Browsing by Subject "Social identity"
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Item The atypical environmentalist : the rhetoric of environmentalist identity and citizenship in the Texas coal plant opposition movement(2013-12) Thatcher, Valerie Lynn; Brummett, Barry, 1951-Many contemporary grassroots environmental campaigns do not begin in urban areas but in small towns, rural enclaves, and racially or economically disadvantaged communities. Citizens with no previous activist experience or association with the established environmental movement organize to fight industry-created degradation in their communities, such as coal-fired power plants in Texas, the focus of this dissertation. The Texas coal plant opposition movement is identified as sites of environmental justice, particularly as discriminatory practices against sparsely populated communities. The movement’s collaborative efforts are defined as a new category of counterpublic, co-counterpublic, due to the discrete organizations’ shared focus and common purpose. The concept that a growing number of environmental activists are atypical is advanced; atypical environmentalists often engage in environmental practices while rejecting traditional environmentalist language and identity to avoid stigmatization as tree-huggers, extremists, or affluent whites. Presented are rhetorical analyses of identity negotiation and modalities of public enactments of citizenship within the Texas coal plant opposition movement and a critique of plant proponent hegemonic discourses. Research focused on five sites of coal plant opposition in Texas, gathered through ethnographic fieldwork and through a compilation of mediated materials. Asen’s discourse theory of citizenship was used to analyze the data for instances of rhetorical negotiation of environmentalist identity in politically conservative and in ethnically marginalized communities, their localized performances as public citizens, and the collaborative processes between established environmental groups and discrete local organizations. Texas anti-coal activists engaged in what Asen called hybrid citizenship; activists were primarily motivated toward enacted citizenship by a sense of betrayal by authorities. Issue and identity framing theories were implemented to critique rhetorical strategies used by plant proponents. In order to silence the opposition, plant supporters marginalized local anti-coal activists using what Cloud called identity frames by foil; proponents borrowed derogatory rhetorics from well-established anti-environmentalist discourse through which they self-identified positively by framing opponents as Other. The means through which proponents deflected their responsibility to the community by promoting technological solutions to pollution and deferring authority to industry executives and government agencies is analyzed within Chong and Druckman’s competing frames and frames in communication theories.Item Communicating social identities: exploring boundary spanners in interorganizational collaborations(2009-12) Isbell, Matthew Gustave; Lewis, Laurie K.; Ballard, Dawna I.The purpose of this study is to investigate the ways in which members of interorganizational collaborations (IOCs) create and maintain the processes and structures of collaborative organizing. This research argues that IOCs are complex organizations that include ongoing communicative processes among individuals who act as collaborative members and constituent representatives. Specifically, this research seeks to explain how individual boundary spanners come to understand collaborative identities that create structures affecting actions and outcomes of the collaboration. Five research questions are posed using social identity theory as a guide to explore the data collected. The communication processes of IOC boundary spanners was investigated during a 13-month ethnographic field study, which included meeting observations, in-depth interviews, video stimulated recall, and document analysis. Overall, over 90% of the active members in the IOC were interviewed. Data was analyzed using the constant comparative method and organized by research question. Results indicate that boundary spanners in IOC use social identity to help orient and organize the diverse voices present within the collaboration. IOC members invoked group prototypes that created sub-groups within the IOC, thus allowing members with different goals for participation to find ways to justify membership. These prototypes also formed norms for communicating between members and created a collaborative environment that eventually led to organizational collapse. In addition, memberships within the IOC was constantly negotiated between members as the IOC worked towards certain goals. As sub-groups communicatively interacted with each other in the IOC, individuals would become more or less engaged in the collaborative process based on the successes and failures of the sub-group a boundary spanner has joined. Overall, this study helps us better understand how individuals within the IOC experience the collaboration and emphasize the importance of communication in collaborative processes. This study concludes with a discussion of the results and implications of the data for social identity theory, boundary spanner research and IOC research, as well as implications for practice. Limitations and future directions are also discussed.Item Social identity, temporal scarcity, and projected selves : a study of NCAA athletic participation and its relation to health and well-being(2012-05) Rogers, Sarah Lynn; Ballard, Dawna I.; McGlone, MattAn organizational communication study of collegiate athletes concludes that social identity theory, time scarcity, and projected selves theory are correlated with psychological/physical health, as