Creating an Online Self: Developing Virtual Identity in Online Group Interaction Spaces

Online groups have pervasively become platforms for association and interaction. Hence, it is important to study how interactions on these virtual groups affect the selves of individual group members, and whether communication activities in these groups lead to formation of virtual identities of active members which is distinguishable from their non-mediated identity. To analyze the development of virtual identity, four focus group discussions of ten youthful participants each, who were members of various online groups, were conducted and eight social media experts were interviewed. Concepts of Communication Theory of Identity (CTI) and Uses and Gratification Theory were employed to analyze collected data in assessing how online group interactions that involve fashioning identity, impression management, anonymity and pro-social behavior lead to formation of online group members virtual identity. We first interrogate how these online groups shape behavior online by interrogating the individual group member’s conversations and actions online and paralleling them with their conversations and actions offline. Second, using the three-dimensional identity formation model (Crocetti, Rubini, & Meeus, 2008), we crystalize how these online interactions and behavior cause individual group member’s to feel, think and understand themselves in ways that promote a unique online-self, which we refer to as the virtual identity.

Ethnic Media and Multi-Dimensional Identity: Pacific Audiences’ Connections With Māori Media

This article explores issues of identity, hybridity, and media in an Aotearoa/New Zealand context by analyzing Pacific audiences’ affinity for and use of indigenous Māori media. It makes the case for broadening ethnic categorizations in media practice and scholarship to better account for multi-ethnic audiences’ identities and practices. And, by exploring Pacific audiences’ talk about a shared “Brown” identity, it suggests that Pacific peoples, particularly New Zealand-born youth, resort to a racialized “Brown” identity as a way to connect to multiple others in the New Zealand context—using Māori media as a “third space” of identity negotiation to do so. Finally, it argues for more overtly situated and localized research and theory-building to further tease out the uniquely South Pacific elements of these emergent identity practices.

The Multi-Dimensionality of Being-in-the-world

This paper uses the phenomenon of Post-Traumatic Stress flashbacks to illuminate a phenomenology of identity. By taking a phenomenological approach to flashbacks, I delineate the fragility and, what I consider to be, the multi-dimensionality of identity and, correspondingly, the multi-dimensionality of the world (i.e., the contexture of intelligibility opened up when Dasein projects onto a multi-dimensional identity). When severe flashbacks occur, the ontological experience may not seem intelligible to das Man (i.e., the “they”) for the immediate illumination of the multi-dimensional aspect of being does not adhere to the “everydayness” of the world as articulated by das Man. This rapid shift in the world and the meaning of entities made possible within that world provides a significant illustration of the multi-dimensionality of identity. In other words, during a flashback a person’s vocation towards an identity, one whose visceral experience causes action, is an experience that does not coincide nor seem intelligible to the “everydayness” of Dasein. The multi-dimensionality of identity, however, allows entities to afford Dasein in intelligible ways. This state of being that retracts from the “everydayness” of das Man has drastic consequences for those who experience such a rapid shift. Here, I argue that flashbacks that occur are the result of the multi-dimensionality of Being-in-the-world.

Me, Myself, and Mobility: The Relevance of Region for Young Adults‘ Identity Development

As residential mobility is a common life event that particularly affects young adults, regional identity may be relevant for young adults. We therefore extended the three–dimensional identity model to the regional domain. The development of regional identity was studied using a prospective design over six months with a sample of 1,795 post–secondary graduates (71% female, mean age of 24.54 years), containing both movers and non–movers. Latent profile analyses and latent profile transition analyses revealed three main findings: First, solutions with four regional identity statuses—moratorium, searching moratorium, closure, and achievement—were found to be most interpretable. Second, the emergent statuses differed substantially in terms of Big Five personality traits and life satisfaction, as well as with moving experience. Third, the stability of identity status membership across a period of six months was highest for the non–movers group. Comparatively less stability across time was found for the movers, underscoring the relevance of transitions for identity development. Taken together, these findings show that even in a mobile world, region matters in identity development. Copyright © 2016 European Association of Personality Psychology

Developing the person-oriented approach: Theory and methods of analysis

The development of paradigms, or perspectives of research takes place at the level of theory, in the domain of methodology, and in the context of existing paradigms and perspectives. The development of the person-oriented approach has made considerable progress at the level of theory. In addition, the approach has found a large number of applications. Sterba and Bauer's Keynote Article has closed a gap by discussing methodological implications of the person-oriented approach. In particular, the authors have discussed whether and, if yes, how the tenets of the person-oriented approach can be tested using tools of applied statistics popular in current empirical psychological research. Continuing this discussion, this article focuses on recent developments in all three areas. First, the importance and the implications of the concept of dimensional identity are discussed. It is argued that dimensional identity needs to be established across time and individuals for comparisons to be valid, both in person-oriented and in variable-oriented research. Second, methods not covered in Sterba and Bauer's Keynote are discussed and their application is exemplified. One focus of this discussion is on configural frequency analysis, which allows researchers to make statements about particular cells or groups of cells in cross-classifications of categorical variables. Third, person-oriented research is compared to differential psychology. It is argued that the concept of dimensional identity represents the next step in the development of a psychological subdiscipline that allows one to consider that individuals differ and develop in unique ways. These differences not only manifest in means but in any parameter, including covariance structures, and they can also manifest in the differential meaningfulness of variables for the description of individuals.

Countable Amenable Identity Excluding Groups

A discrete group G is called identity excluding if the only irreducible unitary representation of G which weakly contains the 1-dimensional identity representation is the 1-dimensional identity representation itself. Given a unitary representation π of G and a probability measure μ on G, let Pμ denote the μ-average ∫π(g)μ(dg). The goal of this article is twofold: (1) to study the asymptotic behaviour of the powers , and (2) to provide a characterization of countable amenable identity excluding groups. We prove that for every adapted probability measure μ on an identity excluding group and every unitary representation π there exists and orthogonal projection Eμ onto a π-invariant subspace such that for every a ∈ supp μ. This also remains true for suitably defined identity excluding locally compact groups. We show that the class of countable amenable identity excluding groups coincides with the class of FC-hypercentral groups; in the finitely generated case this is precisely the class of groups of polynomial growth. We also establish that every adapted random walk on a countable amenable identity excluding group is ergodic.