IDENTITY: AN INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF THEORY AND RESEARCH, 6(1), 3-25

Copyright 2006, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.

Identity Studies: How Close Are We

to Developing a Social Science
of Identity?An Appraisal of the Field
James Cote
Department of Sociology
University of Western Ontario

This article presents a "tree-tops" overview of the field of Identity Studies with an
eye to identifying (a) the commonalities that stimulate scholars to organize their
work around the concept of identity as well as (b) the cleavages that have created various camps within the field. Given the fact that Identity Studies is one of the fastest
growing areas in the social sciences, it is argued that there is an urgent need to develop a common taxonomy that attends to the multidimensionality represented by the
various approaches sharing the term identity. After proposing a way to understand
these commonalities and cleavages as a basis for this taxonomy, the question of what
is to be gained by a common purpose in a social science of identity is explored. It is
further proposed that, in searching for this common purpose, scholars need to focus
not only on what they can recommend to individuals looking for direction in their
lives, but also on what practicable frameworks they can provide policymakers who
are in positions to ameliorate social and economic conditions that undermine the formation and maintenance of viable ego, personal, and social identities.

Identity Studies is reputedly one of the fastest-growing areas in the social sciences.
In the mid-1990s, Hall (1996) referred to the "discursive explosion around the concept of identity" (p. 1); more recently, Bauman (2001) wrote about the "thriving industry" of Identity Studies.
These claims are not idle exaggerations. For example, using the referencing database PsychlNFO, the number of entries accessible with the keyword identity has
more than doubled each decade since the 1940s. Although there are only 78 hits for
the 1940s, in the decades to follow through the 1990s, there are 223, 775, 2,896,
Correspondence should be addressed to James Cot^, Department of Sociology, University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada N6A 5C2. E-mail: [email protected]

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6,901, and 15,106 hits, respectively. In the first 5 years of the 2000s alone, there are
over 12,000 hits, suggesting that another decade-spanning doubling of interest is in
progress. Similarly, using the Sociological Abstracts electronic database SocAbs,
there is only one hit for the keyword (rfennfy in the 1940s and51 for the 1950s, but
for the 1960s, 2,844 sources are accessible; the hits jump to 9,098 for the 1970s,
15,080 for the 1980s, and 32,139 for the 1990s. There are 18,587 for the first 5
years of the 2000s. Although there is a substantial amount of overlap between
these two databases, it is clear that the number of publications using identity as a
keyword is now in the tens of thousands per decade.
The few publications on "identity" in the early 1900s concerned themselves
mainly with personality aberrations like multiple personalities (e.g., Sidis &
Goodhart, 1904) from the perspective of psychiatry and psychoanalysis. Based on
the previous citation analysis, however, something apparently happened in the
1950s to draw interest to the concept. Erikson's (1963, 1968) work on identity is
widely acknowledged as being groundbreaking during this time in generating interest in the use of the concept in social scientific analyses by providing a "reasonably value-neutral and interdisciplinary term" (e.g., Weigert, Teitge, & Teitge,
1986, p. 29). At the same time, there was a palpable increase in anxiety among social scientists about the rise of mass society, with its decline in community, the ascendance of anonymous bureaucratic control along with the technological transformation of human activities, and a consequent rise in problems of personal
definition.
A volume documenting this anxiety, appropriately titled Identity and Anxiety:
Survival of the Person in Mass Society (Stein, Vidich, & White, 1960), was published in 1960 with Erikson's essay "The Problem of Ego Identity" as the lead, and
organizing, chapter. Selections in this landmark book were drawn from the various
social sciences and attempted to account for what are now seen as commonly experienced problems of social integration and personal meaning (e.g., Beck, 1992;
Beck & Beck-Gernsheim, 2002; Gergen, 1991, 2001; Giddens, 1991).
Over the decades following the 1950s, these concerns about identity problems
rooted in mass society morphed into several approaches, based on assumptions
about the nature of society, that constitute the basis of contemporary Identity
Studies. The term mass society has been generally replaced by the concepts of
"post-modernity" and "late modernity," although many of the same problematic
societal conditions remain as likely sources of identity problems. In addition, a developmental psychology has emerged that "normalizes" identity problems in inadequate ontogenetic development rather than problematic societal conditions. It is
apparent, however, that the spread of the societal conditions undermining problem-free identity formation and maintenance has continued unabated, to the point
where the popular press now recognizes "identity" as a key issue of the contemporary era (e.g., Frank, 1997; Niedzviecki, 2004; Quart, 2003). Indeed, so common
are these growing problems of social integration and personal meaning that schol-

IDENTITY STUDIES: AN APPRAISAL

ars are completely re-evaluating the nature of the life course in these societies, including the proposition that there is now a new life stage characterized by protracted identity exploration"emerging adulthood" (Arnett, 2000). At the same
time, exactly what it means to have an "adult identity" is increasingly unclear as
the very nature of "adulthood" loses its meaning for more and more people. I have
discussed this topic in detail (Cote, 2000), including the emergence of alternative
adulthoods and a new phase of "youthhood" replacing adulthood entirely for an increasing proportion of the population.
The embeddedness of problematic identity issues in an increasing portion of the
life course is now so pervasive that it is no longer unusual for full-grown people to
continue to ponder issues that were once resolved early and decisively. For example, after being quoted in Time magazine with respect to the causes for the prolongation of youth (Grossman, 2005), I received a number of e-mails from people in
their 20s telling me their stories. One was from a woman in her late 20s who was
enrolled in a doctoral program, but who was still living with her parents. Although
she knew that she was good at school, she was anxious that she was not well prepared for "work." In spite of her advanced education, which for previous generations surely would have provided most people with a sense of a promising and exciting future, this woman implied that she had little intemal sense of meaning and
direction and was fearful of her future. Indeed, she asked whether I had any surveys or questionnaires for her to fill out that would "decide her path in life" for her!
Perhaps this person just had life too easy and was conditioned to follow opportunity structures and reward contingencies, but her sense of identity as related to
social integration and personal meaning seems to be far different from that of those
in past generations who were at the top of the educational ladder. Although Margaret Mead was exceptional even for her generation, I am reminded of her biography,
which included finishing her PhD in her early 20s, conducting pioneering field
work in a remote part of the world, and publishing a best-selling book in her late
20s based on her findings (Cote, 1994; Mead, 1928). The lesson here is that a maturity of identity is no longer guaranteed by educational achievements; rather, such
achievements may now be devoid of secure agentic and existential underpinnings
and merely reflect the bureaucratized opportunities created by others. Under these
conditions, identity "explorations" can be empty and without any underlying logic
and, therefore, endless (cf. Cote & Levine, 1992, for a study of various motivations
that academics have for pursuing their career, including as a "calling").

