OUGD501 - Study Task 1

Symbolic Interactionist Theories of Identity

When I first read these two theories I was initially very confused and I really struggled to get my head around it, I found that the language was quite complex and I was focusing on this rather than the context. I eventually managed to break it down and simplify it and make some useful notes:

Stryker's Identity Theory

Designations and Definitions

- Social structure: Social structure is the organized pattern of social relationships and social institutions that together compose society. It is a stable arrangement.

- If people around you have similar identities then you are more likely to evoke yours more strongly. 

- We rely on validation from others for reassurance and confirmation

- Once validated this identity rises up the salience hierarchy

- Salience: Most important

- Rely on feedback to know if identity is working in terms of 'others' expectations. 

- There is an awareness of what is expected by certain people. 

Identities and Salience Hierarchy

- Some roles are seen as more desired, more likely to be evoked than those lower down. 

- Some situations can evoke multiple identities, identity is more likely to change when there are no structural constraints or boundaries. 

- Roles can change subject to the response we have regarding others roles.

Commitment

- A relationship can rely on one persons identity remaining the same. The more dependant this relationship is the more committed one will be to an identity.

The Key Propositions

- Positive re enforcement courses identity to be moved upscale

- No negative feedback = enforced identity 

- When a role is high in the salient hierarchy it is repeated more often and we begin to seek out situations in which we can play this role. 

- The role of an identity will only continue as long as there is positive support.

Identity and emotions

- Perform role > Positive support > Increased self esteem > More regular use of role.

- A negative reaction evokes a negative emotion and response. 

- The role of others affects our role directly. 

George J. McCall and J. L. Simmons

Role Identity and Role Support
- Roles are changed as surroundings changed

- More focussed on personal assessment 

- Gaining the approval from others is a key driving force to gain support

- The most important audience for a role performance are the individuals themselves - look for reassurance from ourself. 

- We still seek approval from audience too, but secondary to our own

- Individual wishes for all aspects of the role to be approved

- People perceive roles differently and have different expectations so there is always discrepancy.

- You can't necessarily gain support from everyone as they tend to have different views.

- Never entirely happy unless 100% legitimised by audience. 


The Mechanisms for Maintaining Role Support
Ways that discrepancy is overcome:

1. Short term credit - minimal discrepancy and high immediate approval allows individual to not feel dishearten by minority negative feedback.

2. Disregard any negativity.

3. Convinces and alters the response in selfs mind to reassure.

4. Place self in situations more likely to gain support.

5. Changing behaviour to gain more support.

6. Role reversal - Placing blame on audience rather than self.

7. Deny responsibility for lack of support.

8. Deprecating and rejecting audience that withholds support.

Hierarchy of Prominence

- Certain roles are more prominent and so are performed more often.

- This prominent role can change due to situation.

- Prominent role is seen as the one that is considered the most 'ideal'.

- Prominent identity is asserted to seek legitimacy.

- Self is also an audience to others and has the decision as to whether to reward others with support

- Most interactions are unstructured and open to change.

- A role isn't determined until we determine the role that others are playing in any given situation.

The Underlying Exchange Dynamic

- Three types of rewards: Extrinsic, Intrinsic and Support for an identity.

- Extrinsic - A physical reward (money)

- Intrinsic - An emotionally positive feeling (happiness)

- Support for identity and confidence to build upon this with conformation.

- The situation directly influences the role but it is able to change.

- Support of ideal self is the best and brings greater rewards. 

- The more positive rewards you get the more you want.

Ego- Ideal (freud) * link well

Desire (Freud/ Lacan)

ID, EGO, Super-ego (Freud)* link well

The Mirror Stage (Lacan)*Most interesting

Out of these four categories I decided to look at the mirror stage theory by Lacan, I felt that if this was the most interesting it would be a better read and I would find it better to breakdown. 

I did try initially to look at Lacan's originally text but I found there was a lot surrounding the main points and it was hard to get my head around. I found a version of it that had been condensed to the main points and decided to annotate this. I found it really fascinating to read about, psychology/sociology was never my strong point but I really felt like I could read more texts like this with ease, it may be something I consider for my essay question.

One of the key topics of Lacan's text revolved around the 'imago', I found an extra piece about the definition and how this was used in the context of identity. The imago is the stereotype that we perceive others through, it is how we view their perception of us and is the basis of how we behave around them. 

My Analysis

There are many similarities between Stryker’s Identity theory and the much earlier McCall and Simmons’ take on this complex matter. The main difference is apparent when considering the audience who is affected by the behavior and the direct response gained whether it is negative or positive.

            McCall and Simmons’ theory suggests that the majority of the validation comes from ourselves and it is down to how we perceive our performance. We set our own expectations and we create our own idealized view of the role identity and what we want to achieve. The more prominent role in the salient hierarchy is the one that we consider to be the ideal and we seek situations in which we can play this identity. Positive re enforcement causes us to repeat this role, gaining rewards, both extrinsic and intrinsic as we progress. The most valued reward is support for an identity.

Contrasting this, Stryker’s more recent view differs in terms of that he suggests that we seek the most validation from those higher up of our role identity. We rely on feedback from others to know if this identity is working in terms of their expectations, if we achieve this validation we move this role higher up the salience hierarchy. We have an awareness of what other people expect, this can change in different social situations and we are able to adapt to this to seek approval. Positive re enforcement causes us to repeat this role, gaining rewards, both extrinsic and intrinsic as we progress. It becomes a cycle of performing the role, gaining positive support that leads to increased self-esteem and a movement in the hierarchy scheme. We also react to negative feedback, this creates negative emotions; ‘emotions are markers of adequacy’ (Stryker) shows that positive feedback affects us personally.

            In 1949, Lacan devised a theory that backs up both of the previous hypothesis by Stryker and McCall and Simmons. The mirror theory describes the process that young infants go through between the age of six and eighteen months when they first see their reflection, what they see is known as the ‘I’. It tells of the negative emotions they experience when they first view themselves, they become anxious and frustrated as they see their body as ‘fragmented.’ The child’s image become a direct reflection of the projected desires of the bigger ‘others’, the child’s body image is always derived from signifiers flowing straight from the others. Although frustration is caused by such hilflosigkeit (helplessness) we also feel reassurance by seeing much larger and unified humans that we can attain this state as we want to progress to the stage of reaching the ‘ideal-I’. However from this point as a being we begin to chase the unattainable harmony and perfect state that the mirror falsely conveys. This links in to how both Stryker, McCall and Simmons both relate their evidence to how as a person we never feel fully satisfied with our identity, we are always striving to achieve a role that is the highest in the salience hierarchy of our own and of others’ and perform it to a certain excellence. Lacan talks often of ‘imago’, these are stereotypes that influence how we behave, we give people other perceived imagos and this then influences how we behave around them. This links back predominantly to Stryker’s theory, specifically revolving around how we require validation from others and so we play a role that we think will be approved by them in such an environment.