic Identity Theory Rise to the Challenge?

In this article, I differentiate between 2 ways in which the postmodern is described as challenging Erikson's identity theory: postmodernity as a unique context of development and postmodernism as a critical theory of knowledge. Erikson's theory is evaluated from both perspectives. It is suggested that Erikson's writings contain significant concepts that can be used to constructively address many of the concerns of postmodernists. Erikson's concept of identity structure as a goal-oriented configuration of identity elements created through the interaction of the individual and society, coupled with his portrayal of multiple possible cultural goals and values guiding childrearing practice, are seen as key concepts with which Erikson's theory can explain and acknowledge diverse and context-sensitive structures of identity. A call is made to bring both values and cultural content back into the domain of the psychological study of identity.     

The “New” Relationship Models of Women's Identity: A Review and Critique for Counselors

This article reviews theories of women's identity that emphasize the relational capacities of women. It provides a brief summary of five theories that have received attention during the 1980s and focuses on how these perspectives can be integrated and enrich counseling practices. It also cautions against oversimplifying the nature of women's identity and suggests that an inclusive view of women's or men's identity must devote attention to individual differences, situational factors, and external social forces that influence persons.     

Frege's Puzzle is About Identity After All

Many philosophers have argued or taken for granted that Frege's puzzle has little or nothing to do with identity statements. I show that this is wrong, arguing that the puzzle can only be motivated relative to a thinker's beliefs about the identity or distinctness of the relevant object. The result is important, as it suggests that the puzzle can be solved, not by a semantic theory of names or referring expressions as such, but simply by a theory of identity statements. To show this, I sketch a framework for developing solutions of this sort. I also consider how this result could be implemented by two influential solutions to Frege's puzzle, Perry's referential‐reflexivism and Fine's semantic relationism.     

“Keeping It in the Family”: Sarah Kofman Reading Nietzsche as a Jewish Woman

This article examines Sarah Kofman's interpretation of Nietzsche in light of the claim that interpretation was for her both an articulation of her identity and a mode of deconstructing the very notion of identity. Faulkner argues that Kofman's work on Nietzsche can be understood as autobiographical, in that it served to mediate a relation to her self. Faulkner examines this relation with reference to Klein's model of the child's connection to its mother. By examining Kofman's later writings on Nietzsche alongside her autobiography, this article contends that Kofman's defense of anti‐Semitism in Nietzsche serves to fend off her own ambivalence about being Jewish.     

Memory,Quasi-memory,and Pseudo-quasi-memory

Bishop Butler objected to Locke's theory of personal identity on the grounds that memory presupposes personal identity. Most of those sympathetic with Locke's account have accepted Butler's criticism, and have sought to devise a theory of personal identity in the spirit of Locke's that avoids Butler's circularity objection. John McDowell has argued that even the more recent accounts of personal identity are vulnerable to the kind of objection Butler raised against Locke's own account. I criticize McDowell's stance, drawing on a distinction introduced by Annalisa Coliva between two types of immunity to error through misidentification.     

The past as a determinant of the present: Historical continuity,collective angst,and opposition to immigration

We propose that the perceived continuity between a group's past and present can be a psychological resource that provides confidence in the group's future vitality, thereby reducing the need to preserve identity. In two studies, English participants were told that there was continuity or discontinuity between England's past and present. Both studies showed that higher identifiers (but not lower identifiers) experienced more collective angst (i.e., concern for the group's future) and were more opposed to immigration when English history was presented as discontinuous compared with continuous. Importantly, collective angst mediated the effect of the historical continuity manipulation on opposition to immigration. We conclude that, particularly among those higher in group identification, perceived discontinuity of the group's past can undermine the perceived vitality of the future, thereby increasing the need to preserve current collective identity. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Kant's Fact of Reason as Source of Normativity

In The Sources of Normativity, Christine M. Korsgaard argues that unconditional obligation can be accounted for in terms of practical identity. My argument in this paper is that practical identity cannot play this foundational role. More specifically, I interpret Korsgaard's argument as beginning with something analogous to Kant's fact of reason, viz. with the fact that our minds are reflective. I then try to show that her determination of this fact is inadequate and that this causes the argument concerning practical identity to fail. Finally, I argue that a conception of the fact of reason more in line with what I take to be Kant's own is necessary to account for unconditional obligation.     

