Addressing the Problem of Cultural Anchoring

Abstract

One of the primary challenges in the study of culture and action is determining which cultural elements “anchor” (or influence) other elements. Notable attempts to address this problem include tool kit theory and dual-process models of culture and action. Insightful as these efforts are, they do not adequately explain action that crosscuts contexts, in part because they do not detail the specific types of cultural content that matter. This article draws on identity theory from sociological social psychology and a variety of perspectives from cultural sociology to propose an identity-based model of culture in action that begins to address these shortcomings. Past research supports the theory’s major claims, although additional work is required to fully verify the proposed sequence of situated action.

Keywords

identity theory tool kit theory action theory culture

This article is a synthetic effort to address a longstanding problem in the sociology of culture, which Swidler (2001:206) succinctly outlined in her book, Talk of Love: “[T]he biggest unanswered question in the sociology of culture is whether and how some cultural elements control, anchor, or organize others.” More simply, which cultural elements influence others, either directly or indirectly? With regard to action, several treatments of this question have yielded important insights, including the importance of both cultural competencies (i.e., knowledge and skills) and motivations for behavior (Swidler 1986; Vaisey 2009). However, these approaches often focus on general mechanisms of cultural influence while leaving the cultural content involved unspecified. This omission makes it difficult to understand cross-context consistencies in action, in part because such consistencies rely on activation of the same cultural elements across situations.

I argue that identities are a type of cultural content that provides traction on the problem of cultural anchoring. I propose an identity-based model of action that combines elements from multiple perspectives including “tool kit” theory, work on cultural capital, and identity theory (a term I use to encompass both the structural work of Stryker and his colleagues as well as the control model associated with Burke and Stets; Bourdieu 1990; Burke and Stets 2009; Stryker 2008; Swidler 2008). Given the vast amount of research these traditions represent, my synthesis is intentionally selective, aimed at using the strengths of each to address the problem of cultural anchoring. I begin by discussing prior attempts at addressing the anchoring problem and how they fail to provide an adequate answer to the question of cross-context consistencies in action, and then outline the theoretical claims on which my model is built. I then describe how the model unfolds in concrete contexts and illustrate the plausibility of the model by examining prior empirical evidence for its claims.

Past Treatments of Cultural Anchoring

The problem of cultural anchoring—that is, the issue of which cultural elements control others—is essentially a question of causal priority, and different scholars have proposed different answers to it. At midcentury, functionalists argued that internalized culture in the form of goals and values motivates action (e.g., Parsons and Shils 1951), but this perspective came under heavy fire and soon fell to one that emphasized external culture as embodied in social structures (e.g., Blake and Davis 1964; Wrong 1961).

In a 1986 paper, Swidler offered a third solution, one that blended the internal and external elements of culture and has come to be known as “tool kit” theory. Swidler argued that people have internalized a wide variety of culturally acquired knowledge and competencies that allow them to navigate the social landscape (see also Bourdieu 1990). At its most basic level, this theory suggests that people must act using the cultural competencies that they already have (Lizardo and Strand 2010; Swidler 2001)—a person cannot become a professional basketball player if he has never played the game, nor can a person succeed in academia if she has not learned to speak the intellectual lingo. Swidler argued that people like to feel competent and tend to seek out activities for which they already have the cultural equipment; after all, using the skills one already has is easy and efficient (Swidler 1986, 2008). A tool kit perspective also implies that cultural knowledge is not systematically organized at the individual level and therefore cannot provide coherent reasons for action (see also Geertz 1973). Instead, action depends on external structures (e.g., situational cues) that activate the cultural competencies appropriate to particular contexts. This creates consistency of action in the absence of a coherent cultural model at the micro level (Lizardo and Strand 2010).

The tenets of tool kit theory are elegant in their simplicity, but as Swidler (2008) noted, they do not fully address the problem of cultural anchoring. The claim that people use cultural “tools” to construct lines of action suggests how action is created without specifying why action is undertaken in the first place. That is, tool kit theory focuses on the cultural means of action without much exploration of the motivations—cultural or otherwise—that move actors toward one end or another (Vaisey 2010). Emphasizing the power of external structures to cue action provides a partial solution, but accounting for action that crosscuts contexts becomes problematic since people without contexts are generally not seen as motivated actors.

Dual-process models offer a different solution to the problem of cultural anchoring—one that gives more scope to individual motivations (Bourdieu 1990; Gross 2009; Vaisey 2009). Although the details of these models vary, all adopt some form of the argument that cognitive processing occurs at two levels: one fast and effortless, the other slow and deliberate, and that behavior is primarily guided by culture accessible to the fast system. Such culture is automatically activated in relevant situations, making it prior to observable cultural expressions such as talk or action. It can include the knowledge and skills highlighted in tool kit theory, but it can also encompass motivating constructs like attitudes, values, and moral worldviews (Gross 2009; Lizardo and Strand 2010; Vaisey 2009; Vaisey and Lizardo 2010). Dual-process models thus address the question of cultural anchoring by fleshing out the details of how culture shapes action, but also by providing an explanation for why people act.

