Identities and Self-Verification in the Small Group

Riley Burke

This research examines the relationship between the meanings contained in one’s identity and the meanings attributed to one’s behavior by both oneself and others in small group interaction. The goal is to provide an empirical test of expectations derived from identity theory and the structural symbolic interaction perspective concerning the link between persons’ identities, their behaviors, their own interpretation of their behaviors and others’ interpretations of their behaviors. Of interest are three issues: whether others attribute the same meanings to one’s role performance as does the self, whether the meanings attributed both by the self and others verify (correspond to) the meanings contained in one’s identity, and the consequences when these meanings fail to correspond…