In Communication Studies, identity theories usually function with a combination of behavioral and semiotic approaches. These theories share roots in social psychology and linguistics. One of the earliest identity theories that we deal with in Communication Studies developed out of a conflict between philosophical models of identity and biological models dating the Post-Enlightenment Period of Philosophy (primarily from the mid-1800s through the first decades of the twentieth century).
Medical science gave us one of our earliest modern theories of identity; one generally called Mind/Brain Identity Theory or Brain State Theory. Consider the images below taken from "The Book of Fortune," published in 1935. A Divination and Spirituality text influenced by the times of Brain State Theory, claiming that a person's physical traits determined their personality and likeness to find a mate or spouse.
The concept is based on the Enlightenment era assumptions that the physiological state of one’s brain determines one’s identity (Fiegl, 1958; Place, 1956). This is a psychological approach to identity, and historically was tied to the notion that there are “normal” and “abnormal” brains. Normal brains indicate someone with normal identity characteristics. Someone who behaves in a manner that is not seen as normal would be suspected of having an abnormal brain. This theory evolved to incorporate other physical abnormalities as well, but was most often applied to explain people who deviate from social norms.
Treatment for an abnormal brain or other abnormal state could include electro-shock therapy, lobotomies, medication, or, in some cases, psychoanalysis. You may note that while this theory has evolved past the simplistic notion that “deviant” behavior indicates a physical abnormality, this approach to identity and normalizing behavior remains present in the fields of psychiatry and psychology.
Social and Standpoint Identities
In contrast, philosophers in a number of different fields, like Darwin (1859), Marx (1867/1907), Freud (1923/1927) and de Saussure (1916/1959) all theorized about naturalistic processes on social identity construction. The body of knowledge together forms what we talk about, today, as Social Identity Theories. Charles Darwin’s (1859) theory of evolution is a theory of progress; embedded within is an assumption that we are headed toward a predetermined change processes that will "improve" humanity. SocialDarwinism—a body of thought that arose from this theory—takes this meaning in many directions, including discussing social, cultural, and identity evolutionary processes (Hofstadter, 1944). Socially, Darwinians promote the ideal that we are progressing toward a Utopian Society—a “perfect” society where happiness, health, and democratic ideals cause everyone to be valued. Similarly, Darwinians discuss our “selves” as progressing toward an Ideal—both as individuals whose identities evolve throughout our lives and as a society made up of identities that change over time. It's important to note that these Darwinian ideals are not accepted by everyone and, at times can lead to extremist ideologies.
Marxist approaches—drawing on the work of Karl Marx—echo this sense of progress. Marx (1867/1907) argued that we would progress toward a utopian class structure, where no one is bound to restrictions based on class. Marxists (Jameson, 1990) discuss contemporary identities as bound to social class—the rich act rich and the poor act poor, but are likely to emulate the rich to appear less poor. This is referred to as social conflict theory. This concept is significant because it plays a role in how we understand, and therefore talk about reality and therefore impacts how we communicate with others. From a Marxist standpoint, rich people are trapped in the perceptions of their class. They can’t really understand what life is like for the poor. Poor people, on the other hand, understand both their own lives and the lives of the rich—because the rich lifestyle is broadcast as “ideal.” Therefore, the poor have an advantage in understanding rich culture, whereas the rich can’t really imagine what it’s like to be poor. This empowers the poor to resist the Sophistry and message construction of the rich, which can be tied to Stuart Hall’s (1973, 1974) reception theory and the processes of encoding and decoding. At the same time, however, the dominance of "rich culture" as an ideal is how they maintain social control.
This standpoint approach, which comes to be labeled Standpoint Theory (Hartsock, 1983), can be applied to other social statuses as well, with those belonging to a lesser-ranked status having a privilege in understanding the higher ranks that is not reciprocated. W.E.B. Du Bois (1903) used the concept of standpoint to talk about how Black people have a better understanding of White people and White culture than White people do of Black culture. Du Bois called this “double consciousness,” indicating that Black people see White culture from the outside as well as from within.
Political and social movements have often revolved around conflicts in understanding the perceptions of Du Bois termed double consciousness. Contemporary racial, ethnic, and sexuality social justice movements, such as #blacklivesmatter, #brownlivesmatter, #lovewins, and #metoo highlight how differences in standpoint impact both social norms and understandings of identity as well as legal statuses. Further, pushback by some who struggle to recognize their own assigned privilege highlights how our own perceptions can be limited or constrained by standpoints.
Feminist Standpoint Theory (Hartsock, 1983; Harding, 1986; Collins, 1989) applies this argument to gender, arguing that women understand men’s values and perspectives while themselves remaining a “mystery” to men. From the different standpoints, messages are constructed in different ways. Some feminist scholars argue that men and women speak different languages, with different focuses, because of the differences between men’s and women’s standpoints (Hartsock, 1983; Harding, 1986). Still others argue that women have a more wholistic or complete language, because they are, based on their social roles, closer to nature (Irigaray, 1977/1999). This theory comes from the idea that women’s language is rooted in mothering instincts and other natural tendencies that have been bred out, or culturally removed from, men. Men’s language, in contrast, is seen as political and technical.
