The Russian Collective Social Identity as a Platform for a Special System of Power: “Putinism”

Identity theory (IT) and social identity theory (SIT) are eminent research programs from sociology and psychology, respectively. We test collective identity as a point of convergence between the two programs. Collective identity is a subtheory of SIT that pertains to activist identification. Collective identity maps closely onto identity theory’s group/social identity, which refers to identification with socially situated identity categories. We propose conceptualizing collective identity as a type of group/social identity, integrating activist collectives into the identity theory model. We test this conceptualization by applying identity theory hypotheses to the “vegan” identity, which is both a social category and part of an active social movement. Data come from comments on two viral YouTube videos about veganism. One video negates prevailing meanings of the vegan identity. A response video brings shared vegan identity meanings back into focus. Identity theory predicts that nonverifying identity feedback elicits negative emotion and active behavioral response, while identity verification elicits positive emotion and an attenuated behavioral response. We test these tenets using sentiment analysis and word counts for comments across the two videos. Results show support for identity theory hypotheses as applied to a collective social identity. We supplement results with qualitative analysis of video comments. The findings position collective identity as a bridge between IT and SIT, demonstrate innovative digital methods, and provide theoretical scaffolding for mobilization research in light of emergent technologies and diverse modes of activist participation.

Previous studies have shown an increasing preference for online communication within the autistic advocacy community. Yet, little is known about how online communication facilitates the formation of autistic identity. This qualitative study examined online autobiographical narratives about repetitive and restricted behaviors-specifically "stimming"-produced by autistic adults. The primary goal of this study was to investigate how the production of, and online interactions around, these narratives functioned as collaborative resources for empowered autistic identities. Nine blog posts were located that contained autobiographical narratives related to stimming and were analyzed using discourse analysis. Analysis revealed that individual and collective identities were negotiated within narratives through: (1) situating the self in relation to other story characters and the reader in varying ways and (2) connecting the autistic community and solidifying collective ideologically aligned voices. Online blog spaces facilitated the emergence and construction of empowered individual and collective identities for autistic individuals. Future research should continue to focus on how autistic individuals form relationships, create advocacy communities, and cultivate empowered identities within online spaces. Why was this study done and what was the purpose of this study?: More autistic individuals are using the internet to communicate, and research has shown that online communication can benefit autistic individuals in various ways. However, there is a lack of understanding of how online communication is related to autistic identity. We examined how autistic bloggers' stories about their stimming experiences contributed to individual and collective autistic identities. Stimming refers to repetitive body movements, movements of objects, and other repetitive and restricted behavior and is considered one of two core features of an autism diagnosis. Although some stakeholders such as educators or parents have tried to get rid of these repetitive movements because they believe that stimming is not an appropriate behavior, autistic and other neurodiversity advocates assert that stimming is beneficial for autistic individuals and is important for developing an autistic identity.What did we do?: We examined nine blog posts written by autistic bloggers using a method referred to as discourse analysis. In each blog post that we analyzed, the author shares their experiences about stimming. Discourse analysis is a method used to explore how people use language to build meaning, including the formation of social identities. Therefore, particular attention was paid to how the bloggers told the narrative (i.e., specific word choices to describe characters within the narrative and verb tense).What were the results and implications of the study?: We found that by sharing stories about their stimming experience in the context of blog posts, autistic individuals developed empowered individual and collective autistic identities and challenged dominant and neurotypical social norms. Also, within online space, autistic individuals formed social relationships and connections that contributed to a collective identity. More research on how autistic individuals develop supportive relationships and form advocacy communities within online spaces is needed to promote emotional well-being and overall quality of life in this population.