COMMONALITIES AND CLEAVAGES: TERMINOLOGY

In spite of their different motivations for attaching the keyword identity to their
work, now that there is such a widespread interest in employing the concept of
identity to explain people's psychological experiences and social behavior, where

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does this leave us? On the one hand, we should be encouraged because we have
likely come a long way in coming to terms with the puzzle of human existence. On
the other hand, it leaves us in a state of confusion about exactly what identity "is"
because there are so many different uses of the term (cf. Brubaker & Cooper,
2000). Accordingly, unless efforts are made to rectify this confusion, the field may
simply become another Tower of Babel of the social sciences. If this happens, the
success of this field could be its own undoing, and our attempts to fit the puzzle of
human existence together will be stymied.
It appears that, in recent years, "identity" has become such a "rubber sheet"
concept that it has been used in ways that make it synonymous with "culture" (e.g.,
as with concerns that such-and-such cultural group is losing its "identity" as a result of globalization), "language" (e.g., with claims that French Canadians will
lose their "identity" unless English-language signs remain banned from the Province of Quebec), and simple in-group allegiances (e.g., that some high school students will lose their "identity" unless they are allowed to dress in ways that reflect
their affiliation with skateboarders, Goths, etc.). It is not that any of these usages is
"wrong," so much as they are overextended, as I argue following (see also Stryker,
2000).
Others have argued that identity represents only certain aspects of human
self-definition. For example, those who wish to emphasize the conflictual nature of
human interaction define identity as "differance"that people define themselves
against "what they are not" (e.g., Derrida, 1982; Sokefeld, 1999). To emphasis
only this aspect of identity is imperialistic, however, if we are to maintain any semblance of cooperation in the use of language, given that the basic definition of identity that made it appealing to social scientists in the first place was reference to
"sameness over time" as well as "difference from others" (e.g., Erikson, 1968). For
a thing (or unit) to be the "same" over time, by definition that thing has to be "different" from other things that are themselves the same over time. Hence, to insist
on difference over sameness as the key to identity is to ignore half of the meaning
of the concept.
Finally, most people in the field have a tendency to use the unmodified term
identity to refer to all levels and manifestations of identity, when it would be more
accurate to use specific terms like social identity and personal identity in specific
instances. Although the use of short forms is natural and acceptable in casual conversations, in formal, analytic discussions, it can simply confound attempts at a
precise intersubjectivity among speakers. Thus, the consistent use of more specific
and precise terms would not only help people be clearer in their writings, but it
would make it much easier for the field to develop in a cumulative manner, freer
from the problems inherent in a Tower of Babel.
One particularly problematic usage is the phrase, "to have an identity." Without
qualification, this is a sophomoric expression. For example, even a completely amnesic person who has completely lost his or her sense of ego (subjective) identity

IDENTITY STUDIES: AN APPRAISAL

will have a social (objective) identity as defined by those interacting with the person. Some of those using the identity status paradigm employ this expression to refer to "an intemal, self-constructed, dynamic organization of drives, abilities, beliefs, and individual history" (Marcia, 1980, p. 159). Although this usage is fine
where its specific meaning is made explicit and its context clearly delimited, it
only serves to add confusion to a field where more general meanings of "identity"
are employed, as among neo-Eriksonians. For example, Erikson (e.g., 1963) consistently argued that the sense of sameness and continuityego identityis important regardless of whether the identity structure is self-constructed, and he
pointed this out in his many cross-cultural studies. Moreover, in differentiating ego
identity from "personal identity," Erikson (1968) defined ego identity as
the awareness of the fact that there is a self-sameness and continuity to the ego's synthesizing methods, the style of one's individuality, and that this style coincides with
the sameness and continuity of one's meaning for others in the immediate community, (p. 50)
Thus, for Erikson, everyone has some subjective sense of "who they are"; problems arise for the person when a subjective sense of sameness and continuity diminishes below a certain point or is otherwise compromised (as in the first case of
this that Erikson, 1963, witnessednamely, "shell shock" or what we now call
Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome). This issue is thus one of degree rather than
kind.
Unfortunately, the net result of the previous tendencies to use the identity concept in overextended, limited, or exclusive ways is that it has become quite fuzzy
for many people (Brubaker & Cooper, 2000), especially those outside the field or
who are new to it. For example, at a recent meefing of the Society for Research on
Adolescence, there were dozens of papers presented using the keyword identity,
but in listening to them, I was hard-pressed to recognize a common meaning of the
term or something to link the papers with what I recognize in my own work after
almost 30 years in the field. Some presentations even operationalized the term according to basic demographic variables like age and sex. This is not a step forward
for the field.
The Identity Studies field is not alone in this dilemma. In the closely related
field of "self studies," a similar problem has emerged, as discussed in an editorial note in a recently launched journal that has been attempting to lend order to
that field. The founding editor of the journal Self and Identity (which focuses on
"self more than "identity," and where "identity" is chiefly "social identity") expressed his frustration with the field, with a plea that the concept of "self be
used more carefully in submissions to the journal: "'Self has been used in so
many different ways that it is not only difficult to know precisely what a particu-

