Browsing by Subject "Identity (Psychology)"
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Item Beyond the binaries to self-fashioning: identity as the rhetoric of social style(2006) Greene, Carlnita Peterson; Brummett, Barry, 1951-This dissertation explores how identity functions as a “site of struggle” in contemporary postmodern society. Although there has been research on identity, scholars mainly have viewed it from standpoints that argue in favor of or against “identity politics.” Contrary to these perspectives, this dissertation suggests that we need to reassess its political potential and evaluate why politics remains vital to discussions of identity. It proposes that one of the best ways to consider identity under these postmodern conditions it to view it as both a communicative and rhetorical practice that is manifested within social style. Specifically, it examines how our contemporary identities are intrinsically linked to the social styles that we have or how we represent ourselves using social styles. Utilizing the method of rhetorical homology, it analyzes two case studies—the transgender text of Buck Angel and a comparison of two prominent political families, the Kennedys and the Bushes, to demonstrate how identity functions as a form of social style with political and social implications. Thus, this dissertation explains how identity is inherently communicative and rhetorical, and especially in postmodern conditions, social style seems to be where identity is created, managed, and struggled over.Item Customizing professional identity: a model for early career psychologists(2004) Fitzpatrick, Nicole Danyon; Tharinger, DeborahThe process of becoming a psychologist requires a great deal of time, energy, and training that results in a transformation from student to professional. Likening the developmental process of professional identity construction to the building of a custom home, the current study sought to understand the process whereby early career psychologists begin to “customize” their professional identities. With the understanding that the construction of professional identity is a lifelong developmental process, the current study provides a conceptualization of the important factors comprising customization. After the foundation of one’s professional career has been “laid and framed” throughout graduate training, customization commences. As no two custom homes look completely alike, neither do the careers of two recently licensed psychologists. Qualitative research methods afforded the opportunity to explore professional identity using in-depth interviews with eleven early career child psychologists who had graduated from doctoral training programs within the last two to six years. Upon thorough analysis of the interviews, a theoretical model emerged conceptualizing the decision-making process of early career psychologists during customization. The decision-making process is comprised of three components: connections, weighing options, and settling. Forces of reality and ideals were found to significantly impact decision making. Forces of reality exist outside of the individual and include romantic relationships, family, finances, and health issues. Ideals exist within the individual and are comprised of personal and professional interests, characteristics of self, and goals. Achieving balance between forces of reality and ideals in the context of the decision-making process is discussed. The results of the current study hold implications for training and professional practice. It is hoped that results are used to inform training practices for students and establish mentoring programs for early career psychologists. Psychologists-in-training require time and experience to grapple with the forces of reality and ideals within the supportive context of graduate school. It is hoped that such experiences will result in a shift of priorities for the early career psychologist, placing importance on the need to strive for balance between personal and professional factors, which will facilitate preparedness in making informed professional decisions.Item Fighting identities: the body in space and place(2004) Heiskanen, Benita Anitta; Foley, NeilPrizefighting has assumed deep-seated meanings as a racialized practice in the United States, epitomizing both immigrants’ rags-to-riches sagas and competing notions of the sport’s identity as an “American” enterprise. “Fighting Identities: The Body in Space and Place” combines a historical, a theoretical, and an ethnographic approach in examining the occupational culture of professional boxing as a locus for ethnoracial, class, and gender formations. Contextualized within the history of pugilism, the bulk of the research springs from interviews with a community of Latino fighters who grew up and began boxing in East Austin, Texas from the 1970s onward. The research situates the boxers’ life-stories within a theoretical framework of the body in space and place, while a four-year ethnographic sojourn inside Texas prizefighting complements the analysis with a participant observation component. The focus is on how the athletes negotiate the tension between individual agency and ideological control within various pugilistic and societal settings; how their collective status as Latino fighters is deliberated within global sporting networks; and how boxing simultaneously enables challenging various power dynamics, as it reflects existing ethnoracial, class, and gender politics in society at large. Emphasizing an ongoing dialogue between everyday practices and academic discourses within the interdisciplinary field of American Studies in particular, the discussion links prizefighting and identity formations as spatially determined processes, delineating the boxing body as a site of knowledge and various locations within the pugilistic occupational culture as sites for being and becoming. The dissertation argues that a continual relationship between space and place—turning space into place by appropriating space as one’s own—evokes a larger tension between social control and individual mobility, and that this dynamic becomes absolutely central to Latino fighters’ raison d’être. Amidst the existing social hierarchies, “Fighting Identities” come to derive meanings through space, while space becomes racialized through geographically determined boundaries of socio-economic concentrations of power in place, corresponding to such everyday parameters as ethnoracial segregation and exclusionary class and gender politics in the United States. Alongside the increasing Latinization of 21st century prizefighting, the sport is diverging from its Northeastern origins into a distinctly Southwestern phenomenon.Item Identity change in students who study abroad(2008-05) Angulo, Sarah Kathryn, 1977-; Swann, William B.Over 240,000 American students studied abroad in the 2006 - 2007 academic year (Commission on the Abraham Lincoln Study Abroad Fellowship Program, 2005). Despite the large number of students abroad and the breadth of the study-abroad literature (e.g., Dwyer 2004, Anderson, Lawton, Rexeisen, & Hubbard, 2006; Dewey, 2004; Milstein, 2005), there is relatively little work on the psychological ramifications of going abroad. Specifically, few studies investigate issues of identity change in students who study abroad. This dissertation was designed to provide an initial examination of these issues. Three theories of identity were applied to understand identity change in students abroad. Self-categorization theory (Oakes, Haslam, & Turner, 1994), which emphasizes the fluidity of identity and its dependence on social memberships, predicts that students will internalize the culture abroad and become very connected to it. Self-verification theory (Swann, 1997; Swann, Rentfrow, & Guinn, 2002) states that because people's personal identities give their lives