Articles, Essays, and Ponderings
by Rob Kleine
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Freelance Scholar |
Susan Schultz Kleine Department of Marketing Bowling Green State University Bowling Green , OH 43403 |
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Articles, Essays, and Ponderings by Rob Kleine |
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Identity Disengagement Intra- and extra-identity factors may also initiate identity disengagement, or the process of reducing the importance of an identity in the self-concept. We distinguish two types of identity disengagement: latency and disposition. The person's intent distinguishes them.
Identity Disposition. Identity disposition describes the situation where an individual intends to purge an identity from his/her self-concept. The same factors that maintain an identity also act as barriers that inhibit disposing of that identity. One's identity-related social network may discourage one from ‘quitting.' One's assortment of identity-related possessions must be disposed of (e.g., a smoker ridding herself of smoking related possessions). Thus, identity-related possessions may also serve as a barrier to identity disposition, such as the legal, practical, or emotional difficulty of altering possession ownership after a divorce (McAlexander 1991).
An important feature of identity disposition is that the residual identity-related schemas will persist as part of the individual's life store; it becomes part of the life narrative as "what I have been, but am not now." It is an empirical question, however, how the schemas will look after identity disposition. It seems reasonable to propose that the identity schema for a dispossessed identity will contain an element of "someone I was, but am no longer." The circumstances precipitating the disposition may affect the emotional overtones associated with the schema. The identity schema may carry a flavor of nostalgia or shame, for example. The identity ideal schema may fuel regret if significant identity-development objectives remain unattained. The identity-schema might include dispositions of resignation, remorse, or frustration, or perhaps even relief to be freed from pursuing an unrealistic identity. Moreover, external representations of one's identity, that is, identity-related possessions, can be disposed of. Their emotional associations will reflect their status as being related to a disposed identity (Kleine, Kleine, and Allen 1995).
We propose that identity re-exploration, as occurs after identity disposition, follows the structure of the latency emergence path described below, with an important difference. Unlike the individual emerging from latency, the person re-exploring after identity disposition may not have an intact identity-enabling possession cluster. Yet, unlike the rookie, this person has an old and faded, but existing identity-schema that may guide consumption choices. Post-disposition identity re-acquisition requires further study. Latency Emergence Latency emergence describes the process through which an individual re-engages a latent identity. Identity emergence is interesting because, unlike an individual following the rookie path, the individual possesses well developed identity and identity-ideal schemas. The person is a veteran. The person has identity experience and probably has a considerable inventory of identity-enabling possessions. The individual re-engaging an identity after an extended latency period presents an especially interesting scenario, discussed next. Latency exit/identity re-entry. Consider, for example, an individual who activates a long latent identity of bicyclist. Just as cyclical or circumstantial factors may precipitate a latency phase, we propose that intra- and extra-identity cyclical and circumstantial factors may also spur the end of a latency phase. For example, assume the individual put cycling into latency because he moved and thus lost contact with the social network of other cyclists that supported that identity. Subsequently he replaced it with a "runner" identity. Now, coincident with a physical injury that suddenly inhibits him from running, he has a conversation with an acquaintance and is invited to go cycling, an activity that won't aggravate the injury. Re-discovery. This invitation affords the individual an opportunity to re-try the long latent identity. On approaching this re-trail, we propose that the individual will draw upon, and be guided by, the long latent identity schema. The individual will also draw upon his existing cycling-identity related possession cluster. This stands in contrast to the rookie start in which the individual lacks the relevant products and also lacks identity and identity-ideal schemas. Product styles may have evolved dramatically over the intervening latent phase. New products may have rendered old-standards obsolete by contemporary standards (e.g., the way ‘clipless' pedal systems have replaced metal toe-clips.). Brand meanings have changed, new techniques have emerged. In a way, on emerging from extended latency, the individual resembles Rip vanWinkle, awakening from his extended sleep. Like the trial phase for the rookie, re-trial is a time to explore one's interest in reconstructing the identity. Social-structural factors may ease or inhibit the individual's progress from re-discovery to re-construction.
It is an empirical question as to how the identity and identity-ideal schemas, or the associated possession clusters, adapt under reconstruction. Maintenance. We theorize that the maintenance phase, as experienced after latency emergence, is functionally similar to maintenance as described above. Disengagement. We have little reason to think that disengagement and dispossession of the re-explored identity will operate differently than under initial exploration, with one exception. It seems that the emotions one experiences upon need or decisions to disengage from an identity might reflect its "tried again" state. The preliminary model portrays the cycling of a social identity through the phases of (re)discovery, (re)construction, maintenance, disposition, and possible latency. Corresponding to each phase are changes in related self-schemata and consumption patterns. By drawing together symbolic interactionist identity-theory (Stryker 1980), with the concept of self-schemata from social cognition theory, the model portrays "middle-range" theorizing that lies somewhere in the middle between sociological and psychological approaches. Consumption is used to cultivate the self, but this is influenced by both internal and external, social structural influences; thus identity cultivation via consumption is an outside-in and inside-out process. How the model presented in this paper relates to expert/novice distinctions in cognitive social psychology or to adoption models is an empirical question. However, the various identity-related schemas discussed here may provide alternative conceptualizations of expertise. Also in need of empirical investigation, is the relative importance of internal factors (emotions) vs. external factors (social connections) that motivate identity evolution. Empirical investigation is needed to portray how the various identity-schemas actually do change through each stage of the identity life project and how those changes correspond with shifts in consumption patterns. |
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Andreasen, Alan R. (1984), "Life Status Changes and Changes in Consumer Preferences and Satisfaction," Journal of Consumer Research, 11 (December) 1984. Belk, Russell W. (1988), "Possessions and the Extended Self," Journal of Consumer Research, 15, 139-168. Callero, Peter L. (1985), "Role-Identity Salience," Social Psychology Quarterly, 48, 203-215. Celsi, Richard L., Randall L. Rose, and Thomas W. Leigh (1993), "An Exploration of High-Risk Leisure Consumption Through Skydiving," 20 (June), 1-23. Donnelly, Peter and Kevin Young (1988), "The Construction and Confirmation of Identity in Sport Subcultures," Sociology of Sport Journal 5, 223-240. Faber, Ronald J. and Thomas C. O'Guinn (1988), "Expanding the View of Consumer Socialization: A Nonutilitarian Mass-Mediated Perspective," in Research in Consumer Behavior, Vol, 3, Stamford, CT: JAI Press, 49-77. Hoelter, Jon W. (1984), "Relative effects of Significant Others on Self-Evaluation." Social Psychology Quarterly, 47, 255-262. Kegan, Robert (1982), The Evolving Self, Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press.
