Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Contributors
- Foreword
- Preface
- 1 Introduction: The power of status
- Part I How status differences are legitimated
- Part II The influence of status on markets
- Part III The role of status in new industries and ventures
- Part IV When ascriptive status trumps achieved status in teams
- Part V Status in the workplace
- 10 Organizational justice and status
- 11 Resolving conflicts between status and distinctiveness in individual identity
- Part VI Developing status and management knowledge
- Index
- References
11 - Resolving conflicts between status and distinctiveness in individual identity
A framework of multiple identity displays
from Part V - Status in the workplace
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
Edited by
Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Contributors
- Foreword
- Preface
- 1 Introduction: The power of status
- Part I How status differences are legitimated
- Part II The influence of status on markets
- Part III The role of status in new industries and ventures
- Part IV When ascriptive status trumps achieved status in teams
- Part V Status in the workplace
- 10 Organizational justice and status
- 11 Resolving conflicts between status and distinctiveness in individual identity
- Part VI Developing status and management knowledge
- Index
- References
Summary
In this chapter I discuss how a person might respond to conflicts between status and distinctiveness in individual identity. In particular, I look at how one might affirm an individual identity that is status-enhancing but distinctiveness-threatening on one level (e.g., being categorized as an “attorney” is high status, but not distinctive) and is distinctiveness-enhancing but status-threatening on another level (e.g., being categorized as a public defender for the poor in rural South Dakota is distinctiveness-enhancing, but low in status). I begin by examining the concept of individual identity and extant research that suggests how such identity may be threatened.
Individual identity and identity threats
Researchers of individual identity in organizations have suggested that a person’s self-concept may be defined by the categories chosen to define himself or herself. As Hogg and Abrams (1988, pp. 24–25) define it:
The self-concept comprises the totality of self-descriptions and self-evaluations subjectively available to the individual. It is not just a catalogue of evaluative self-descriptions, it is textured and structured into circumscribed and relatively distinct constellations called self-identifications … [where] self identifications are essentially self-categorizations.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Status in Management and Organizations , pp. 304 - 330Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2010
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