Focusing on cognition allows dual-process models to attain a high level of generality and a wide range of applicability, but this comes at the cost of understanding the role cultural content plays in behavior. By content, I mean specific, culturally shaped constructs such as values, attitudes, identities, particular skill sets (e.g., conversational skills), and so on. Eliding content becomes problematic when trying to understand cross-context consistencies in action, which require us to know not just how or why people act, but also when. At first glance, dual-process models seem promising, for they identify an innate processing capacity that operates across situations. However, processes must always operate using concrete content, and universal machinery does little to solve the problem if different content is activated in each situation. So what determines which contents are activated?

Lizardo and Strand (2010) suggest that activation occurs when a match is detected between stored cultural content and the demands of the situation. While this may seem to be a simple case of situations cueing culture, in reality, detecting a match is heavily shaped by the characteristics of the cultural content that a person has internalized. In part, this is because content can affect how situations are perceived (Burke and Stets 2009; Mead 1934). Self-definitional values, for instance, can direct information seeking (Verplanken and Holland 2002, study 3), and subjectively important identities are processed more quickly, guide recall more effectively, and are more resistant to disconfirmation than unimportant identities (Markus 1977). This may be because subjectively important constructs are more cognitively accessible or likely to be activated from memory (Bizer and Krosnick 2001; Fabrigar, MacDonald, and Wegener 2005; Schwartz 2010). Furthermore, the more often a construct is activated—whether automatically or through conscious effort—the more accessible it becomes (Berger and Mitchell 1989; Glasman and Albarracín 2006). If called up frequently enough, cultural constructs may grow chronically accessible, or nearly always active (Forster and Liberman 2007). In extreme cases, cross-context consistency in action might have little to do with matching internal culture to the situation and be guided largely by chronically accessible constructs. In either case, by neglecting content, dual-process models necessarily provide only part of the story and thereby limit explanations of action.

I argue that identities are a type of cultural content that advances understanding of cross-context consistency in action. Interestingly, Swidler herself proposed identity as a possible solution to the problem of cultural anchoring, but to my knowledge neither she nor anyone else within the culture and action tradition has pursued it (Swidler 2001, 2008). Many other scholars in cultural sociology have discussed identity since Swidler wrote, and a fair number have referenced her work, but almost invariably they focus on how culture is used to construct identity and not why people go to the trouble in the first place (e.g., Tabatabai and Linders 2011; Tavory and Goodman 2009). That is, they examine how “cultural elements” such as cultural scripts and repertoires organize identities, but they do not adequately consider the possibility that identities might themselves be cultural elements that can “control, anchor, or organize” culture in turn (see also Swidler 2001:206).

In what follows, I present an identity-based model of culture in action to deal with the problem of cultural anchoring. This model draws on identity theory from social psychology as well as insights from the sociology of culture. It adds concrete cultural content to the discussion (identities) and offers a plausible set of mechanisms for understanding both situationally dependent and cross-contextual forms of action. Despite these advantages, I do not pretend that this model is a complete description of the connections between culture and action, nor that it fully encapsulates past work; my objective is more modest. Rather than present a comprehensive theory, I aim to integrate the strengths of multiple research traditions to lay out an initial model, without attempting to harmonize all the details of the various paradigms on which I draw.

Components of the Model

People Have Identities and Try to Behave in Identity-Consistent Ways

Scholars across disciplines have argued that identities are important predictors of action (Akerlof and Kranton 2000; Hogg, Terry, and White 1995; Stryker 1980). Given its use in so many domains, the term identity has taken on many shades of meaning, but most agree that identities are self-understandings, meanings that people incorporate into their conceptions of who they are. Drawing on the work of early thinkers like James, Cooley, and Mead, symbolic interactionists have argued that these self-meanings are learned through interaction with others and often widely agreed upon—that is, they are cultural. Identity theorists assume that people act to maintain identity meanings (Burke and Stets 2009). Thus, a mother will try to act in a way consistent with her understanding of how a mother should behave, a Baptist in a way consistent with his understandings of what it means to be a Baptist, and so forth.

Evidence suggests that identity processes operate as a cybernetic control system. People seek consistency between their identities and their actions, and when inconsistency arises, they alter their behavior to try and correct it (Burke and Stets 2009; Robinson 2007; Swann, Pelham, and Krull 1989). At the most basic level this means that when people enter situations they enact behaviors that are consistent with their identities (e.g., professors profess, dentists drill teeth). However, if perceived feedback from the situation does not confirm their identities, they will adjust their behaviors in an attempt to bring situational meanings back in line with the meanings held in their identities. For instance, an engineer whose project fails might seek out another project where she can prove her technical prowess, and a gang member who is seen as “soft” might commit acts of violence to repair his reputation. To relate this to the problem of cultural anchoring, the fact that people act to verify their identities indicates that they will apply their cultural skills and repertoires in ways that are consistent with their identities, suggesting that self-understandings are a motivational force that organizes other cultural elements, as Swidler hinted. It also is consistent with habitus-based theories that view culture as internally organized (in this case into identities) and motivating (Bourdieu 1990; Lizardo and Strand 2010; Vaisey 2009).