Kleine, Susan Schultz, Robert E. Kleine, III, and Chris T. Allen (1995), "How is a Possession ‘Me' or ‘Not Me?' Characterizing Types and an Antecedent of Material Possession Attachment," Journal of Consumer Research, 22 (December), 327-343. Marcus, Hazel (1977), "Self-Schemata and Information About the Self," Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 35 (February), 63-78. McAlexander, James H. (1991), "Divorce, the Disposition of the Relationship, and Everything," in Advances in Consumer Research, Vol. 18, eds. Rebecca H. Holman and Michael R. Solomon, Provo, UT: Association for Consumer Research, 43-48. Piliavin, Jane A., Peter L. Callero, and Dorcas E. Evans (1984), "Learning to Give to Unnamed Strangers: The Process of Commitment to Regular Blood Donation," in Development and Maintenance of Prosocial Behavior, ed. Ervin Staub, et al,. New York: Plenum, 471-492. Robertson, Thomas S. (1971), Innovative Behavior and Communication, New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston. Shouten, John W. (1991), "Selves in Transition: Symbolic Consumption in Personal Rites of Passage and Identity Reconstruction," Journal of Consumer Research, 17 (March), 412-425. ________ and James H. McAlexander (1995),"Subcultures of Consumption: an Ethnography of the New Bikers," Journal of Consumer Research, 22 (June), 43-61. Solomon, Michael R. (1983), "The Role of Products as Social Stimuli: A Symbolic Interactionism Perspective," Journal of Consumer Research, 10, 319-329. ________ (1988), "Mapping Product Constellations: A Social Categorization Approach to Consumption Symbolism," Psychology in Marketing, 5, 233-258.
Wicklund, Robert A. and Peter M. Golwitzer (1982), Symbolic Self-Completion, Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Young, Melissa Martin (1991), "Disposition of Possessions
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UT: Association for Consumer Research, 33-38.
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Identity
Latency. Latency describes a phase in which the individual does not
engage identity related activities or consumption behaviors and/or the
frequency with which they do so is materially reduced. A key attribute
of identity latency is that the individual intends to continue pursuing
the identity. We theorize there are two types of identity latency: cyclical
and circumstantial. Cyclical latency describes identities that rise and
fall in importance on a periodic basis. Bicycling, like many sports-based
identities, is often seasonal. The identity assumes maximum importance
during warm weather months. With cooler weather, the identity-related
activities diminish in frequency. Many of the facilitating possessions
may be placed in a dormant stage until the cycle begins again. Even though
the identity is in latency, elements of the supporting social structure
may persist. The cyclist may continue to consume cycling-related media,
for example. A cycling club may have winter meetings to think toward spring
renewal. Circumstantial latency describes latency precipitated by intra-
or extra-identity changes. An injury that prevents an individual from
cycling (intra-identity) or other temporary changes such as a pregnancy
that prevents cycling (extra-identity) illustrate such changes. A geographic
re-location that extracts the individual from the social-structural matrix
that supported their identity pursuits also illustrates a circumstantial
factor that may precipitate identity latency. A latency phase of extended
duration may lapse into disposition if the individual concludes "I
will never be this type of person again."
An
interesting disposition scenario, largely overlooked by consumer researchers,
occurs when an individual re-tries a dispossessed identity. Consider,
for example, a woman who decides she is ‘done with' having kids.
A common consequence of such a decision is to rid the house of all that
‘unnecessary' baby paraphernalia. Consider the identity-development
task this woman now faces on learning she is pregnant with another child.
She retains the identity and identity-ideal schemas of the mother identity,
yet those schemas reflect the belief that she was done having children.
And the woman must reassemble the requisite identity-enabling possessions.
Identity
re-construction. Reconstruction involves modifying the individual's
existing role and identity schemas to bring them up to date with contemporary
sub-cultural norms and practices. As other elements of the individual's
self concept may have changed dramatically during the latency stage, we
propose that identity re-construction will also reflect and accommodate
other identities in the self concept. An implication is that the way the
individual pursues the re-constructed identity may differ dramatically
from how the identity was pursued previously. A new identity ideal schema
will begin to develop.
Kleine,
Robert E., III, Susan Schultz Kleine, and Jerome B. Kernan (1993), "Mundane
Consumption and the Self: A Social-Identity Perspective," Journal
of Consumer Psychology, 2 (3), 209-235.
Stryker,
Sheldon (1980), Symbolic Interactionism, Menlo Park, CA: Benjamin/Cummings.