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lar writer means by it, but I sometimes begin to despair that it means anything at
all" (Leary, 2004, p. 1).
I do not think that the identity field has as serious a problem as the self field, in
part because the word self has a longer history of generic uses (e.g., with all of the
compound words using "self-" as a prefix or its use as a synonym for person and
personality). However, it may only be a matter of time for the identity field unless
social scientists lay a firmer claim to the use of the term identity. Leary (2004) was
also doubtful that there will ever be a "consensus about what the self really is" (p.
2, italics added), but I am more optimistic for the identity field so long as we all acknowledge that "identity" is multifaceted, and it is not simply one "thing."
A field of study can end a period of confusion when a common taxonomy is
adopted (cf. Hempel, 1965,1966). Identity Studies is at the tipping point where, if
this is not done, thefieldwill simply become another area in which a commonly used
term has virtually no shared, precise meaning or meanings, as in the case of the concept of culture (e.g., Swidler, 1986). I have made recommendations for the basis of
this taxonomy elsewhere (Cote & Levine, 2002; see also efforts by Brubaker & Cooper, 2000) based on a theory of the multidimensionality of identity, representing
manifestations of identity at three levels of analysis: the subjectivity of the individual, behavior patterns specific to the person, and the individual's membership in societal groups (see also S. Schwartz, 2005). Here, I add to these taxonomic recommendations by giving attention to the differences among social scientists in terms of
their metatheoretical assumptions concerning social reality.

METATHEORETICAL ASSUMPTIONS
Table 1 presents a cross-tabulation of the three dimensions representing different
metatheoretical assumptions that I postulate to be at the heart of the major cleavages in the field. Of course, as with all typologies, a number of individual cases
will lie outside of the hypothesized cells to the extent that these cases combine the
dimensions idiosyncratically. This does not mean, however, that the typology does
not provide rules of classification that apply in most cases.
I begin discussion of this table with the dimension that is most straightforward
to explain, as it involves the differing focus taken by those adopting psychological
and sociological perspectives, the two dominant perspectives in the field. As one
would expect, psychologists tend to take an individual focus and tend to put more
emphasis on the mental traits, states, and dispositions of the person in predicting
the subjective and behavioral properties of identity. In this sense, "identity" is the
"property of persons" (cf. Cote & Levine, 2002). And, as one would expect, sociologists tend to take a social focus, but it is important for nonsociologists to realize
that the concern in many sociological analyses, especially those working at the micro level, is with interaction, not the group per se. This tradition dates back to the

IDENTITY STUDIES: AN APPRAISAL

TABLE 1
Identity Studies Approaches: Fundamental Assumptions Regarding
the Nature of Social Reality, Social Order, and Psychosocial Focus
Individual Focus

Epistemology

Status Quo

Objectivist

Identity status
paradigm
Self-psychology

Subjectivist

Life history and

narrative
approaches
(e.g.,
McAdams,
Chandler)

Critical/
Contextual
"Critical and
cultural
psychologies"
(e.g., Cushman,
Baumeister,
Kurtines)
Postmodernism
(psychological
variant; e.g..
Gergen)

Social Focus

Status Quo

Critical/
Contextual

Structural
symbolic
interactionism
(e.g., Stryker,
Burke)

Late-modernism
(e.g., Beck)
Critical social
psychology (e.g..
Wexler)

Symbolic
interactionism
(interpretive
approache.g.,
Goffman,
Weigert)

Postmodernism
(sociological
variant; Bauman;
Rattansi &
Phoenix)

early sytnbolic ititeractionist (SI) and pragmatic approaches in sociology (e.g.,

Hewitt, 2000). Accordingly, for them, identity is not a property of the person so
much as a "property of interaction." In this way, "identity" is relational in the sense
that it is embedded in interpersonal relationships.
A number of disagreements in the field concerning what constitutes "identity"
(ontology), and how to study it (methodology), can be understood as stemming
from this difference in focus and, therefore, difference in emphasis. A solution
to these disagreements lies in the recognition that "identity" depends on both
sources: It needs to have some sort of storage of experiences and habituated
thoughts in memory (in the person), and it needs to be actualized in behaviors and
social activities (in interaction). Of course, the long-standing disciplinary disputes
between psychologists and sociologists stand in the way of an easy truce of this
dispute, but the common ground in social psychology does hold promise as a platform for more cooperative relations in the future (e.g.. House, 1977). Moreover, if
we can specify a common cause for such cooperation, as I explore following, we
may witness a return to the earlier days in the social sciences before the emergence
of these rigid disciplinary disputes (cf. Sherif, 1958).
The dimension representing the rows in Table 1 pertains to the rather
deep-seated epistemological division that can be found within all social scientific
disciplinesnamely, whether social reality can be understood as fixed, obdurate,
and independent of human consciousness (objectivism) or as indeterminate and
dependent on social constructions (subjectivism). Burrell and Morgan (1979) provided what is perhaps the best discussion of this dimension in sociology, but in

