Analysing Identity

Cross-Cultural, Societal and Clinical Contexts

Peter Weinreich, Wendy Saunderson

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2005
• eBook ISBN: 9781134425211
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: History & Theory in Psychology
• Index: Psychology

People's identities are addressed and brought into being by interaction with others. Identity processes encompass biographical experiences, historical eras and cultural norms in which the self's autonomy varies according to the flux of power relationships with others.

Identity Structure Analysis (ISA) draws upon psychological, sociological and social anthropological theory and evidence to formulate a system of concepts that help explain the notion of identity. They can be applied to the practical investigations of identity structure and identity development in a number of clinical, societal and cultural settings. This book includes topics on national and ethnic identification in multicultural contexts and gender identity relating to social context and the urban environment. Clinical applications that describe identity processes associated with psychological distress are also examined. These include anorexia nervosa and vicarious traumatisation of counsellors in the aftermath of atrocity.

Analysing Identity is unique in its development of this integrative conceptualisation of self and identity, and its operationalisation in practice. This innovative book will appeal to academics and professionals in developmental, social, cross-cultural, clinical and educational psychology and psychotherapy. It will also be of interest to those involved with sociology, political science, gender studies, ethnic studies and social policy.

Of particular note is the availability of new software, Ipseus, which facilitates ISA for use by practitioners. It enables them to enhance their professional skills by ascertaining their clients' perspectives on self as located in the social world. This has been successfully used with pre-school three to five year-old children, and all other age-ranges through childhood, adolescence and adulthood. Ipseus is designed to be used in inter-cultural contexts and appeals to practitioners for their input for the generation of customized identity instruments (see www.identityexploration.com).

Part I
Theory and practice

INTRODUCTION

This volume presents theory and practice of an open-ended framework of theoretical concepts and process postulates about processes of identity development and redefinition, which is based on extant orientations derived in the main from the disciplines of psychology, sociology and social anthropology. The conceptual framework, Identity Structure Analysis, attempts to provide a seamless interface between psychology, sociology and social anthropology, and related subject areas such as political science, economics, social policy, education, and so on. The justification for this mission arises from observations common to the subject matter of these disciplines. Prominent among these is that individuals appraise and interpret the events in which they participate, and they identify with other people and social institutions. They experience others within a framework of institutions that are imbued with a sense of relative permanence through social representations (Moscovici & Paicheler, 1978; Farr & Moscovici, 1984; Moscovici, 1988; Billig, 1988; Jodelet, 1993; Flick, 1995). While social representations are not entirely unchanging, they are nevertheless maintained within societal structures that have symbolic meaning interpreted according to shared norms.

Identity Structure Analysis (hereafter, ISA) refers to the structural representation of the individual’s existential experience, in which the relationships between self and other agents are organised in relatively stable structures over time, but which become further elaborated and changed on account of new experiences (Weinreich, 1979a,b, 1980, 1983a,b, 1985a,b, 1986a,b, 1989a,b, 1991a,b, 1992, 1998, 1999; Weinreich, Harris, & Doherty, 1985; Weinreich, Kelly, & Maja, 1987, 1988; Weinreich, Luk, & Bond, 1996). The structuring and restructuring of experience may be conceptualised as following Piagetian principles of assimilation and accommodation (Piaget, 1950, 1952), but with the emphasis on the socio-cultural milieu (Vygotsky, 1930 — 1935/1978) in which self relates to other agents and institutions. For example, there may be a partial assimilation of new minor within-range experiences to the extant structural arrangement of previously experienced events and states of mind. There may follow a partial accommodation of existing structures of experience to new major different-order events, such as achieving insights and exercising novel skills, or experiencing bereavements, traumas and passionate encounters involving others. Layers of experience will become sequentially and structurally organised. However, the sequencing of structural organisation and reorganisation will not only depend on processes of cognitive development, but will also be profoundly influenced by cultural context and biographical experience. The structural representation of self and other agents constitutes the person’s identity, which because of idiosyncratic personal experiences will be unique and because of normative world-views will exhibit various degrees of commonality from person to person. The evolving conceptual tools of ISA provide for modes of analysis of the person’s identity structure that are opera-tionalised for practical application, so that the distinguishing features of identity may be objectified.

ISA attempts to objectify the subjective: to make the subjective subject-matter of identity objectively explicit by way of transparent procedures of assessment. Discourses that represent subjective experience and concepts that address subjective states of mind are frequently regarded as peculiarly inaccessible to objective analyses. However, operationalisation of ISA concepts enables the hitherto subjective parameters of identity to be objectively assessed.

Whatever societal, economic, technological and political factors impinge on the overall well-being of communities, their significance is interpreted with varying degrees of appropriateness by individuals, be they leaders or followers, rogues or upstanding people, wise or stupid people. Individuals appraise societal scenarios, actions of others, and self’s experiences for significance to self’s own identity aspirations — that is, from a variety of perspectives according to the identities of the people in question. People’s biographical progressions, experienced and expressed as the person’s identity, provide the framework for appraisals of events by means of which society, economics, politics, history, culture, ethnicity, gender and self are partly understood or misunderstood.