Situations and Identities Interact to Activate Identities

Similar to dual-process models, most (if not all) theorists assume that identities are activated when situational cues match meanings held by the actor.¹ For instance, a woman’s doctor identity is likely to become active when entering the hospital where she works, while her mother identity will probably be activated by seeing her son. Whether or not an identity is seen as appropriate to a context (and thus likely to be cued by it) depends on the wider culture in which it is embedded. For example, while the rise of the Religious Right made religious identity a viable locus of political action in the United States, for the Yoruba of Nigeria religion remained nonpoliticized (Laitin 1986). Still, cultural definitions of contexts are generally loose enough that they can accommodate many different identities—a person can be black, a woman, and a doctor simultaneously.

As I argued previously, detecting a match between situations and cultural content also depends on characteristics of the construct in question, particularly those characteristics that make the construct more cognitively accessible. In identity theory, the probability that an identity will be invoked in a given situation is a function of its salience, which is defined as “the readiness to act out an identity as a consequence of the identity’s properties as a cognitive structure or schema” (Stryker and Serpe 1994:17). The fact that salience is a “readiness” to act out an identity suggests some distance with actual behavior—that is, an identity can be called up but ultimately fail to have a noticeable influence on action.² Salience, then, is a measure of whether an identity is likely to be activated or, in other words, cognitively accessible. Identity theorists assume that activation can occur either automatically or through conscious effort (Burke and Stets 2009), but the interplay of identities, identity salience, and dual processes has yet to receive sustained theoretical or empirical attention. Consequently, I do not explicitly incorporate dual-process cognition into the model, although I discuss possible connections in the conclusion.

Identities are arranged in a salience hierarchy, with the most salient identities at the top. As with any accessible construct, identities that are higher in the salience hierarchy are more likely to be activated across contexts. In Stryker and Serpe’s (1994:18) terms, identity salience is “transsituational” and acts as a “‘personality’ variable carried by persons as they move across situations and respond in particular situations.” Serpe and Stryker (1987), for instance, found that students moving to college generally reconstructed social relationships in ways that maintained salient prior identities. This suggests that those identities remained active even after transitioning to the college environment.

The fact that both situations and salience influence identity activation suggests that people often have multiple identities active at the same time. Multiple active identities mean that individuals must try and verify several identities using just one sequence of behaviors. As identity theorists have argued, this process is facilitated to the extent that identities share meanings and is hampered when identities differ (Burke and Stets 2009). For example, an identity as a “follower” is likely much easier to verify simultaneously with being an “obedient son” than is an identity as a “leader.” In the former case, both identities could be verified through similar types of behavior (e.g., obedience to authority figures), while in the latter case identity-confirming behaviors diverge (e.g., following parental guidance vs. making your own decisions). The need to verify multiple identities means that when verification conflicts arise, people attempt to verify their most salient identities (Burke and Stets 2009).

Salient Identities Form a Core Self That Directs and Controls the Operation of Less Salient Identities

Because identities are arranged in a hierarchy, the most salient identities are at the top. To my knowledge, the implications of this have not been spelled out before, so I take a moment to do so here. Logically, hypersalient identities must be frequently (if not chronically) accessible, thereby giving continuity to perception and behavior across contexts. Because they are activated together, these identities are composed primarily of shared (or at least compatible) meanings, giving individuals a consistent, cross-situational sense of self. I will call this sense of self the core self (cf. MacKinnon and Heise 2010). That is, the core self is composed of a person’s most salient identities. Because people occupy different social positions and have different life experiences, the identities included in the core self can vary from person to person (cf. Stryker and Serpe 1982; Stryker, Serpe, and Hunt 2005).

The core self has important implications for the activation of other, less salient identities. Situations often leave wide latitude in defining which identities are appropriate, so individuals can select from a number of identities to find those that are most congruent with their core self. In terms of cultural anchoring, highly salient identities are cultural elements that anchor how secondary, more situationally bound identities are deployed.³ The core self therefore offers a straightforward answer to the question of cross-context action: people have relatively stable self-perceptions that they seek to verify in any situation.

Resources Are Necessary to Verify Identities

To this point, discussion has implicitly focused on determining how identities are selected for activation in behavior contexts. Here I interrogate the issue of whether people have the capacity to enact and maintain identities. While in many cases identity enactment is unproblematic, at other times it might be more difficult, particularly when people encounter novel situations.