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psychology, it can be found in the long-standing disputes between (a) those who
emphasize the study of experience (subjectivism) and those who insist on the study
of behavior (objectivism; Wertheimer, 1972), as well as (b) the related dispute between humanism and scientism (e.g., Coan, 1979; Kasner & Houts, 1984).
Epistemological disputes are usually intractable by their very nature, but one
potential avenue of resolution of that dispute in Identity Studies might reflect the
very nature of the beast itselfnamely, that "identity" can be demonstrated in
terms of both manifestations of reality. That is, some realities are more fixed
than others, just as some aspects of identity are more fixed than others. For example, my social identity as a professor is more fixed (having a life of 20 years
already) than, say, my personal identity as a media celebrity (which had a life of
about 15 min!). Similarly, the emergent experiences and personal constructions
of my subjective (ego) identity as the President of the Society for Research on
Identity Formation (SRIF) were varied over my tenure of that position, but my
social identity associated with that position had an objective life of 2 years. No
amount of subjective reappraisal on my part will alter that objective fact. Thus,
some realities are simply more fixed (e.g., psychological traits, social facts) than
others (e.g., transitory situations, like the verbal version of this Presidential Address delivered at the 2005 SRIF meetings). Manifestations of identity at the
level of subjective experience and interactional discourse are especially emergent and transitory and should be studied as such with the appropriate (in-depth,
qualitative) methods. When the validity of these differing manifestations is acknowledged, an acceptance of the application of differing methods to differing
realities should follow.
Finally, the third dimension represented in Table 1 pertains to the fundamental
assumptions that researchers hold toward the existing social order, whether it is accepted as is, and therefore inevitable, or whether the existing social order is viewed
critically or as one of many potential contexts for different types of identity formation (cf. Burrell & Morgan's, 1979, distinction between the "sociology of regulation" and the "sociology of radical change"). The first, the status-quo approach, asserts implicitly or explicitly that the existing order represents universal processes,
and therefore, research stemming from it looks to the "sustaining" influence of development for self and social order. In contrast, the critical/contextual researcher
looks to "transformative" influences for self and social order based on either the
critical posture taken toward the existing order or the argument that identity processes are contextual, and therefore, no one form or content can be assumed to be
an ideal (cf. Schuller, Preston, Hammond, Brassett-Grundy, & Bynner, 2004, for
the distinction between sustaining and transformative learning). In accepting the
inevitability of the status quo, the former approach assumes a certain benign functionality of social structures, whereas the latter is not as sanguine about the benevolent nature of social structures and identifies ways in which these structures create
inadequate or suboptimal identity formation.

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11

The resulting eight cells formed by the cross-tabulation of these three dimensions (treated as binaries for illustration purposes) allow us to locate the various
long-standing and new approaches in Identity Studies. For example, the most popular psychological approaches in the field (the identity status paradigm and
self-psychology) take an individual focus, adopt objectivist epistemological assumptions, and have a status-quo orientation. In contrast, if we move to the "opposite" side of Table 1, across the three dimensions, we locate the sociological variant
of the postmodern approach, exemplified in the work of scholars such as Bauman
(2001) and Rattansi and Phoenix (1997). This approach adopts a social focus,
holds subjectivist epistemological assumptions, and takes a critical or contextual
orientation. Accordingly, "identity" is located by those taking this approach (a) in
the interactional realm as people engage in their day-to-day social engagements;
(b) as a manifestation that is best understood in terms of its emergent and transitory
properties; and (c) as varying by the specific context in which the interaction takes
place, some of which can be transformative, some sustaining, and some debilitating.
A recent special issue of Identity (Vol. 5, Issue 2, 2005) dealt with these two inherently opposing approaches by using Rattansi and Phoenix's (1997) work on the
nature of youth identity formation as an exemplar of the postmodern approach,
particularly with its explicit critique of the prevailing developmental paradigm
(i.e., the neo-Eriksonian, identity status paradigm). Leading figures from the
Eriksonian-Marcian tradition were invited to comment on the critique of the developmental paradigm, as were scholars who were from outside that tradition. The
result of the exchange appears to have been productive, although I am sure that
more will be written about it. Hopefully, however, the mere fact of putting the issues "on the table" in this way will make for future cooperative relations.
To briefly describe the other cells in Table 1, the remaining three that take an individual focus constitute marginal or minority approaches in developmental psychology. Each attempts to capture elements of identity missed by the dominant
identity status and self-psychology approaches: (a) Narrative and life-history accounts of people's identity formation and maintenance issues, which, by their nature, require a sensitivity to the emergent expressions of the various senses of identity that can only be captured using qualitative methods (represented in the work of
scholars like Chandler, 2001; McAdams, 1993); (b) psychological variants of the
postmodern approach, led by Gergen (1991, 2001), which examine the contexts in
which certain societal conditions create a fragmentation of identity and an erosion
of the sense of a unified core, resulting in the emergence of certain personality
types (e.g., strategic manipulators, relational selves); and (c) what I have termed
critical or contextual approaches that adopt objectivist assumptions regarding the
measurability and stability of identity processes, but that do not assume that status-quo conditions are necessarily benign in fostering "sufficient" or "optimal"
identity formation for a significant proportion of the population. This latter cell