Deficiency versus evolutionary problematic

One pervasive strand of conceptualisation of social and personal problems at the societal level, such as ethnic conflict, stereotyping and prejudice, implicitly assumes that people are mostly rational. Societal failures such as disadvantage, culture of racism — or cognitive deficiencies in information processing such as social categorisation, stereotyping — are viewed as being fundamental causes of problems in society. Failures within society or deficiencies within the brain compromise rational thinking and behaviour. Solutions to problems are seen to be potentially available through the correction of disadvantage and maltreatment, or by way of better modes of information processing. Deviations from rationality are the implicit problematics to be explained with a view to instilling corrective procedures. Explanations are sought in ‘things going wrong’ in society, or with ‘imperfect’ cognitive mechanisms so as to ‘explain’ personal difficulty, societal conflict, stereotyping and so on. The emphasis is on righting societal wrongs and working to overcome deficiencies.

Another strand gives evolutionary considerations more prominence, in which explanations of social evils are sought in developmental and socio-psychological processes that are not rational in the sense of rational thinking. Attention is directed to explanations of processes that are viewed as fundamental to sustaining immediate individual survival as a member of a cohesive group that continually contends with challenges to general survival in the wider material and social world. In this approach the emphasis is on explaining why many issues of human behaviour and society that cause immense grief to people, such as psychological disturbance, societal discrimination and ethnic cleansing, are fundamentally features of individual and societal processes. In this approach, rational thinking is not accepted as being the fundamental norm. Instead, the power of rational thought is more often seen to be placed in the service of greater mastery and more effective survival of the ‘group’ (a variable entity that may typically be immediate kin, an ethnic group, or some other historically salient community). Depending on circumstances, the effective survival of the group may be at the expense of another group. The problematic to be explained is not seen to stem from deviations from rationality but from processes that perpetuate intense social and individual ‘wrongs’, which may only by concerted societal effort be contained to varying degrees should the broader public so wish. In this perspective, ‘wrong behaviour and evil events’ have their origins in fundamental ongoing psychological and societal processes that are omnipresent and these processes are the problematics to be explained.

The emphasis in ISA is towards contributing to the explication of the latter kind of problematic. It attempts to provide a broad conceptual framework within which fundamental omnipresent psychological and societal processes may be conceptualised, while not diminishing the simultaneous and crucial significance of the contribution of societal and individual deficiencies to the overall explanation of individual and societal affairs.

In other words, ISA assumes that fundamental universal processes generate prejudice, stereotyping, discrimination, ethnic conflict, and intolerance for deviations from pervasive societal and cultural norms of gendered behaviour and sexual orientation. The processes that result in ‘ills of society’ are not just breakdowns or deficiencies in properly functioning societies and persons, but are engaged in by all people of any culture though moderated by societal norms. Norms of atavistic populism, characterising certain sections of a community, may promote cultural, educational and political regimes that galvanise these processes with resulting inhumane consequences for specific individuals and particular outgroups. Alternatively, hard-won and enforced norms of fair play, respect and tolerance for difference may ameliorate such processes, though with some difficulty and requiring much concerted effort on the part of ‘enlightened’ cultural, educational and political agencies.

Given the ever-presence of these fundamental processes, the issue of what are considered to be appropriate social norms constitutes an active arena of moral debate in society. Social norms endorsed by the populace at large tend to be instigated by way of the political dominance of specific parties that are felt to ‘represent the interests of the people’. The norms vary considerably from culture to culture and from one historical era to another. ‘Enlightened’ moral beliefs tend currently to be concerned with the sanctity of life, individual well-being, freedom for personal expression irrespective of creed, ethnicity and religion, and justice in respect of these beliefs. Such ‘enlightened beliefs’ are evidently not universally shared nor implemented across the world. In many instances around the globe, norms of atavistic populism encouraged by charismatic but unprincipled leaders galvanise the universally pervasive propensities of stereotyping, intolerance of deviation, discrimination and ethnic conflict, in the ‘interests of survival of the group and its identity’. As will be seen, the ISA conceptual framework encompasses explanatory process postulates of the kind referred to here, together with the significance that contending social norms have in respect of variations in identification with individual agents and societal agencies. For example, Chapter 3 presents a theoretical analysis and an empirical investigation of the interplay of normative cultural ethos with the psychology of basic primordialist sentiments and acquired situationalist perspectives towards ethnicity and nationality.

ISA is a conceptual tool and, aided by the accessible Identity Exploration (IDEX) computer software (Weinreich & Ewart, 1999a,b), a methodological resource. The aims of this volume are to present the ISA conceptualisation and its capacity for bringing diverse topics, ranging from clinical, through societal to cross-cultural, into a coherent framework. ISA presents an orientation to identity processes by means of which our conscious experiences of the world may be elucidated. Central to consciousness is the process by which ...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Figures
• Tables
• Biographical notes on contributors
• Foreword
• Acknowledgements
• Part I Theory and practice
• Part II Cross-cultural issues
• Part III Societal issues
• Part IV Clinical issues
• Appendix
• Author Index
• Subject Index