Identity theorists have proposed resources as a way of grappling with this issue, and they have demonstrated that actors with greater resources are better able to confirm their identities. By resources, identity theorists mean “anything that supports individuals and the interaction of individuals” (Burke and Stets 2009:99). For instance, researchers have shown that those with higher status—measured as education, occupational prestige, income, and nonminority racial identification—enjoy higher levels of identity verification (Cast, Stets, and Burke 1999; Stets and Cast 2007; Stets and Harrod 2004). Presumably, this is because those with higher status are better able to control situations in ways that facilitate verification (see also Correll and Ridgeway 2003). Identity verification is also greater for those who report higher levels of personal or interpersonal resources (e.g., self-efficacy, self-esteem, role-taking ability, trust, likability; Stets and Cast 2007). Taken together, this work suggests the importance of material and psychosocial resources to identity-based action. Although consistent with identity theory, scholars have paid less attention to the crucial contributions of cultural resources to identity processes (but see Stets and Carter 2011; Tsushima and Burke 1999).⁴ Here I am using cultural to refer to knowledge and skills that allow a person to navigate social life (Abramson 2012; Swidler 1986). It is here that recourse to cultural sociology can enhance the argument.

The foundational idea needed to link cultural resources to identities was expressed by Bourdieu. Bourdieu’s insight was that culture—whether ideological, material, or institutional—is actually a form of capital with real-world implications (1984, 1986). Possessing “cultural capital” allows individuals to signal those in power that they are the right sort of person and should therefore be rewarded (Lamont and Lareau 1988). These benefits often take the form of access to economically or socially advantaged positions, or in the parlance of identity theories, particular social roles. Thus cultural skills are a means of gaining acceptance by elites who act as gatekeepers for social positions, which are in turn required to adopt certain identities (DiMaggio and Mohr 1985; Lamont 1992; Rivera 2012). Even after passing gatekeepers, identity access is uncertain anytime people act in the presence of others, because each new interaction situation provides others the opportunity to accept or reject the identity performances being offered. Cultural skills are therefore not only required to gain initial access to identities, but also to continue to access them in subsequent interactions.

Cultural capital is also necessary to successfully enact identities. People cannot act in identity-consistent ways if they do not have the requisite knowledge or skills to do so. Bourdieu uses the example of art to illustrate this point. Any person with sufficient economic resources can purchase a painting, but money cannot buy “the means of ‘consuming’ a painting,” for this requires certain cultural knowledge and taste (Bourdieu 1986:50). A person aspiring to the lofty positions of collector or art critic needs to have internalized appropriate high-culture reactions to different displays of style and form; otherwise he will be unable to transcend “the ‘primary stratum of the meaning we can grasp on the basis of our ordinary experience’ to reach the ‘stratum of secondary meanings’, i.e., the ‘level of the meaning of what is signified’” (Bourdieu 1984:2).

Typically identities and skills go hand-in-hand—both because identities and skills are often learned together and because people tend to gravitate toward roles for which they are already equipped (Bourdieu 1990; Swidler 2008)—but this is not always true. Consider the successful blue-collar businessman who finds himself thrust into the ranks of the wealthy, only to discover that he does not know how to act at the country club. When there is a mismatch between identities and skills, skill sets can act back on motivations to occupy identities, reducing the desire to enact roles for which people lack competency (Bourdieu 1990; Swidler 1986). Identity enactments that require new skills may even seem impossible (Bourdieu 1990). Note, however, that the converse is not typically true—that is, that possessing cultural competencies motivates action that exploits those skills. Just as hammers can be used for many projects, competencies can be applied in the service of many goals.⁵ In simple terms, cultural skills are necessary but not generally sufficient for action (Vaisey 2008).

An Identity-Based Model of Culture in Action

Taken together, insights from both identity theory and work on cultural sociology lay the groundwork for an identity-based model of culture in action. This section outlines how the theoretical components presented previously fit together to shape action in concrete contexts. The model is summarized in Figure 1. I assume that people act to maintain their most salient identities, or in other words, their core selves. These influence the activation of other, more situationally specific identities. Disconfirmation of identities generates a desire to restore self-relevant perceptions, with preference given to those that are most salient. This quest for self-confirmation guides people in how they deploy their cultural knowledge and skills. Consistent with Swidler’s claim, though, I also assume that people try to make use of the skills and abilities they have and will therefore resist change that requires them to learn new competencies (Swidler 1986).

Figure 1.

An Identity-Based Model of Culture in Action.

In what follows I use the terms situation and context in a very loose sense, applying them to immediate behavioral contexts, which tend to be of relatively short duration (e.g., meeting a friend in the hall), institutional contexts that are occupied for somewhat longer time frames (e.g., home, work), as well as longer periods that accompany life transitions (e.g., retiring). The moving parts of the model are general enough that they can be applied at each level of analysis.