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does not represent a unified group of scholars, but these tendencies in taking a critical approach to the psychology of identity can be found in the work of scholars like
Baumeister and Muraven (1996), Cushman (1995), Kurtines (1999, 2003), and
Waterman (2004).
On the "social focus" side of Table 1, there is not a dominant approach as
there is on the "individual focus" one, although the "status-quo" approach has a
longer history in the SI tradition. The two factions of the status-quo approach
represent the primary division in SI stemming from differing interpretations of
the seminal work of George Herbert Mead. The fact of this division, which dates
back at least to the 1950s (e.g., Kuhn & McPartland, 1954), testifies to the
long-standing nature of divergence on this epistemological dimension. Structural
SI adopts an explicit quantitative methodology based on the assumption that the
manifestations of identity are both observable and measurable (e.g., Stryker,
1987). In contrast, the interpretative approach to SI, represented in the work of
scholars like Goffman (1959, 1963) and Weigert (Weigert & Gecas, 2005;
Weigert et al., 1986), adopts an explicit qualitative approach (ethnographies) designed to capture the qualities of identities as they emerge through on-going
interactional processes in day-to-day naturalistic settings. Structural SI investigates phenomena related to role playing, role salience and hierarchy, role conflict, and the like, whereas interpretive SI explores how people engage in role
making and other spontaneous forms of interaction associated with impression
management and the presentation of self.
The critical approaches with a social focus tend to be more macrohistorical in
orientation, providing a critical contrast of contemporary societal conditions in
reference to past conditions, when the role-bases for identities were far different.
The late-modernist approach points to the ascriptive nature of identities in
premodem societies, where social solidarity was greater, but freedom of choice
was constricted (Furlong & Cartmel, 1997). Accordingly, the focus is on the individualization process in late modernity, which emphasizes compulsory choice
making in the absence of normative guidance. The work of Beck (1992; Beck &
Beck-Gernsheim, 2002) exemplifies the European approach to late-modernity,
whereas that of Wexler (1983, 1992) represents a North American approach to
"critical social psychology," which probiematizes identity processes in contemporary social contexts. Beck's work is best known in terms of his formulations of the
increased risks in late-modern societies, in the sense that both fortunes and misfortunes are now more individualized than collectively shared. For example, the hazards that people face are now more likely to be a result of their individual lifestyles
than community conditions (e.g., people in late-modern societies are more likely
to die alone in a car that they are driving than be one of numerous casualties in a
war or famine). My own work over the past decade (Cote, 1996, 2000, 2002), in
many ways, fits between these two versions of late-modem analysis, drawing on
Giddens' (1991) work in terms of social structural assumptions.

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13

Finally, the sociological variant of the postmodernist approach emphasizes the

"multiplicity, fluidity, and context-dependent operation" (Rattansi & Phoenix,
1997, p. 121) of identities, especially among the youth population. It is important
for these postmodemists to see identity as "decentered" and "de-essentialized" in
contemporary contexts, meaning that "identity" is not primarily a property of persons, but rather of interactional processes, which are now inherently unstable. The
key difference between the late-modernist and postmodernist approaches is with
the view of agency and the potential for individuals to direct their own development by anchoring their ego identity, as opposed to being buffeted about by contradictory societal forces. Late-modemists argue that people are capable of
agentically directing their behaviors from a stable psychological base; in fact, they
stress that it is now paramount that people do so because late-modern societies
have lost much of the normative structure that once guided people in their choices
and provided them with "default options" that made agentic functioning less crucial. In rejecting the possibility of a stable psychological base, postmodemists
have removed the logical and theoretical connection to the source of individual
agency. Paradoxically, they see people at the mercy of "postmodern forces" in a
way that is analogous to how behaviorists (who also reject notions of individual
agency, but for different reasons) see people to be controlled by reinforcement contingencies.

WHAT ISSUES CAN BE RESOLVED

BY A COMMON PURPOSE?
If we are to proceed with the task of developing a social science of idendty, we
must find a common purpose to drive our efforts; otherwise, there is no incentive
for those in each of the eight areas identified in Table 1 to read, attempt to appreciate the merits of, or find inspiration in each other's work.
The very fact that someone is interested in an identity-related topic suggests
that he or she has a humanistic appreciation of the social sciences. Otherwise,
they could have devoted themselves to a much less ambiguous, and more socially supported, area from the mainstream of their discipline (which is likely
dominated by objectivist assumptions about the most easily discussed and measured aspects of the discipline). In spite of its popularity, as measured by the
keyword citation method discussed previously, the fact is that Identity Studies
constitutes a collection of scholars who are marginalized in some degree from
their parent discipline by merit of their interest in the more abstract, and ambiguous, topic of human self-definition. In psychology, for example, social leaming
theory and cognitive theory continue to dominate, in good measure, by their concreteness and ease of empirical investigation (cf. Wexler, 1983). These approaches are more easily taught to undergraduates (so more textbooks are writ-

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ten on these topics, making them seem more "real" and important), and it is
easier to secure grant money, because the assumptions and language are more
commonly shared. Therefore, those reviewing grant proposals have an easier
time understanding them. Similarly, in sociology, those areas that are most amenable to easy understanding and measurement dominate in most departments
(e.g., social inequality, demography, health).
One approach is to first identify, for those we could include as part of Identity
Studies, what each perspective can contribute to a common cause and then show
what is value-added when we integrate the individual perspectives as part of a
larger whole. When some degree of unity of purpose and language is achieved,
those outside the field will then more easily understand it and, over time, more respect for it will be achieved. When the field is unified in purpose and language,
textbooks will be written about it, undergraduates will be taught the basics, and the
utility of the field will slowly diffuse through the culture to become part of public
consciousness as these graduates take the ideas with them into their personal and
professional lives.
This scenario might seem pie-in-the-sky, but unless we have vision and goals,
and dream about the ultimate impact of our work, the growth of the field is in jeopardy. To focus on these goals, we all need to ask ourselves why we are doing what
we are doing. Are we simply following institutional reward contingencies (e.g., for
the benefits specifically derived from the next publication or more generally from
being an academic), or is there something larger than ourselves that is at stake? For
example, at some level, "identity" is about potentialhuman potential. If our insights help more people reach their individual potential, we might also contribute
to the collective potential of the human species, and clearly, there is room for improvement in this collective realm. To the extent that people do not reach their potential in terms of their own identity formation, not only are opportunities missed
for collective advancement, but those who go through their lives with major identity deficits likely drag the species down, pulling us all toward a common denominator that is lower than it might otherwise be.
I can readily cite here several areas in which identity deficits reduce individual
and collective potentialnamely, crime, poverty, school failure, health risks, and
talent loss. At the same time, an argument can be made that modem democracies,
which are often such in name only, can benefit collectively as greater portions of
their populations optimize their identity formation, especially in terms of political
awareness and participation, moral-ethical standards, and the development of
more global-universalistic outlooks. These are three concerns to which Erikson
(1964) put great attention and that are still deserving of such. I assume that the increasing interest in subareas like ethnic identity and sexual orientation reflects
these goals and that researchers are not simply collecting data on these subjects for
the sake of ritualistic science.