For Want of an ‘And’: A Puzzle about Non-Conservative Extension

The paper analyses Frege's approach to the identity conditions for the entity labelled by him as Sinn. It starts with a brief characterization of the main principles of Frege's semantics and lists his remarks on the identity conditions for Sinn. They are subject to a detailed scrutiny, and it is shown that, with the exception of the criterion of intersubstitutability in oratio obliqua, all other criteria have to be discarded. Finally, by comparing Frege's views on Sinn with Carnap's method of extension and intension and the method of intensional isomorphism, it is proved that these methods do not provide a criterion for the identity of Frege's Sinn, even for extensional contexts, that the concept of intension does not coincide, as stated by Carnap, in these contexts, with Frege's concept of Sinn, and that Carnap's claim that in oratio obliqua Frege's semantics leads to an infinite hierarchy of Sinn entities can be questioned at least hypothetically in the light of certain new historical facts.     

On the Misrecognition of Identity: Muslims' Everyday Experiences in Scotland

Political theory is interested in the misrecognition of identity because it impacts individuals' autonomy in their self-definition and thus their ability to articulate and pursue identity-related interests. Here, we explore minority group members' experiences of being seen in terms that do not accord with their self-definition. Our data are qualitative, gathered through walking interviews with 24 Muslims in Scotland. Focusing on interactions in which they reported discrepancies between how they and others saw them, we differentiate four forms of misrecognition: (1) having the meaning of a valued identity (i.e., one's Muslim identity) defined by others in ways that one judges inaccurate and inappropriate; (2) having one's membership of a valued community (e.g., as a member of Scottish society) denied or rejected; (3) having one's identity (i.e., one's Muslim identity) overlooked such that one's distinctive identity-related needs are not taken into account; (4) being seen in terms of just one of one's many social identities (i.e., one's Muslim identity) such that other identities (judged more situationally relevant) are ignored. This empirically grounded typology contributes to wider debates about the forms of identity (mis)recognition and their political implications.     

When Whites' Attempts to Be Multicultural Backfire in Intergroup Interactions

Whites' attempts to enact multicultural ideals in intergroup interactions can sometimes have negative interpersonal consequences. This paper reviews the instances when Whites' efforts to acknowledge, appreciate, and learn about racial and ethnic differences can make people of color's group identity uncomfortably salient (minority spotlight effect), make people of color feel that certain attributes are being imposed onto their group identity (positive stereotyping), or make people of color feel precluded from another group identity (identity denial). Each of these situations introduces a hurtful discrepancy between how people of color are seen by others and how they wish to be seen. Suggestions for how to “do” multiculturalism in ways that avoid creating this discrepancy are discussed.     

Stigmatized‐Identity Cues in Consumer Spaces

Consumers with stigmatized identities may be especially attentive to organizational cues that signal to them whether or not they are welcomed and valued consumers. These stigmatized‐identity cues can become a part of a company's brand, influencing the attractiveness of the company and consumer loyalty, and allowing consumers to draw inferences about an organization's ideologies and attitudes toward multiple stigmatized groups. Consumers with stigmatized identities attend to stigmatized‐identity cues that signal inclusion (or exclusion) toward other stigmatized groups, resulting in stigmatized‐identity cue transfers, especially when similarity mindsets are activated, and among consumers who are high in stigma solidarity. Because identity is central in consumer behavior, stigmatized‐identity threat cues can at times result in anti‐consumption, including boycotts, allowing consumers and companies to engage in collective action. This article reviews this growing body of research, demonstrating the important influence of stigmatized‐identity cues on consumer behavior and discussing ways in which companies can better signal their inclusive attitudes and ideologies to attract consumers.     