The model picks up when a person changes situations, as shown in the top left corner of Figure 1.⁶ I assume that a person can enter a situation with an identity already activated, perhaps carried over from a prior context. Upon entering the new situation, this identity is evaluated to see if it can still be used to verify the core self, where the major consideration is whether the identity is still (or can made to be) appropriate to the new context. If so, the person continues to occupy that identity, provided that he has the resources to do so, which cannot be taken for granted. For instance, a person used to the routines of high school may find it difficult to feel like a star student after entering college. The identity to be confirmed is nominally the same, but the change in context brings with it a change in the skills (and perhaps other resources) needed for verification. Such changes are not restricted to major life transitions; they can occur in the course of daily life as well. Imagine a computer programmer who is assigned a project that exceeds his skills or a woman who feels good about her parenting until she takes her children to a play group and finds that other mothers value parenting strategies that she does not employ. These examples suggest that small changes in situations can alter the skills needed to enact or access identities.

Conversely, resources sometimes allow a person to act back on situations or control interactions and therefore can be used to facilitate identity verification. At root, this is because reality is socially constructed, and social or skill-based advantages translate into increased power to define reality. One way this can occur is by altering the definition of what skills are needed for verification. To return to the previous example, a high-status woman taking her child to a play group is more likely to have her parenting techniques seen as appropriate than is a low-status woman. In some cases, extreme levels of resources can also be used to redefine even what identities are appropriate to enact. Barack Obama, for instance, likely gets to play the part of president almost anywhere he goes. The important caveat is that the power of resources over situations is rarely absolute and cannot compensate for a lack of essential cultural skills. A person with little academic ability is unlikely to live up to even her own (culturally shaped) standard of what it means to be a student.

If the person does not bring a pre-activated identity into the new context, or if it is not (or cannot be made to be) appropriate, the person will try to transition to a different identity. This might occur immediately as the person recognizes the demands of the new situation (e.g., when changing institutional contexts) or might occur after the person fails to have her prior identity verified (Smith-Lovin and Robinson 2006). The success of this attempt will depend on two things. First, switching identities is conditional on whether the identity is cognitively available to a person—that is, she must have prior experience with the identity. Second, even if a new identity is available a person must still have the resources and cultural skills to access and enact it in the immediate context. As noted previously, neither process can be taken for granted, particularly when the person is encountering a novel situation. Access can be facilitated by material, social, and cultural resources that allow the person to control the situation, but even then it depends on the basic ability to enact an identity, which requires cultural knowledge and skills. To reiterate, “cultured capacities” (Swidler 2001:71) are a necessary resource for competently enacting any identity.

Activating a situationally appropriate identity generally proceeds with little difficulty, but problems can arise when this identity differs substantially from other, salient identities that might also have been activated, especially those chronically accessible identities that are part of the core self. As noted previously, when conflicts emerge people prefer to enact their most salient identities, but if these are not appropriate to the situation then nonverification becomes likely. For example, a teenager leaving for school may have little trouble switching from acting the part of a dependent daughter to that of the popular socialite, as both are regularly reinforced and therefore cognitively available. However, her core self will remain active in both settings, and any identities closely associated with it will persist across contexts. At both home and school, for instance, the teenager will likely be guided by her sense of gender identity. She cannot turn this off, which might lead to nonverification if she is required to participate in activities that she does not perceive as sufficiently feminine (e.g., playing football in P.E. class).

If the core self is unable to be confirmed by changing to a different identity—either because the person is unable or unwilling to change—then the person will try to exit the situation. This, too, can require material resources or cultural skills, as when a person starts a job, discovers he does not like it, and wants to change employment but lacks either the funds to relocate or the needed qualifications to obtain a better position. If the situation cannot be exited, then the core self will exist in a state of tension with the environment, and the person will experience emotional pressure to resolve the discrepancy.⁷

Identity theory suggests that identities are always changing in response to the environment, though typically at a slow rate, and would predict that the longer a nonverifying situation persists, the more the self would change to match contextual meanings (Burke 2006). I do not know whether this model of perpetual change is technically accurate, but for practical purposes I believe it is useful to instead think of the core self as stable in the face of disconfirmation. People do not immediately begin to change in response to disconfirming situations; rather, they initially apply coping strategies to resist the perceived threat to the self (cf. Burke 1996). These might include directing attention to verifying feedback or ignoring or counteracting nonverifying feedback (e.g., “I really am a good student, no matter what grade I got”). Staving off nonverification depends on having both access to and the ability to apply these strategies, which again highlights the importance of cultural resources for identity processes. It is only when these strategies fail (or require too much effort to continue) that the environment begins to shift the meanings held in the identity, and through it the meanings in the core self. The key consideration therefore becomes whether a situation can be exited before this occurs. If so, the model cycles back to the beginning and the verification process begins anew (see Figure 1).