The differences in women’s and men’s languages don’t stop at what things we say—the difference is also visible in what labels and terms are applied to each gender. Remember that old saying, “sugar and spice and everything nice…that’s what girls are made of”? Can you imagine those descriptions being tied to a boy? How would that change boyhood? How would that change masculinity?
To better understand the role of language in the construction and performance of identity, we can look at another of our Post-Enlightenment scholars, Ferdinand de Saussure (1916/1959). de Saussure, who we’ve already discussed in terms of Semiotics, argued that meaning is produced through the symbols of language. This concept is applied to identity through the way that people build a “self” using language and symbols. de Saussure’s semiotic theories led to Henri Tajfel and John Turner’s (1979) Social Identity Theory.
Tajfel and Turner argue that the self is constructed through a process of labeling and assigning oneself to specific categories of culture. We do this through a process of constantly comparing ourselves to others. The focus here is on the centrality of social identity in the way individuals construct their own identities—the idea that we all want to be like someone we admire. So we emulate those characteristics. Tajfel and Turner’s model comprises four elements:
Categorization: how we put ourselves and others into labeled categories by using language and symbolic identifiers
Identification: how we build ourselves up by choosing to label ourselves within categories of people we want to be associated with
Comparison: how we constantly compare ourselves and our groups to others, with the goal of making ourselves come out appearing stronger than other groups
Psychological Distinctiveness: how we mark our group identities as simultaneously different from other groups and better than others.
Tajfel and Turner indicate that these processes are how we become part of a social group—and therefore how we begin to perform in accordance with the social scripts associated with that particular group.
Another theory that shares some characteristics with Tajfel and Turner’s Social Identity Theory is Irwin Altman and Dalmas Taylor’s (1973) Social Penetration Theory. This theory provides an investigation of how people begin to communicate more fully and openly after certain levels of closeness are attained. Altman and Taylor argue that self-disclosure happens in stages, with only minimal disclosure early in a relationship. As each member of a relationship reveals a bit more of themselves, they must each become a bit vulnerable. In order for disclosure to increase, each participant needs to recognize each other’s vulnerability.
The way we hide from self-disclosure includes masking—which is done to deflect from revealing too much too quickly. We mask ourselves in layers, like the layers of an onion. We peel back this onion in stages:
Orientation stage: small talk and initiating conversation
Exploratory stage: revealing social truths about ourselves, such as political or religious affiliations
Affective stage: we start to reveal more personal truths, we begin touching and initiating kissing or caresses
Stable Stage: we are now able to predict each other’s behaviors and recognize each other’s values
Depenetration: the relationship begins to unravel and the masks or layers of protection begin to reform
We can see how Social Penetration Theory discusses how we reveal our identities to others, and how our identities are impacted by our relationships with those closest to us.
By looking at these and other theories of identity, we come to understand how identity is constructed by communication processes, and how our identities influence our willingness and ability to communicate fully. Now we need to take a look at the theories that discuss the performance of identities.
Role Play and Social Scripts
Harold Garfinkel (1967) points out way in which we continually restrict our performances to social norms, particularly gendered performances. Garfinkel argues that we perform our identities as a type of role play every day. He further argues that normal behaviors and normal social “roles” have changed over time, and will continue to do so. Therefore, our behaviors are tied to socially constructed patterns, rather than biological categorizations. He lays out a five-stage pattern of everyday life performance that each individual goes through as a repeating process.
Indexicality: how we determine, though language constructions, the categories of behavior and identity that we recognize
Accountability: how we justify the choices, subconscious and conscious, that we make to participate in one of those indexed categories
Naïve Realism: the process of making our justification appear to be a natural consequence, i.e. “boys will be boys”
Reflexivity: making the world fit our Naïve Realism perspective by choosing to acknowledge symbols that reflect the beliefs we presented
Passing: this term was taken from historical accounts of Black men and women passing for White in the South during slavery. It means passing as the person you are purporting to be, because of the reflexive justification you’ve done.
Garfinkel argues that this process allows a person to become something whether or not they started out with that identity. This is not the case of someone intentionally trying to disrupt social norms, like a drag artist. This is the case of someone coming to associate themselves with a particular identity construct and performing that identity. Consider the image below of people crossing the street in the middle of time square taken on August 3rd, 2008. Look at how each person presents slightly differently, reminiscent of what Garfinkel called everyday role-playing life.