IDENTITY STUDIES: AN APPRAISAL

15

WHAT CAN WE HOPE TO ACCOMPLISH WITH

A SOCIAL SCIENCE OF IDENTITY?
The first goal of a social science of identity needs to be the establishment of a consensus about the importance of this area. We do not need to work on those within
the field (except for internal disputes about the relative importance of each approach) so much as to help those outside the field appreciate what we are doing.
For example, I have had numerous discussions with colleagues, and overheard a
few discussions, about "identity," and it is obvious that many do not have a clear
idea about what the concept means, let alone think that it adds anything to the social scientific enterprise. For example, one colleague recently raised the question
of what the concept adds beyond what we already had with the notion of
"self-concept." Another thinks that the concept of "adjustment" is sufficient. Why
do we need a more complicated concept? Would Occam's Razor dictate against it?
These are important questions that we need to answer soon and get the answers to
our colleagues, especially those sitting of grant review and tenure-and-promodon
panels.
For the field to develop into a credible force, we also need to have more and
larger studies funded. Graduate students have conducted the vast majority of studies in this area as part of their thesis work. Although these studies are generally
done under competent supervision, they are nonetheless undertaken with very limited resources. And, although the field should be grateful for the free labor of graduate students, we also owe it to our (present and future) graduate students to attempt to secure the funding to help them maximize their leaming experiences and
potential contributions to the field. With better funding, studies can then move beyond college student samples of convenience to population-based surveys that use
random sampling techniques and multiple methods that can triangulate on the phenomena in question. To help us do this, we need to look back to the early days of
social science for inspiration and example, before the development of separate university departments (which have contributed to disciplinary boundaries), to when
studies were carried out by teams of researchers on important issues using a variety
of qualitative and quantitative measures, especially as stimulated by the war effort
before and after the 1940s (e.g.. House, 1977). Most urgent today are properly
funded studies of high-risk populations whose identity formation potential is impeded by persistent social structural and economic obstacles (cf. Yoder, 2000).
Such studies need to be properly funded so that they can provide scientifically
sound information for policymakers to deal with the major current influences on
identity formation (see Adams, Cote, & Marshall, 2002, for an attempt to highlight
the policy relevance of identity research for understanding parent-adolescent relationships). For example, we need to conduct populafion-level surveys on the identity formation of young people if we are to fully understand why the transition to

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adulthood has become so prolonged and what we might expect in the future, not to
mention the supports that people need in making what is increasingly a hazardous,
nonlinear, and perhaps never-ending passage (e.g., Arnett, 2000; Cote, 2000).
The objective of such studies needs to be the improvement ofthe life chances of
all members of society. As we learned in the 20th century, it is not enough to simply improve economic opportunities. Although this is essential in any societal improvement, it is also crucial that everyone develop the personal resources for
developing and maintaining themselves as fully contributing citizens. Modern democracies require a level of functioning not required in previous societies, and
there is ample evidence that most people have a long way to go to reach this level of
functioning (e.g., Kegan, 1994). A primary question that we will need to answer is
just how and when to intervene to improve life chances. This question is perhaps
easier to answer for the most disadvantaged and at-risk populations, and recent
strides have been made in identifying those most in need of intervention (e.g., see
the Identity Distress Survey; Berman, Montgomery, & Kurtines, 2004). Intervening in decision-making processes among the public at large, however, is a much
more problematic issue, as I discuss following.
Furthermore, rather than targeting only "the individual," we need to think about
targeting institutions in terms oftheir effects on identity formation. This is where a
social science of identity will be most required. For example, there are new institutional influences on identity formation that the old theories have not taken into account: increasing requirements for a prolonged education, the expansion of youth
culture into more aspects of the young people's lives, and the far-reaching social
and psychological impacts of media technologies. Old theories that assume that
young people spend long periods in crisis primarily over religion and politics miss
these important influences entirely (Cote, in press-a), and the fact that identity formation stretches into the 20s cannot be accommodated by theories that assume that
the identity stage is simply a psychosocial event limited to adolescence. In short,
there appear to be new institutional sources of identity, identity moratorium, and
identity crisis that have been missed by the old theories and that the newer theories
have pointed to, but perhaps not fully understood (cf. the debate between the developmental and postmodern approaches in the recent special issue of Identity, Vol. 5,
Issue 2, 2005).

WHAT CAN WE RECOMMEND TO POLICYMAKERS AND

PEOPLE LOOKING FOR DIRECTION IN THEIR LIVES?
Identity Studies faces an interrelated set of problems in moving into the applied
realm. First and foremost is the issue of legitimacy outside the field. Until our colleagues outside the field come to respect our efforts as worthy endeavors, the
chances are diminished of securing the level of funding necessary to undertake the