The Temporally Extended Self: The Relation of Past and Future Selves to Current Identity,Motivation, and Goal Pursuit

People's current identity is constructed not only in the present moment but also by looking back to past selves and forward to future selves. In this article, we review research on the temporally extended self, with a focus on recent work informed by temporal self‐appraisal theory. People often recall the past and imagine the future in ways that contribute to a favorable current identity. Subjective temporal distance (how near or distant a point in time feels) plays a powerful role in determining temporal self‐appraisals. In turn, people's judgments of subjective distance can shift when considering temporal selves with good or bad implications for current identity. We will describe research exploring the complex interconnections between past, present, and future identity. In addition, we consider some of the unique implications that people's constructions of future selves might have for their plans and goals, and how predicted selves might influence goal‐pursuit motivation and behavior.     

THE QUEST FOR SELF-IDENTITY: TIME,NARRATIVE, AND THE LATE PROSE OF SAMUEL BECKETT

The long-standing problem of understanding self-identity has been most recently addressed as a matter of narrative form. Paul Ricoeur (1985a), as well as others, has examined how the discordant experience of time is structured by narrative form and can constitute an identity. This article attempts to extend his analysis to a reading of the late prose work of Samuel Beckett. While Beckett's approach to narrative identity shares similarity with Ricoeur's analysis, there are important distinctions. In contrast to Ricoeur's emphasis on the way narrative can order temporal experience, an examination of the works Stories and Texts for Nothing (1967) and How It Is (1964) serve to illustrate Beckett's experimentation with the generative power of the narrative voice. For Beckett, it seems that the very act of narration through time can give rise to problematic ambiguity and semantic multiplicity. It is argued that the literary works of Beckett complement that of Ricoeur's by attacking order and meaning; his texts show how narrating in time can distend, pull, and fragment in unexpected and generative ways. It is suggested that an appreciation of both the affirmative and negative aspects of narration are necessary for a complete understanding of self-identity.     

Personality and the location of identity1

It was hypothesized that individuals vary in their general environmental orientation: some are oriented to the internal and some to the external environment. We next predicted that this difference would be reflected in the location of those characteristics by which such persons define their identity. A sample of 150 persons judged the location of a set of 22 identity characteristics. These characteristics were rated on importance for self and then correlated with personality tests assumed to assess individual differences in environmental orientation. Authoritarianism, Snyder's self–monitoring, and Rotter's external locus of control were taken as measures of an external environmental orientation; Laird's locus of causal attribution and Sampson's measure of internal orientation (IO) were taken as measures of an internal environmental orientation. With all scales but Rotter's, strong support for the predictions was found: i.e., authoritarianism and self–monitoring were positively correlated with externally located identity characteristics; a dispositional attributional bias and the IO were positively correlated with internally located identity characteristics. These findings were discussed in terms of a process of identity mastery.     

USING CONDITIONAL DISCRIMINATION PROCEDURES TO STUDY REMEMBERING IN AN ALZHEIMER'S PATIENT

Dementia is characterized by memory impairment, but it has been suggested that conditional discrimination procedures can be used to study remembering behavior. The paper presents an experiment in which conditional discrimination procedures were used with a patient diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. The purpose of the study was two‐fold: (i) compare performance during arbitrary and identity matching‐to sample (MTS) tasks and (ii) study the effect of different delays on the participant's responding. The results show that the participant did not respond correctly on the arbitrary MTS tasks but respond correctly on the simultaneous identity MTS tasks. Thus, the participant responded correctly on identity MTS tasks with a 0‐s delay and also with 3‐, 6‐, and 9‐s delays; the number of incorrect responses increased with the increasing delay duration. Furthermore, the results also indicate that it is possible to use the delayed matching‐to‐sample procedure to evaluate the effect of medication given to Alzheimer's patients. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Online and On My Mind: Temporary and Chronic Accessibility Moderate the Influence of Media Figures