A person who cannot exit a disconfirming situation will next try to adapt by adopting a new, situationally appropriate identity that can be used to confirm the core self. This response comes late in the process because, as Swidler noted, people tailor their action to the skills they already possess, and acquiring a new identity also means learning the cultural competences needed to enact it, and potentially acquiring additional material resources to support it (Swidler 1986, 2001). For example, a couple that has their first child might find it difficult to fully maintain their previous spousal and personal identities, and so they compensate by adopting parental identities. Again, this step depends both on the salience of prior identities and on having (or being able to learn) the skills needed for parenting. It also requires material resources; children, after all, are expensive. Adopting a new identity is typically time-consuming, so persons might experience repeated nonverification until the process is complete. People rarely feel that mastering the art of parenting is a short-term affair.

As noted by identity theorists, identities do change, often unintentionally (Burke 2006; Burke and Stets 2009, chapter 9). In the current framework, this occurs only if the previous steps cannot verify the core self. That is, a person generally will try to operate using one of the identities she has and, failing that, will try to exit the disconfirming context. If neither of these is an option, she will try to verify her core self by adopting a new, situationally relevant identity, even if this takes time. It is only when this too proves prohibitively difficult that her core self begins to change. This will occur as she adopts and verifies contextually appropriate identities that are at odds with her core self. As posited by identity theory, the direction of the change is toward situational meanings, which narrows the distance between the core self and the situational feedback and therefore reduces nonverification (Burke 2006).

Evidence for the Identity-Based Model of Culture in Action

Evidence for the model can be culled from many places. As the basic operations of identities are already well established in the social psychological literature (e.g., Burke and Stets 2009; Robinson and Smith-Lovin 2006), I will focus on two studies that demonstrate the crucial role played by cultural skills in accessing and enacting identities, though I will also note where they lend support to other aspects of the model.

The first example comes from Lareau’s (2003) Unequal Childhoods, a rich study of American families that highlights the connections between class and the stratification of cultural capital. Drawing on interviews and observational data, Lareau argued that both the middle-class and working/lower-class adults in her study wanted to be good parents—that is, they wanted to enact the parent identity—but that they differed in their ability to translate their intentions into beneficial outcomes for their children because their cultural skills were differentially valued by dominant institutions. With regard to education, for instance, lower-class parents tended to trust the judgment of school personnel and generally complied with school recommendations. Middle-class parents more often saw the system as malleable and worked with school teachers and administrators to secure optimal outcomes for their children.⁸ As Lareau pointed out, only the middle-class approach was well adapted for extracting results from the educational system. Furthermore, school personnel often viewed parental involvement positively and responded accordingly. The present model suggests that middle-class adults would therefore be able to have their preferred parental identities verified in interactions with school personnel, but this would be more challenging for lower-class parents—that is, middle-class adults have greater access to the parental identity. This is exactly what Lareau found. She reported that many lower-class parents had difficulty interacting with schools and felt ineffectual in their efforts to procure advantages for their children. Because many parents were unwilling or unable to exit the parent identity, this lack of cultural skills led to repeated nonverification.

Wacquant’s (2004) ethnography of Southside Chicago provides a second example. In an effort to build social ties needed for his study of life in the ghetto, Wacquant enrolled in a local boxing gym but quickly learned that adopting the identity of a boxer required physical skills and deep-seated reactions that could only be acquired through intense training. Yet these physical competencies could only provide him with the tools to enact the identity in a general, technical way. His access to the boxer identity also required him to gain acceptance in the eyes of the other boxers in the particular gym where he trained, which required additional cultural skills. He had to master the “shoptalk” that revolved around topics such as “the maintenance of the body, . . . ‘making weight’ . . . [and] technical subtleties of the game” (38), as well as talk that reflected life in the ghetto. Only in the combination of the physical and the social could he find “the cultural capital proper to the group” (39) and come to fully occupy the pugilist identity. Developing the necessary cultural competencies took time, and during the process Wacquant faced repeated disconfirmation—in his words, his early “technical ineptitude was equalled only by [his] feeling of frustration and sometimes discouragement” (x).

According to his reports, Wacquant eventually earned his place in the gym, but his reflections on the process make it painfully evident (in his case, literally) that enacting and accessing identities are fraught affairs that can fail if the needed skills are not acquired. As emphasized by the present model, the exact skills needed for identity enactment vary by context—Wacquant needed knowledge of the ghetto, but this requirement would certainly be different in a gym set in a different location and frequented by a different clientele.⁹ Note, too, that Wacquant could have exited the situation at any time—indeed, the identity incumbents expected him to. Doing so would have removed the necessity of learning new skills and protected his core self from further nonverification. To reiterate, Wacquant’s ability to overcome these challenges and remain at the gym depended on his learning a particular set of identity-specific skills, which enabled him to both perform the behaviors expected of a boxer and gain legitimacy in the eyes of the identity gatekeepers.