Michel Foucault (1976/1978) gives us another way in which identity is restricted with ties to social roles. In his historical analysis, The History of Sexuality, Foucault discusses what he terms biopower: "an explosion of numerous and diverse techniques for achieving the subjugations of bodies and the control of populations” (p. 140). In other words, social and political institutions create laws and standards that restrict our bodies from being able to perform free interpretations of our identities. For example, there are laws and restrictions on immigration, abortion, homosexuality and gay marriage, and even on whether or not clothing must be worn. Historically, biopower has been applied to interracial marriage, slavery, and immigration. Social institutions also enforce biopower, even without the legal restrictions. Consider dress codes and approved appearances for participation and membership in restrictive clubs and societies.
We can resist biopower and, for Foucault, resistance will eventually lead to social change. Foucault points out that these laws and restrictions constantly change, and are tied to temporal or temporary concerns. This means that these patterns are not permanent, and therefore are changeable given the right impetus and recognition. The challenge, according to Foucault, is getting the awareness of these restrictions out, because we have often been desensitized to this form of social control and accept it as normal unquestioningly. Consider the following resistance to biopower, especially in the larger political context of the past decade.
Resistance, over time, can change culture and reactions to perceptions of bio-power.
Pierce Bourdieu (1990) also gives us a means of exploring identities, and how they are confined to social norms. Bourdieu argues that humans repeat behaviors habitually, creating a performance space of habitas. Habitas refers to acquired and durable habits that act as unconscious forms of conditioning. These habits keep repeating from childhood into adulthood, generating new layers of the performances. Thus, gendered performance is not arbitrary, but the result of accumulated habits and perceptions that function as a type of second nature. Identity is literally embodied in the habitas, through performance. “It is not hard to imagine the weight that the opposition between masculinity and femininity must bring to bear on the construction of self-image and world-image when this opposition constitutes the fundamental principle of division of the social and the symbolic world” (p. 78).
References
Altman, I., & Taylor, D. A. (1973). Social penetration: The development of interpersonal relationships. Oxford, England: Holt, Rinehart & Winston.
Bauman, R. (1989). American folklore studies and social transformation: A performance-centered perspective. Text and Performance Quarterly, 9, 3, 175-184.
Bordieu, P. (1990). The logic of practice. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press. In R. Nice, (Trans.). Original work published 1980.
Burke, K. (1969). A grammar of motives. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Collins, P.H. (1989). The social construction of Black feminist thought. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 14(4), 745-773.
Darwin, C. (1859). On the origin of species by means of natural selection, or the preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life. London: John Murray.
de Saussure, F. (1959). Course in general linguistics. (W. Baskin, trans.). New York: Philosophical Library. Original work published 1916.
Du Bois, W.E.B. (1903). The souls of Black Folk: Essays and sketches. Chicago: A.C. McClurg & Co.
Fiegl, H. (1958). The 'mental' and the 'physical'. In H. Feigl, M. Scriven, & G. Maxwell, (eds.), Concepts, Theories and the Mind-Body Problem (Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science, Volume 2), Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.
Foucault, M. (1978). The history of sexuality, vol. 1. New York: Random House. R. Hurley (Trans.). Original work published 1976.
Freud, S. (1927). The ego and the id. (J. Riviere, trans.). London: L&V Woolf: Institute of Psycho-Analysis. Original work published 1923.
Garfinkel, H. (1967). Studies in ethnomethodology. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
Geertz, C. (1973). The interpretation of cultures. New York: Basic Books.
Goffman, E. (1956). The presentation of self in everyday life. Edinburgh, UK: University of Edinburgh.
Hall, S. (1973). Encoding and decoding in the television discourse. Birmingham: Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies.
Hall, S. (1974). The television discourse - encoding and decoding. Education and Culture, 25, 8-14.
Harding, S. (1986). The science question in feminism. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
Hartsock, N. (1983). The Feminist Standpoint: Developing the ground for a specifically feminist historical materialism, in S. Harding, & M.B. Hintikka (eds.), Discovering reality: Feminist perspectives on epistemology, methodology, and the philosophy of science, (pp. 283-310). Dordrecht, NL: Reidel Publishing Company.
Hofstadter, R. (1944). Social Darwinism in American thought, 1860-1915. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press.
Irigaray, L. (1999). When our lips speak together. In J. Price., & M. Shildrick. (Eds.), (pp. 82-90). Feminist theory and the body: A reader. New York: Routledge. Original work published 1977.
Jameson, F. (1990). Late Marxism: Adorno, or the persistence of the dialectic. New York: Verso.
Levi-Strauss, C. (1979). The effectiveness of symbols. In W. Lessa, & E. Vogt, (Eds.) The reader in comparative religions, (pp. 318-327). New York: Harper and Row.
Marx, K. (1907). Captial: A critique of political economy, F. Engels, (Ed.)., E. Untermann, (Trans.). Chicago: Charles H. Kerr & Co. Original work published 1867.
Place, U.T. (1956). Is consciousness a brain process? British Journal of Psychology, 47(1), 44-50.
Tajfel, H., & Turner, J. C. (1979). An integrative theory of intergroup conflict. The social psychology of intergroup relations, 33(47), 74.
Turner, V. (1982). From ritual to theatre. New York: PAJ Publications.