The eudaemonic tradition asserts that life engagement, that is the pursuit of a meaningful way of living, is an important element of well-being. Self-identity theory posits that individuals’ identities significantly contribute to their sense of meaning and belonging, which in turn boost well-being. The present study aimed to establish the extent to which self-identities are predictors of well-being and whether they are subsumed within the life engagement construct. An opportunity sample of Singaporeans (n = 269) aged 18–35 (M = 23.88, SD = 4.52) completed the Aspects of Identity Questionnaire, Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Well-Being Scale and Life Engagement Test. Correlational analysis showed that personal, social, relational and collective identities were significantly associated with life engagement and well-being. However, multiple regressions demonstrated that life-engagement subsumed collective and relational identity almost completely, and also accounted for a significant amount of the variance in personal and social identities in the prediction of well-being, broadly supporting the eudaemonic model. It was shown that social and personal identities were predictors of well-being beyond life engagement, possibly because these identities satisfy some of psychological needs that promote various benefits that are independent of life engagement, yet still important for well-being. It is suggested that these differences in the salience of identity types to well-being may be indicative of changes in the sense of identity among young Singaporeans that have arisen as a result of social policy or possibly changes in the ways of identity expression in the Internet. The implications of the findings are discussed and recommendations made for future research.

The research subject refers to the theoretical perspectives of the identity of several authors – N. Sekulic, Z. Golubovic, B. Anderson, N. Djukic, E. Goffman, M. Castells, R. Watson, G. Small, Z. Bauman, S. Hall, V. Jerotic, R. Jenkins and A. Benoist. The search is for an answer to the question: Could priority be given to personal or social identity, according to importance? A noticeable research problem is the pluralism of conceptions that attach more importance to either individual or collective identity. The main hypothesis is that there is a false problem of non-complementarity of collective and personal identity, as well as an experiential connection (scientific law) between the political construction of collective identity and totalitarianism. The scientific goals are: 1) to describe the identity and the process of its creation; 2) to classify and explain the difference between personal and collective identity, with an emphasis on the integrative point of view of Golubovic and Jenkins on the complementarity between them; 3) to anticipate the experiential connection between the political construction of collective identity and totalitarianism due to the exclusion of Others from the constructed identity pattern, in order to establish complete state-political (party) control over all dimensions of everyday life beyond States. The methods of (descriptive and comparative) analysis, deduction, synthesis, induction, case studies and content analysis of identity conceptions based on a simple classification (significant - less significant type of identity) (Kukic & Markic, 2006: 217) and desk research will be used. The results of qualitative research are knowledge about identity, its types, its construction and the consequences of identity engineering, which were obtained through secondary, qualitative data (Kothari, 2004; Dale, Wathan & Higgins, 2008) during 'research in the library' (Kuba & Koking, 2004: 90) on bibliographic units from an abstracted sample.

Social identity processes play a crucial role in the dynamics of protest, whether as antecedents, mediators, moderators, or consequences. Yet, identity did not always feature prominently in the social or political psychology of protest. This has changed—a growing contingent of social and political psychologists is involved now in studies of protest behavior, and in their models the concept of identity occupies a central place. Decades earlier students of social movements had incorporated the concept of collective identity into their theoretical frameworks. The weakness of the social movement literature on identity and contention, though, was that the discussion remained predominantly theoretical. Few seemed to bother about evidence. Basic questions such as how collective identity is formed and becomes salient or politicized were neither phrased nor answered. Perhaps social movement scholars did not bother too much because they tend to study contention when it takes place and when collective identities are already formed and politicized. Collective identity in the social movement literature is a group characteristic in the Durkheimian sense. Someone who sets out to study that type of collective identity may look for such phenomena as the group’s symbols, its rituals, and the beliefs and values its members share. Groups differ in terms of their collective identity. The difference may be qualitative, for example, being an ethnic group rather than a gender group; or quantitative, that is, a difference in the strength of collective identity. Social identity in the social psychological literature is a characteristic of a person. It is that part of a person’s self-image that is derived from the groups he or she is a member of. Social identity supposedly has cognitive, evaluative, and affective components that are measured at the individual level. Individuals differ in terms of social identity, again both qualitatively (the kind of groups they identify with) and quantitatively (the strength of their identification with those groups). The term “collective identity” is used to refer to an identity shared by members of a group or category. Collective identity politicizes when people who share a specific identity take part in political action on behalf of that collective. The politicization of collective identity can take place top-down (organizations mobilize their constituencies) or bottom-up (participants in collective action come to share an identity). In that context causality is an issue. What comes first? Does identification follow participation, or does participation follow identification?