IDENTITY STUDIES: AN APPRAISAL

17

groundbreaking studies that will gain the attention of policymakers. This is the
case because our colleagues are the ones sitting on the peer-review panels used by
granting agencies. Of course, there is a chicken-and-egg problem here, because if
funding agencies provided the money to conduct this research, our colleagues
would respect the area more, as more and more impressive research was funded
and published. Moreover, if we had the interest of policymakers, the money would
become available to carry out these studies. Before we can get to this point, however, all of us within the Identity Studies field will need to practice what we preach
and settle our own boundary disputes and in-fighting as a field. Until we learn to
respect each other's work, we cannot expect those outside the field to respect any
of our work. In short, if wethe expertsare continually bickering over both fundamental and trivial issues, how can we expect those outside the field to take us seriously as experts or to even attempt to understand our work?
Policymakers need viable frameworks if they are to apply academic concerns
to real-world problems. Accordingly, more identity research needs to move from
the pure to the applied realm. This is not to abandon pure identity research,
which is essential in testing theoretical frameworks, but very little identity research has applied our theoretical assertions, so we have little idea of the practical utility of most of our ideas (cf. Ferrer-Wreder, Montgomery, & Lorente,
2003). This move to the applied side is best done in a nonpartisan fashion (i.e.,
through joint efforts from among the various approaches in the field, as illustrated in Table 1) and without fear of challenging the contemporary status quo of
identity formation (i.e., as noted previously, there is evidence of suboptimal
functioning at both the individual and institutional levels). Of course, there are
political issues in implementing research that potentially generates social
change, and sensitivity to this is necessary. A model that can be consulted for
this purpose is the "applied developmental science" model (Lerner, Fisher, &
Weinberg, 2000), which proposes that scholars and communities become partners in the knowledge-generation process and that multiple methods be used to
triangulate on the processes under scrutiny.
The hurdles to undertaking identity research that will have practicable policy
relevance are many, especially in individualistic societies where ideas of freedom
are virtually sacred. Indeed, given that many aspects of identity formation are now
choice based, how can we propose that policies be developed that influence people's choice making? For example, although we know that there are considerable
drawbacks to identity diffusion (as per the identity status paradigm, where a person
maintains low levels of commitment and little choice-making activity) in terms of
school failure, risk behaviors, and the like, a sizable proportion of the population
can be thus characterized, even in adulthood (e.g.. Cote, in press-a; Kroger, 2000).
Given this magnitude, and the "right" of people to adopt whatever stances that they
like to the commitments in their lives, what can we recommend to policymakers?
And why would policymakers want to "interfere" with people's choices?

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Although this might seem like an intractable problem for modern democracies,
it needs to be recognized that modern democracies have developed and continue to
support institutions that directly and deliberately aifect people's choices in their
identity formationmost notably, educational systems. It is within the logic of institutionalized education that we perhaps have the most hope of positively affecting identity formation in the area of choice making. Such efforts need to be informed by a sophisticated view of choice making itself, and the recent work of B.
Schwartz (2000, 2004) helps to bring to light the complex, potentially negative
aspects of unguided self-determination. Schwartz argued that people in individualistic societies face a "tyranny of choice" by the very nature of excessive
choice-making opportunities. Certainly, there are liberating potentials to a greater
freedom of choice, but ostensibly unconstrained choice can be paradoxically constraining, as in situations of having too many choices with too little information,
living with the consequences of poor choices, and experiencing the various
negative psychological consequences routinely associated with facing numerous
choices on a daily basis.
My recommendation for approaching this problem is to develop institutional
structures that are appropriate for individualistic societies, by merit oftheir design
to guide people in learning how to adapt to, and master, choice making as a central
task in their lives (Cote, in press-b). Making choices is perhaps the most important
activity in people's lives in these societiesmany of life's consequences result
from our choicesyet it is one of the least understood or prepared-for activities. I
draw on Margaret Mead's (1928) long-forgotten recommendation that individualistic societies should prepare their citizens with an "education for choice." Mead's
recommendadon has a surprising amount of insight that prefigures concerns today,
such as those raised by B. Schwartz with his work on the "tyranny of choice."
Mead (1928) wrote that, in comparison to modem Western societies (of the
! 920s), in pre-Westernized traditional Samoan culture, young people had far less
choice as they came of age regarding the specific content oftheir future adult identities, and she noted that this had the effect of eliminating much conflict from their
lives. In particular, they did not have to choose among competing religions or political philosophies or from among a bewildering array of adult occupations. In contrast. Mead noted that there was a virtual requirement in the United States that
young people choose for themselves among the myriad of religious, political, and
occupational options. This requirement was based on the individualistic ideology
that life involves endless possibilities that must be preserved by an unconstrained
freedom of choice.
Mead (1928) predicted that the introduction of choice into the lives of Samoans
coming of age was going to have dramatic implications, aptly noting that "the need
for choice [is] the forerunner of conflict" (p. 202). Given that (Western) Samoa
now has one ofthe highest youth suicide rates in the world today. Mead appears to
have been right (Cote, 1994). Of course, the answer to our educational problems

IDENTITY STUDIES: AN APPRAISAL

19

today is not to revert to earlier social forms, which have their own sets of problems,
but to advance to new ones that can realistically help us deal with our problems.
What Mead's analysis does suggest is that we need to think of contemporary challenges in terms of a baseline found in societies where identities are ascribed rather
than based on choice and individualization, because it appears that humans do not
have an inherent capacity for make propitious choices (Cote, 2000). Rather, it appears that we need to be taught how to do so. Unfortunately, since the time of
Mead's writing, we have not developed the educational means by which to teach
choice making on a mass scale, even as the ideology of free choice has spread
throughout societies around the world (see Cote, in press-b, for more on recommendations regarding "education for choice").
More generally, the Identity Studies community can contribute to policy concerns by investigating the wider benefit of learning and education for identity
formation (cf. Dreyer, 1994). Work in this area has already begun .in England
through the efforts of the British government in funding the Centre for the Wider
Benefits of Learning at the University of London (Preston, 2004; Schuller et al.,
2004). The wider benefits of learning, in general, are myriad, including better
health and more involvements in community-enhancing activities. Some of these
benefits are sustaining of the person's capacities, whereas others are
transformative, enhancing the person's capabilities. The identity benefits of
learning appear to include greater satisfaction with the course of one's life and
success in one's life projects (Cote, 2002), as well as better self-understanding,
independent thought, and an enhanced sense of one's place in the world
(Schuller et al., 2004), but work in this area has just begun. Of course, "education" varies in quality, and much mass educafion has become perfunctory. For
example, the high school diploma in the United States has recently been called
no more than an "attendance certificate" (American Diploma Project, 2004).
Thus, it is clear that there is ample room in the curriculum to experiment with
innovations that yield returns in more aspects of people's lives beyond perfunctory occupational training, including their identity formafion. As Dreyer aptly
noted a decade ago.
The need for educational reform in the U.S. public schools is clearly recognized.
What remains to be seen is whether developmental psychologists, such as identity
theorists, will play a role in that reform or will retire to the world of abstract research
(p. 137)
In addition to recommendations to policymakers, what can we recommend as a
field to the general public, particularly to those people who are looking for direction and meaning in their lives? Obviously, the most efficient way to reach people
in contemporary societies is through the various mass media, but how can we deliver the abstract and complex messages associated with the results of identity re-