Conclusion

Over a decade ago, Swidler posed a crucial problem for scholars interested in linking culture to action: which elements of culture anchor (or cause) others? A number of scholars have offered useful responses, but their work does not adequately address action that crosscuts contexts, in part because they do not detail which cultural contents matter. The model outlined previously uses identity to answer these questions. In short, it suggests that people are motivated to act in self-consistent ways and that the most important self-perceptions are those salient identities that have been incorporated into the core self. This core self manages which other identities are activated in different situations, favoring identities that are both consistent with its own meanings and situationally appropriate. Identities in turn guide how cultural competencies and other resources are deployed. At the same time, cultural skills and knowledge can limit the identities that can be verified and the contexts in which verification can occur. Fundamentally, this is because relevant cultural competencies are needed to perform identity-consistent actions at all (that is, to enact identities). When action occurs in the presence of others, skills (and other resources) also allow a person to have their identity performances accepted, thereby providing access to identities. With only minimal violence to nuance, we might summarize the answer to the problem of cultural anchoring presented here as follows: core selves anchor less salient identities, which in turn anchor cultural competencies, provided that a person possesses the requisite competencies for enacting an identity in a given context.

This model is not a complete solution to the problem of cultural anchoring, but it does advance the discussion in several ways. First, it retains important insights offered by prior theories. From tool kit theory it incorporates skills and other cultural resources, and from dual-process theories (e.g., Vaisey 2009) the idea that culture can be motivating, but adds to these specific cultural contents—identities—that are motivating in known, predictable ways. Second, the model accounts for the activation of cultural content in a way that retains sensitivity to context but provides greater insight into the mechanisms that underlie the activation process (e.g., identity salience). Third and perhaps most important, it explains action that occurs both within and across situations. Actions sometimes crosscut contexts because the identities that motivate them are active in many situations—likewise, actions can be bound to certain contexts when shaped by situation-specific identities. In all cases, action depends on having appropriate cultural knowledge, skills, and other resources. Consistent with Abramson (2012), this implies that the power of identities to generate cross-context consistency can be limited in interaction settings in which actors come from different class backgrounds. Identities are more likely to promote consistency across situations in which interactants are of the same class, where cultural resources are presumably held (relatively) constant. Consistency is also more likely across situations that do not require interaction.

Of course, patching holes in past arguments is insufficient to demonstrate utility. Does the theory-building demonstrated here have practical import, or is it simply an exercise in seeking logical coherency for the sake of coherency (see also Wrong 1961)? I can think of at least two ways that the current model can make significant real-world contributions to empirical research.

First, the model has implications for stratification researchers. Adopting identities in a given situation requires having the cultural competencies to both perform the behaviors associated with the identities and to have the identity performances accepted by others. The two need not be overlapping sets, but both are required for identity verification. This means that those aspiring to privileged positions must learn the culture of their incumbents. Failing this, they will either experience emotional arousal and an eventual shift in their core selves and/or will exit the disconfirming situations, effectively leaving the privileged positions to those with the needed cultural capacities. As Bourdieu (1986) noted, acquiring these competencies can require prolonged exposure, and opportunities for this type of learning are unequally distributed across the social landscape (see also Khan 2011).

On a more positive note, personalized meanings located in the core self may provide individuals with tools to survive within and even resist dominant structures. Institutional diversity in modern society means that people have multiple forums for seeking self-verification. Because the core self is slow to change, individuals can resist disconfirming situations provided that they have regular access to social support or coping strategies. Self-verification becomes easier as freedom to choose situations and interaction partners increase. Interaction contexts are particularly important because they allow meanings to be transmitted from person to person, which can lead to changes in dominant meaning structures. Smith-Lovin (2007), for instance, argued that local changes in identity meanings exert pressure to change general identity meanings, which in turn allows them to distill into additional institutional domains (cf. Foy et al. forthcoming). In this way, situated attempts at self-verification can alter established meaning structures.

There are several aspects of the model that could benefit from additional empirical work. First, the model would benefit from verifying the hypothesized sequence of events. For instance, when do people enter situations with active identities, and when do they deactivate identities before switching contexts? Switching identities takes time, perhaps proportional to the level of investment in the prior identity. Imagine the parent who, after a hard day of work, needs a few minutes before engaging with the children. Attention should also be given to whether people can “skip” steps in the process and how this occurs. Those purposely aspiring to identities, for instance, often seem to bypass the first several phases of the process—that is, they directly enter disconfirming situations to leverage themselves into a desired identity (e.g., Wacquant 2004; cf. Vaisey and Lizardo 2010). Empirical work is also needed to bolster the claim that the core self is chronically accessible. Relatedly, scholars might ask how other mechanisms of identity activation fit into the model. For instance, individuals sometimes disingenuously invoke identities for instrumental gain—what does this imply about the core self and how the concept might be expanded? Finally, the current model (intentionally) does not address the issue of emotional reactions to the identity verification process. This is both because it is not essential to the current argument and because identity researchers do not yet agree on how the two relate (Smith-Lovin and Robinson 2006). Adding an affective component would add additional depth and richness, particularly if it could be shown that distinct emotions alter the verification process in unique ways. For example, we might expect that a person who feels shame will be more apt to immediately exit a disconfirming situation than a person who merely feels embarrassed.