well as the ability to predict academic success. Findings indicate that striking a balance between athletics and academics, and the time devoted to both, is necessary in order to achieve physical and psychological health. Furthermore, findings provide a link between the projected future self, social identity and the present motivation to achieve academically.Item 'Tab' figurines and social identity at La Blanca(2011-05) Long, Michael James, 1985-; Guernsey, Julia, 1964-; Stuart, DavidThis thesis examines a special group of Middle Preclassic (900-600 BC) figurines excavated at La Blanca, an early Mesoamerican site on the Pacific Coast of Guatemala. Figurines at La Blanca are ubiquitous and derive from both elite and non-elite household contexts. Because of their widespread distribution, archaeologists associate figurines with daily practice and household ritual in ancient Mesoamerica. They represent a rare opportunity to examine materializations of the human body across social strata, and because their depositional contexts do not seem to suggest ritual care, their context of use remains enigmatic. With the dawn of the Middle Preclassic period, the community at La Blanca was at the center of a dramatic transition: in addition to the reconfiguring of political, social, and economic structures, the nature of personhood was profoundly transformed during this period. I argue that figurines were actively involved in the ongoing negotiation of social identity and personhood at La Blanca during this important transitional period. I specifically discuss a group of figurines from La Blanca called 'tab' figurines, which are remarkable for their exaggerated sexual characteristics and distinct approach to depicting the human form. I examine the 'tab' figurine assemblage in depth and examine how aspects of their context, form, and function helped their makers negotiate social identity at La Blanca.Item Torn between me and us: On the moderating effects of group identity on interpersonal(2010-12) Citti, Danette L.; Larsen, Jeff T.; Reich, Darcy A.; DeMarree, Kenneth G.; Reifman, AlanTraditionally studies in conformity have persistently found that people conform to group attitudes and judgments (Asch, 1951; Newcomb, 1966; Deutch & Gerard, 1955). Some have even suggested that prior to conforming, participants in these studies experience some discomfort. These feelings maybe characterized as feelings of subjective ambivalence that people experience as they recognize a discrepancy between their own attitude and that of people important to them (Priester & Petty, 2001). Since people are motivated to reduce subjective ambivalence (Hodson, Maio, and Esses, 2001), this study investigated the possibility that conformity is one strategy that people use to reduce feelings of subjective ambivalence. In this study, participants were exposed to consensus information that either supported or opposed their own views toward an issue concerning Texas Tech students. As predicted, being in the minority increased subjective ambivalence and subjective ambivalence destabilized attitudes. Counter to predictions, being in the minority did not destabilize attitudes.Item Understanding the cognitive and affective underpinnings of whistleblowing(2013-08) Buhrmester, Michael Duane; Swann, William B.Enron, Pfizer, UBS, Halliburton: In recent years, organizational wrongdoing has cost taxpayers and stakeholders billions of dollars. Whistleblowers, organizational insiders who witness and report wrongdoing with the intent of effecting an organizational response, play a major role as combatants to such corruption. What motivates whistleblowers versus silent witnesses of wrongdoing? And what cognitive and emotional patterns underlie their actions? Here I construe whistleblowing as a personally costly but pro-organizational action (Miceli, Near, & Dworkin, 2008). As such, whistleblowing represents a novel type of extreme pro-group behavior that identity fusion theory seeks to explain (Swann, Jetten, Gomez, Whitehouse, & Bastian, 2012). The identity fusion approach posits that some people experience a visceral feeling of "oneness" with a group, a feeling that motivates a range of extreme pro-group actions. Across four preliminary studies, I first establish that fusion with one's organization (i.e., work or university) parallels fusion with other groups (e.g., country, political party). In addition, Preliminary Study 4 shows that fusion and whistleblowing are associated in retrospective accounts of workplace behavior. Given this initial support, a controlled lab experiment was conducted to address two major questions. First, to what extent is identity fusion with one's university associated with initial and formal whistleblowing behaviors? Second, in what ways, if any, do strongly vs. weakly fused individuals' cognitive and emotional experiences differ in response to witnessing organizational wrongdoing? As hypothesized, fusion with one's university predicted spontaneous reporting of an in-group transgressor. Strongly fused students' actions were associated with several cognitive and emotional factors, and cross-method evidence indicated that active negative emotions (e.g., anger) coupled with a heightened sense of personal responsibility drove strongly fused persons to spontaneously blow the whistle. Furthermore, strongly fused students were also especially likely to formally (as compared to spontaneously) report the transgressor. Evidence from participants' debriefing responses suggested that while weakly fused students diffused formal reporting responsibility to others, strongly fused students felt personally responsible to follow-through with a formal report. Overall, these results suggest that identity fusion is a promising perspective for understanding motives underlying personally costly pro-group behaviors.