To investigate the influence of media figures on self-perception, online gamers reported how central their main videogame character (avatar) is to their own identity and answered questions about their avatar's body size either before or after questions about their own body size. When the avatar was not central to the gamer's identity, the avatar's body size influenced gamer's own body judgments only when the avatar was brought to mind by preceding questions. When the avatar was central to the gamer's identity, it influenced gamers' own body judgments independent of question order. In both cases, accessible avatars elicited assimilation effects on self-judgment. We conclude that media figures exert a chronic influence on self-judgment when they are central to the self.     

Concealability beliefs facilitate navigating intergroup contexts

Living in a diverse world requires the ability to navigate intergroup contexts. However, interacting with outgroup members can cause anxiety that leads to lower-quality interactions and avoidance of future contact. One reason people experience this anxiety is the concern that others will judge them on the basis of an identity. These concerns may be reduced among people who believe the identity is unperceivable by others. The belief that one's identity is concealable may therefore reduce intergroup anxiety and ease people's experiences in intergroup contexts. The present work tests this proposition in two studies and finds that individual differences in concealability beliefs are negatively associated with intergroup anxiety and positively associated with the propensity to initiate intergroup contact and with the quantity and quality of people's cross-group friendships. Materials, data, and code for both studies and a pre-registration for Study 2 are available online ( https://osf.io/4cjhg/ ).     

Trivial Personal Differences

Abstract

In Reasons and Persons, Derek Parfit argues that personal identity is indeterminate and that identity is not what matters in personal survival. Parfit argues that traditional views of personal identity have counterintuitive consequences and that they violate a plausible requirement, suggested by Bernard Williams, that must be met by any acceptable criterion of identity. Parfit argues that, unlike traditional determinate views of personal identity, his view succeeds in accommodating intuitions and in meeting (an analogue to) Williams' requirement. I argue that Parfit's view has more counterintuitive consequences than do the traditional views of identity. Though the traditional views do seem to violate Williams' requirement, Parfit's view fares no better. In fact, it seems that any theory of personal survival that appeals to connections that may hold to a greater or lesser extent will fail to meet the relevant requirement. This is an important general point, since the requirement is a plausible one.     

Identity Theories of Truth and the Tractatus

The paper is concerned with the idea that the world is the totality of facts, not of things – with what is involved in thinking of the world in that way, and why one might do so. It approaches this issue through a comparison between Wittgenstein's Tractatus and the identity theory of truth proposed by Hornsby and McDowell. The paper's positive conclusion is that there is a genuine affinity between these two. A negative contention is that the modern identity theory is vulnerable to a complaint of idealism that the Tractatus can deflect.     

“How can you make friends if you don't know who you are?” A qualitative examination of international students' experience informed by the Social Identity Model of Identity Change

This paper explores the contribution of social identity change to international students' health and well‐being. International students typically face a range of challenges from the time they leave their home country, including the need to adapt both to a new culture and norms and to a new educational landscape. Previous research informed by the Social Identity Model of Identity Change (SIMIC) suggests that during such life transitions, an individual's group memberships and associated social identities can provide a buffer against the threats to well‐being that such transitions present. To examine the relevance of SIMIC for the transitions that international students' experience, semistructured interviews were conducted with 15 international students attending an Australian university. Thematic analysis provided support for the relevance of SIMIC's social identity gain and social identity maintenance pathways in the transition and revealed a number of associated factors that acted as either facilitators (e.g., a host family that supported community integration) or barriers (e.g., experiencing culture shock) to social identity change. These findings present the first qualitative support for SIMIC within an international student population and help to flesh out the specific ways in which social identity processes contribute to both positive and negative health and well‐being outcomes.