The proposed model also raises a number of intriguing questions. First and foremost, the notion of a core self bears a strong resemblance to Bordieu’s habitus (cf. Vaisey 2009), but the exact contours of this relationship are unclear, suggesting that further attention could be profitably directed to fleshing out the connections between the two. Of particular interest is whether the core self, like the habitus, operates largely through fast, automatic cognitive processes. The assumption of chronically accessibility suggests that it does, but to date identity theory has largely been silent on the relationship between identities (and by extension the self generally) and dual-process models of cognition.¹⁰ Testing these links will both enhance identity theory and facilitate connections between the present model and current work on culture in action. I also argued that identity activation depends on the salience of at least two identities (the prior and the one needed for the new situation), as well as possession of cultural tools appropriate to the context, but the question of how these constructs jointly affect identity enactment—that is, in what combinations and in what circumstances—requires additional attention. Finally, it is worth considering how long people can resist situational disconfirmation in cases where exiting a situation is unfeasible or impossible. Does the process differ when the nonverification is the result of intentional entrance into the situation in pursuit of an aspirational identity, compared to when the context is unwanted but externally imposed? Are there strategies that allow a person to resist changes to the self, perhaps indefinitely?

The identity model of culture in action should be seen as a next step in addressing the perpetually vexing problem of the role of culture in action and as an illustration of the benefits of combining multiple research traditions in pursuit of more satisfying theoretical answers.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

I’d like to thank Steve Vaisey, Lynn Smith-Lovin, the guest editors of SPQ (Omar Lizardo and Jessica Collett), and several anonymous reviewers for helpful feedback on earlier drafts of this article.

1

Symbolic interactionists note that this “match” is a culturally mediated process. Identities are cognitive schema that shape how stimuli from the environment are interpreted and therefore what types of matches are likely to be detected (Burke and Stets 2009; ). For clarity in laying out the argument I do not delve into these details, but rather I assume that in most circumstances actors share basic meanings regarding which identities are appropriate to different (often institutionalized) settings and the primary behavioral expectations associated with them. In this way, it makes sense to talk of “situational cues” generically.

2

This is an important distinction and allows identity salience to be conceptualized and measured separately from behavior. Identity theorists thereby avoid the criticism that they are using the same data points (i.e., observed behavior) as a measure of both their predictor and their outcome.

3

I am indebted to the affect control model of the self outlined by for suggesting this line of thinking. Their model uses a “persona” (a composite sense of self) as the key construct that organizes how identities are deployed. I do not use the persona model in this article because I am uncomfortable with the strong separation between personas and identities that it implies. However, I suspect that the concepts of persona and salient identities could be profitably synthesized to give a more complete description of the core self. For the sake of clarity in my argument (and space), I do not pursue the matter here.

4

Identity theorists have found that knowledge-based resources are tied to the type of identity one has (Tsushima and Burke 1999) and that knowledge and skill-based resources (task ability) interact with how other identities are used (). This article adds a model of how cultural competencies allow a person to access and enact identities. The model is consistent with identity theory’s umbrella definition of resources but draws on work in cultural sociology to provide a more detailed examination of the processes involved and their implications for action.

5

The only exception I can think of is a “novelty effect.” Here acquiring knowledge or skills can generate enthusiasm for the new possibilities that this affords, leading people to pursue action that they otherwise would not. Typically, this effect is short-lived as skills become familiar and lose their intrinsic interest.

6

The motivations for this initial change in situations lie outside the scope of the model. It is probable that the reasons will vary depending on the type of situation in question. Transitions into social situations might be driven by a desire for enjoyment, for instance, while the move to retirement occurs as an inevitable aspect of work life.

7

The terms tension and emotional pressure are intentionally ambiguous. This is because evidence is mixed regarding the particular emotions (or even emotional valences) that lead one to seek identity verification. Identity theorists predict that any disconfirmation will lead to negative affect, but affect control theorists predict that only negative nonverification has this effect and positive nonverification leads to positive emotion. However, both theories agree that people try to verify their identities regardless of the direction of disconfirmation.

8

See the examples of Ms. Marshall (middle class) and Ms. Driver (lower class) to illustrate these points.

9

In fact, a quick search on Google brought up a boxing facility in Massachusetts called the “Gentlemen’s Gym Boxing Club,” and the pictures posted on the website make it obvious that it is very different from the gym described by Wacquant.

10

Several recent studies suggest that people hold implicit identities that can guide their behavior (e.g., ). I am currently working on a project that explores whether identities primarily operate using automatic or deliberative processes.

Bio

Andrew A. Miles is a PhD student in the Department of Sociology at Duke University. The goal of his research is to understand the processes underlying human behavior and to synthesize them into more complete models of action. His work is interdisciplinary, often drawing on literature from sociology, psychology, anthropology, and neuroscience. He is also interested in morality, social psychology, and quantitative methods.

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