The Relationship Between Identity Importance and Identity Salience: Context Matters

Abstract

A perplexing finding in the identity literature is that the strength of the relationship between identity importance (also called “prominence” or “centrality”) and identity salience varies dramatically across studies, from near-zero to 0.63, even when the same role identities are examined. I argue that these findings may be due to the influence of the social contexts in which respondents have been asked to report the likelihood of invoking one or more of their valued role identities (i.e., identity salience). I use qualitative data from a study of community volunteers (N = 80) to show that the imagined context matters substantially for whether and when individuals will mention a highly important volunteer identity to another person at a first meeting. Specifically, conversational norms and situational appropriateness guided respondents’ readiness to bring up their volunteer identity when meeting people at a party or on vacation for the first time. These qualitative findings have implications for measuring salience in future quantitative work. Additionally, both role-identity theory (McCall and Simmons 1978) and identity theory (Stryker 1980), may need to incorporate an identity’s normative or situational appropriateness to better predict the likelihood that the identity will become salient in interaction. This possibility echoes a fundamental symbolic interactionist insight: Through imaginatively taking the role of the other, we anticipate and share our role partners’ reactions to our contemplated plans of action. Situationally appropriate role identities (i.e., plans of action) may be those that individuals are most likely to invoke, regardless of those identities’ personal importance.