Identity is a process in which self-perception is formed through the groups and culture of which individuals are members, as well as their internal inquiries about who they are. In this respect, personal, social and collective identity types draw attention in the literature. It is known that the achievement of individuals in identity integrity increases well-being. In this context, it was aimed to investigate the effects of personal, social and collective identity on mental well-being in this study. This study was carried out in accordance with the correlational pattern, one of the quantitative research designs. The research group of the study consisted of 341 (254 female, 87 male) university students between the ages of 18-30 (mean = 20.93). Personal Information Form, Identity Questionnaire and Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Well-Being Scale Short Form were used as data collection tools in the study. According to correlation analysis, there was a positive relationship between mental well-being and personal identity, social identity, and collective identity. According to structural equation model analysis, it was found that personal identity and collective identity positively and significantly predict mental well-being, but the effect of social identity on mental well-being was not significant. The results are discussed in the context of identity and well-being literature.

The Relationship between Early Maladaptive Schemas and Aspects of Identity in Obesity

With the development of an integrated cross-disciplinary framework to study workplace identity construction, the current theoretical discussion on workplace identity construction is extended—first, by focusing on intersectionality as theoretical lens and methodology in our thinking about workplace identity, highlighting the significance of an individual’s intersections of social locations in the workplace embedded in socio-historical and political contexts, and second, by focusing on the influence of national culture and societal landscapes as important macro contextual factors, adding a super-group level and a cross-cultural perspective on how individuals navigate their identities at work. Using an intersectional-identity-cultural conceptualization of workplace identity formation elucidates the personal, social identity, sub-group, group, and super group level of influences on identity formation. It focuses on the interplay between individual, relational, collective, and group identity, and emphasizes social identity as the bridge between personal identity and group identity. It highlights the multiplicity, simultaneity, cross cutting, intersecting, as well as differing prominence and power differences of social identities based on differing contexts. It illustrates the relatively stable yet fluid nature of individual (intra-personal and core) identity as it adapts to the environment, and the constant changing, co-constructed, negotiated, and re-negotiated nature of relational (inter-personal), collective identity (social identity) as it gets produced and re-produced, shaped and reshaped by both internal and external forces, embedded in socio-historical-political workplace contexts. Understanding the interplay of the micro-level, individual (agency), relational, and collective identity levels (social construction), nested in the meso level structures of domination, and group dynamics in the workplace (control regulation/political) in its macro level societal landscape context (additional control regulation) will help us to understand the cognitive sense-making processes individuals engage in when constructing workplace identities. This understanding can help to create spaces where non-normative individuals can resist, disrupt, withdraw, or refuse to enact the limited accepted identities and can create alternative discourse or identity possibilities.