coherence, meaning, and continuity, people are highly reluctant to change their personal identities. According to self-verification theory, students abroad will cling to their existing identities and remain connected with people from the country of origin. Identity negotiation theory (Swann & Bosson, in press; Swann, 1987) adopts a moderate position, suggesting that people retain their original identities but, under some conditions, modify them in response to exposure to the host culture. Students spending a semester abroad completed online questionnaires before they left the United States, and three times during the semester abroad. Students changed on several characteristics across the semester abroad. Students abroad changed more than a matched-control group spending the semester at the University of Texas at Austin. Personal characteristics, such as extraversion, agreeableness, and openness to experience, predicted degree of personal change, personal growth, and identification with the host country. Various social behaviors abroad, as well as living with a host family, were correlated with identity change. A model linking each theory with data about various choices of living arrangements, social behaviors, and identity outcomes is presented.Item Identity fusion and the psychology of political extremism(2007-05) Seyle, Daniel Conor, 1978-; Swann, William B.Past research in the psychology of extremism has argued that extremism is a psychological state characterized by a perception that the group is absolutely correct, endowed with moral authority, and threatened or opposed by some active group or entity working against the ingroup. There has been little research which has focused on what psychological processes may underlie this state. It is proposed in this dissertation that extremism is an outgrowth of identity fusion, a state in which the personal and social levels of the self-concept become closely aligned so that they may not be activated independently of each other. Identity fusion is theorized to follow from self-verification motives interacting with salient social identities, so that when people need verification for the way they see themselves and a group which provides such verification is activated, fusion may result. Three studies were conducted to examine different aspects of the identity fusion-extremism link. In Study 1, experimenters manipulated the need for selfverification motives and the social context to determine if self-verification predicted the development of fusion with a verifying, salient group. This study found little evidence of this link. Study 2 used counterattitudinal messages to assess the link between fusion and absolutist patterns of thinking. Fused participants were found to show significantly more emotional response to and rejection of counterattidudinal messages, in line predictions. Finally, Study 3 examined the behavioral and linguistic correlates of fusion and found some evidence that fusion predicted self-reported behaviors in line with political extremism and patterns of language use which emphasized the personal self.Item "Somewhere between repartee and discourse": students' experiences of a synchronous, computer-mediated discussion(2004) Beth, Alicia Dawn; Schallert, Diane L.As online learning grows in popularity, learners meet each other more and more frequently in completely textual environments. They post responses to assignments online, interact to form study groups via e-mail, and discuss ideas about content on electronic bulletin boards, often without ever meeting face-to-face. In this study, I was interested both in the ways students construct textual representations of themselves as they read and write in a computer-mediated discussion (CMD) and how they rely on comments in the discussion to make sense of their classmates. I investigated two sets of questions. First, broadly, how do students experience a CMD, both as it happens and as they reflect on the discussion after it ends? That is, what do they think and do as they participate in a discussion, and how do they describe their experiences later? Second, how do they use language to represent themselves in their own comments? And are they able to get a sense of their peers from the comments in the discussion? To address these questions, I asked students in a graduate-level seminar to complete a think-aloud protocol as they read and wrote comments in one of the CMDs required for the class. I then interviewed them individually about their experiences in the CMD. I also collected their required written responses to both oral and electronic discussions. These three sources of data were analyzed using a grounded theory approach (Strauss & Corbin, 1998). Through constant comparisons among and within the different data sources, a model of students’ experiences of the CMD emerged. Two processes, in particular, reading and speculating on others and writing and considering effects, were related to my original questions about how students represent themselves and understand others in a CMD. In addition to these processes, however, a host of other components contributed to their experiences. The students, for example, were acutely aware of the multiple contexts in which the discussion was situated. They described how their individual backgrounds and interests influenced the strategies they used to participate in the discussion, and they described the emotional and cognitive effects of their participation.Item Understanding the complexity of intersecting identities among women of Mexican descent(2008-08) Rodarte-Luna, Bertah Elia, 1974-; Sherry, Alissa René; Gilbert, Lucia AlbinoSeveral social forces shape and influence one’s identity. The interaction of race, ethnicity, gender, and social class creates lenses through which a person experiences life and reality. These variables must be understood as they relate to each other to gain a better understanding of an individual’s life experiences. This study aimed to expand research on identity development and contribute to research on intersecting identities among American women of Mexican descent. The first goal of the proposed study was understanding feminism among American women of Mexican descent. Gathering data on the feminist perspectives of these women assisted in dispelling stereotypes that exist regarding this population. The second goal centered on examining the salience of an ethnic and feminist identity within this population. The study explored conflicts related to holding these identities simultaneously. The proposed study also examined the relationship between an achieved identity (such as ethnicity and feminism) to self-esteem. Consistent with past research, using the label feminist was related to feminist beliefs. Findings further demonstrated that those women that simultaneously identify as feminists and of Mexican descent scored higher on measures of feminist and ethnic identity. Analyses showed that participants identified more with an ethnic identity than a feminist identity. In this study, women with higher levels of feminist identity were likely to have higher levels of ethnic identity. Furthermore, women that simultaneously identified as feminists and of Mexican descent experienced some conflict in relation to family relationships, spiritual life, employment or school life, and personal relationships. Participants’ responses to open-ended questions regarding conflict provide context to empirical findings; responses suggest different ways of managing conflicts regarding feminist identification in the areas of family relationships, employment, spiritual life, and personal relationships. This study provides relevant information for professionals working with women of Mexican descent. Understanding the interaction of salient identities, such as ethnicity and feminism, may result in improved counseling treatment models for women of Mexican descent.