20

COTE

search and theory? The print media (books, magazines, and Web sites) are the
venue most amenable to directly delivering complex information, but the visual
electronic media can be used to deliver indirect messages through the use of allegory and allusion. Certainly, marketers have become very sophisticated in the use
of identity-based advertising to the point where they are arguably the most important force transforming contemporary culture, especially youth culture (Cote,
2000), so we might take lessons from them. At the same time, movies and television programs can be very infiuential in affecfing public consciousness, especially
among the young, as in the case of the movie The Matrix (1999) and the
teen-targeting television program Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997-2003), both of
which have cult followings with millions of fans reading all sorts of identityrelated meanings into their content.
The purpose of these attempts to provide informafion to the public about identity formation would optimally be to promote agentic identity formation and to reduce social passivity. The developmental field has plenty to recommend in terms
of well-research concepts like informational identity style (Berzonsky, 1989), personal expressiveness (Waterman, 1992, 2004), coconstructive problem solving
(Kurtines, 1999), and identity capital (Cote, 1997). These efforts can be directed to
helping people learn how to counteract their own tendencies to inertia and the mere
following of reward confingencies (as in my example of the directionless doctoral
student at the beginning of this article), or what I have called default individualization (Cote, 2000).
At the same time that personal mofivation is addressed, efforts can be directed
at exposing the attempts to manipulate people's idenfides. Identity manipulation is
disempowering in individualistic societies, as evidenced by the widespread disengagement of young people from adult society. Corporations now routinely engage
in predatoriai marketing (even of young children; Schor, 2004), branding (Quart,
2003), and cool hunting (Heath & Potter, 2004) as part oftheir attempts to manipulate the spending habits of the young. Although markefing per se is not objectionable, identity-based marketing is a concern when it is directed at those who are in
their formative years of identity development (see Stein et al., I960, for early
warnings of this problem).
Although they have tremendous potential to stimulate growth, educational institutions can be disempowering to the extent that they encourage a passive following of reward contingencies based on false promises ofthe occupational benefits of
credentials (Cote & Allahar, 2005). Life within some of these educational institutions can be mind numbing for the students and amount to little more than marking
time until legal and social pressures give them "permission" to leave. The recent
results of a survey by the National Geographic Society highlight this problem. This
study of 18 to 24 year olds found that only 13% of young Americans could locate
Iraq on a map (National Geographic Education Foundation, 2002). This was after
9/11, but just before the American invasion of that country. The survey presented

IDENTITY STUDIES: AN APPRAISAL

21

in face-to-face interviews 56 questions related to world geography and current

events. The geography questions simply involved pointing to one country out of
four choices spread over the globe. Answering the question on Iraq correctly
merely required knowing (a) that Iraq is in the Middle East and (b) where the Middle East is on a map ofthe world. In fact, more young Americans could locate the
Marquesas Islands, most likely because the pop culture TV show Survivor (2002)
had just presented a series of episodes filmed there.
This illustrafion demonstrates the mass media's influence in shaping people's
mental representations of the world. Young Americans are not alone in their ignorance of world affairs, however. Young Canadians did only marginally better than
Americans, correctly answering only 27 out ofthe 56 questions (vs. 23 out of 56 for
young Americans). Young Swedes performed the best out ofthe nine countries surveyed, answering 40 questions correctly (National Geographic Education Foundation, 2002). In fact, these results support a wider claim that Sweden provides a model
of how the adult community can establish a benign institutional guidance for nurturing growth-enhancing self-determination, including effective secondary and tertiary educational systems (Cote & Allahar, 2005). On the one hand, findings such as
these for "advanced" countries like Canada and the United States do not bode well
for the future development of universalistic identities as envisioned by Erikson
(1964). On the other hand, these findings suggest a urgent goal that can potentially
unite the Identity Studies community around a common cause.
This last educational example points to another institution that is failing
young people in terms of what could be positive influences on identity formationthe polity. Young people around the world are disengaging on mass scale
from mainstream political institutions. The causes for this are being debated
(Cote & Allahar, 2005; Gidengil, Blais, Nevitte, & Nadeau, 2003; Kimberlee,
2002), but the result is clearly a disempowering of the young that is directly related to their identity formation. Perhaps not coincidentally, this political apathy
(identity diffusion) dovetails with the corporate manipulation and educational
corralling mentioned previously. Knowledge is power, and a lack of knowledge
disempowers; the adult community is responsible for transmitting knowledge to
the next generation, so the extent to which the adult community fails in this task,
the more it disempowers its progeny. Young people deserve to know about the
potendal misdirections in their identity formation so that they can make informed choices and direct their development in positive, growth-enhancing directions. If we are serious about following the ideology of individualism in a
democratic context, all individuals have a right to an equal footing in their exercise of choices. This takes us directly back to the key issue in the fieldchoice
makingand possibly provides us with a starting point for discussions among
the various approaches to the field. Perhaps the best motivation for resolving our
own disciplinary differences is the greater good of our communities and the
young people who want to move into them as equal citizens.

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COTE

ACKNOWLEDGMENT
This article is based on the 2005 SRIF Presidential Address presented on February
19, 2005, in Miami, Florida.

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