Education and Training Award (1997) / Prix de l'education et de la formation (1997)AbstractThere are groups in society that experience profound social problems including widespread academic underachievement. This discouraging profile applies to Native people, African Americans, and certain Latino groups, notably Mexican Americans and Puerto Ricans.I argue that cultural difference theories, in the form of genetics, cultural deficit, and cultural discontinuity, are incomplete and misguided. A theory of is proposed that focuses on collective identity as the primary psychological process, even taking precedence over self-esteem.Intergroup processes are applied to explain the problems confronting society's most disadvantaged groups. Specifically, the intergroup power differential between societal groups is explored, leading to a theory of valueless colonialism. It is the effects of valueless colonialism that leads to the destruction of collective identity for certain groups. The consequences of a poorly defined collective identity are difficulties with personal identity and self-esteem. Social problems and academic underachievement are the visible manifestations.North America is the envy of the world: a land of opportunity and plenty that prides itself on confronting openly any aberrations of justice that might disadvantage members of a particular social group. But even as mainstream society applauds itself for initiating steps toward social equality, front-line educators and social service providers are quietly whispering. Their voices are loud, but appear as whispers to mainstream social scientists and policy makers who are not engaged in, to quote the jargon, active listening. The front-line voices are disquieting because they tell us that despite the politics of inclusion, there remain certain societal groups that are profoundly disadvantaged: Native people, African Americans, and certain Latino groups. Exceptional cases of achievement notwithstanding, these groups suffer from widespread academic underachievement and pervasive social dysfunction, and their plight cries out for immediate attention.Such devastating inequalities fall squarely in the domain of social psychology, and yet to date, no explicit theory has been offered to address this pressing inequality. This is not to suggest that all social psychological theory is irrelevant, but only that basic processes have not been directed at understanding the predicament of society's most disadvantaged.The present paper outlines a theory designed to explain the social reality of society's most disadvantaged. It is offered in the firm belief that theory is necessary to serve as a guide to both empirical research and social policy. The pivotal explanatory concept for the present theory is collective identity. My concept of collective identity builds on two diverse traditions on the social psychology of the self. First, it incorporates traditional notions of self-esteem, but concludes that the importance of this evaluative component of the self has been exaggerated. Second, it builds on an important distinction between personal and social identity, but argues for the primacy of social, or collective, identity. The concept of collective identity is then applied to a reformulation of current theories of colonialism that I label valueless colonialism. I will argue that challenges to collective identity in the form of valueless colonialism are key to understanding the academic and social problems confronting society's most disadvantaged groups.In order to set the stage for a social psychological analysis involving collective identity and valueless colonialism, it is necessary to, first, briefly document group differences in academic underachievement, and second, review current theories.Group Differences in AchievementIn order to address the question of group-based academic achievement, it is important to review not only which groups tend to underachieve, but also those which tend to excel. …

Understanding visitors' retrospective perceptions in museums as they connect objects with their personal identities and life stories, as well as their collective social identities, is of considerable interest to the museum field. This study employed a multiple case narrative methodology to understand the common perceptual themes of post‐World War II Japanese society between 1955 and 1970 (Shōwa 30–45) held by older Japanese adults following their visit to a Shōwa‐era social history museum. From an inductive analysis ofn = 29 face‐to‐face interviews, five sustaining characteristic themes emerged which were later interpreted through the historical backdrop of the period together with Carstensen's socioemotional selectivity theory (SST) to provide deeper interpretation of the themes. Through their museum experiences, the visitors recalled a society characterized by; (1) close human relationships; (2) strong values and morals; (3) freedom, openness, and peace; (4) struggles and poverty, which could be overcome with patient effort; and, (5) hopes and dreams. These themes were key to the visitors' own identity and values – both personal and collective. This study contributes to a broader understanding of the power of museum experiences to evoke strong nostalgic recollections by Japanese citizens of their unique personal and collective identities, and the characteristics their retrospective memories from the perspective of the present day vantage point. It speaks to the power of the museum, not as a learning or knowledge acquisition experience, but rather in its power to affirm both personal and collective identity and the values that were retrospectively important for these visitors looking back.

In this article I explore some of the changes that have occurred in the East‐Timorese community in Melbourne following independence. The focus of the paper is on the process of identification and how there has been a move from a collective identity towards social identity. Through contemporary anthropological conceptualisations of (collective) identity and Pierre Bourdieu's concepts of habitus and social field, I explore how divergence in pre‐independence activism has led to parallel experiences of lost community and renewed feelings of belonging, and how the community is gradually moving from a focus on the homeland towards an emphasis on the community in exile.

