Motives and Contexts of Identity Change: A Case for Network Effects*

theories of identity1 and to describe how various social contexts and cognitive motives influence the process of identity change. Although many strands of literature describe identity dynamics, two are considered primary: identity theory (Stryker 1980; Stryker and Serpe 1982) and social identity theory (Tajfel 1981; Tajfel and Turner 1986; Turner et al. 1987). Recent literature has tried to combine these two paradigms by comparing the distinct contexts and motives that each theory proposes (Deaux and Martin 2003; Hogg and Ridgeway 2003; Hogg, Terry, and White 1995; Stets and Burke 2000). Two views of social context emerge: category and network. Both are alluded to in theory but lack clear operationalization and empirical study. Similarly, two views on motives emerge: internal standards of self-efficacy and external standards of self-verification. Both of these are related to identity dynamics but left somewhat unconnected to social contexts (Elliot 1986). We develop a novel way to operationalize category and network contexts in order to link contexts to motives, and we argue that they jointly influence processes of identity change. We establish these links by analyzing unique data on thousands of students in a natural setting, namely the high school.These students report nearly complete information on their social networks, identity perceptions, and crowd affiliations over time (Brown 1990). Using these data, we develop formal tests which establish a macro-to-micro-level argument that particular network and category contexts are associated with motives of self-efficacy and self-verification, and thereby influence the process of identity transformation. Social Psychology Quarterly 2005, Vol. 68, No. 4, 289–315