UMD Identity Maintenance Discussion

Identity Maintenance Assignment

 

Background

Identity Maintenance pertains to the activities—cognitive, affective, actional—that help us to maintain the sense of identity stability: What makes me feel “myself” yesterday, today, and tomorrow.  Of course, such activity is made necessary because, despite ideas of a stable, unchanging identity, we do change—and often!

In class, we discussed the role of selective perception—seeing somethings but not others—in this identity maintenance project.  Two assigned articles discuss the interplay under focus:

 

Shively, Joellen. 1992. “Perceptions of Western Film Among American Indians and Anglos.” American Sociological Review 57:725-734.

Robinson, Dawn T. and Smith-Lovin, Lynn.  1992 (March).  “Selective Interaction as a   Strategy for Identity Maintenance: An Affect Control Model.”  Social Psychology Quarterly, 55(1):12-28.

 

The Task

Read these two essay, then read Chapter 2 in America’s Atonement, on Racial Pain in the 21^st Century.  Focus on the section “Racial Pain Beyond Black and White,” pages 42-48.

Drawing on the essays, discuss the various relational conflicts illustrated in these pages; that is, the Jewish-Anglo episode in Dr. Phil’s excerpt, etc.