IntroductionThis study analyzes the experience of participating in the 2023 Carnaval de Negros y Blancos, a festive event that emphasizes southwestern Colombia’s African, Andean, and European traditions.MethodsWe surveyed a total of 163 participants, including dancers (n = 73, 44.79%), players (n = 47, 28.83%), and other artists (n = 43, 26.33%). Questions were asked about participation (type of role, number of days at the festival) and the quality of the experience according to the neo-Durkheimian model of collective gatherings (situated social identity, perceived shared attention and behavioral synchrony, fusion of personal and collective identity, perceived emotional synchrony, positive personal emotions, self-transcendent emotions, including awe, and experience of self-transcendence). The outcome variables were parochial altruism, identification with the community, the national, and humanity.ResultsThe participation experience was associated with all outcomes. The data supports that quality of participation in the event or collective effervescence, controlling for sociodemographic variables and intensity of participation, was associated to communal and national identification, but also to superordinate identification with all of humanity. Awe felt during Carnaval de Negros y Blancos correlates with the quality of experience, with social identification, and with superordinate identification with all of humanity. Mediation analyses show that collective effervescence influences community identity and parochial altruism through awe, but does not influence national or all of humanity’s identity.DiscussionWe discuss why a local multicultural event partially reinforces superordinate identities, the limitations of the study, and our research approaches.

PurposeThe Italian government addressed the first wave of its COVID-19 outbreak with a series of social restrictions and calculative practices, all branded with the slogan #istayathome. The hashtag quickly went viral, becoming both a mandate and a mantra and, as the crisis played out, we witnessed the rise of the Italian social movement #istayathome. This study examines how the government's calculative practices led to #istayathome and the constituents that shaped this social movement.Design/methodology/approachThe authors embrace social movement theory and the collective identity perspective to examine #istayathome as a collective action and social movement. Using passive netnography, text mining and interpretative text analysis enhanced by machine learning, the authors analysed just over 350,000 tweets made during the period March to May 2020, each brandishing the hashtag #istayathome.FindingsThe #istayathome movement gained traction as a response to the Italian government's call for collective action. Thus, people became an active part of mobilising collective responsibility, enhancing the government's plans. A collective identity on the part of the Italian people sustained the mass mobilisation, driven by cohesion, solidarity and a deep cultural trauma from COVID-19's dramatic effects. Popular culture and Italy's long traditions also helped to form the collective identity of #istayathome. This study found that calculative practices acted as a persuasive technology in forming this collective identity and mobilising people's collective action. Numbers stimulated the cognitive, moral and emotional connections of the social ties shaping collective identity and responsibility. Thus, through collective identity, calculative practices indirectly influenced mass social behaviors and the social movement.Originality/valueThis study offers a novel theoretical perspective and empirical knowledge to explain how government power affects people's culture and everyday life. It unveils the sociological drivers that mobilise collective behaviors and enriches the accounting literature on the effects of calculative practices in managing emergencies. The study contributes to theory by providing an understanding of how calculative practices can influence collective behaviors and can be used to construct informal networks that go beyond the government's traditional formalities.

With an overview of identity as a dominant theme in Bahram Beyzaie's artistic creations, this article examines two of his, arguably, most political plays: Chahar Sanduq (Four Boxes, 1967) and Khaterat-e Honarpisheh-ye Naqsh-e Dovvom (Memoirs of the Actor in a Supporting Role, 1981) to examine his reflections on the nature, function, and vulnerability of collective social, political, and cultural identity in authoritarian societies. Both plays illustrate that the tyrannical rulers of such societies perpetuate their dominance over their subjects through exploiting the individual's self-interests, thereby isolating him and stripping him of collective and, inevitably, individual identity. Beyzaie's allegorical and rather abstract approach in these plays contributes to conveying a less topical, culture-specific, and more universal message.

This article traces the emergence and development of a student political identity in post-colonial East Pakistan as it coalesced around the Bengali Language Movement (Bhasha Andolan). It further argues that the collective student political identity was directly tied to the development of the Dhaka University campus as a contentious movement space. The politicisation of the students and the campus operated in a mutually constitutive dynamic in which students both defined, and were defined by, their physical control of the campus space and in spatialised ritual practices memorialising deceased student activists as political martyrs. This case study provides a salient example of the interconnected relationship of urban space, collective identity, and social movements.