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Identity Adaptiveness: Affect Across Multiple Identities
Author(s) -
Pittinsky Todd L.,
Shih Margaret,
Ambady Nalini
Publication year - 1999
Publication title -
journal of social issues
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.618
H-Index - 122
eISSN - 1540-4560
pISSN - 0022-4537
DOI - 10.1111/0022-4537.00130
Subject(s) - ethnic group , affect (linguistics) , identity (music) , psychology , context (archaeology) , social psychology , social identity theory , social environment , social identity approach , developmental psychology , social group , sociology , communication , geography , social science , physics , archaeology , anthropology , acoustics
Most empirical work that examines the effects of stereotypes on targets considers only one of a target's many social identities. This study examined how individuals implicitly affectively orient themselves toward their social identities in situations in which one or another of these identities is relatively adaptive. An adaptive identity is one associated with stereotypes that predict desirable performance in a given context. One hundred and twenty‐one Asian American females generated ethnicity‐ and gender‐related memories in contexts in which their gender identity was relatively adaptive, their ethnic identity was relatively adaptive, or neither identity was relatively adaptive. Self‐reported affect expressed in these memories was analyzed. In a context in which their ethnic identity was adaptive, participants generated more positive ethnicity‐related memories than gender‐related memories. In contrast, in a context in which their gender identity was adaptive, participants generated more positive gender‐related memories than ethnicity‐related memories. When neither identity was adaptive participants expressed similar affect toward both. Similar results were found when blind raters coded memory affect. Findings suggest that stereotypes and different social contexts do not simply result in targets' “identification” or “disidentification” along a single dimension of identity, but rather prompt a reorientation of implicit affect across their multiple identities.