Peter J. Burke is the author of three books, including Contemporary Social Psychological Theories and was awarded the Cooley-Mead Distinguised Career Award from the Social Psychology section of the American Sociological Association in 2003.

Jan E. Stets is the author of four books, most recently (with Jonathan Turner) of The Sociology of Emotions and The Handbook of the Sociology of Emotion.

The authors are both Professors of Sociology and Co-Directors of the Social Psychology Research Laboratory at the University of California, Irvine.

• Foreword


• Preface


• 1: Agency and Social Structure


• 2: The Roots of Identity Theory


• 3: The Development of Identity Theory


• 4: Identities and their Operation


• 5: Meaning, Resources, and Interaction


• 6: Bases of Identities: Role, Social Identities, and Person Identities


• 7: Multiple Identities


• 8: Emotion


• 9: Identity Change


• 10: Future Research


• Appendix: Identity Measures


• References


• Notes

All individuals claim particular identities given their roles in society, groups they belong to, and characteristics that describe themselves. This book describes and illustrates identity theory, a social psychological theory that attempts to understand identities, their sources in interaction and society, their processes of operation, and their consequences for interaction and society from a sociological perspective. Identity Theory makes the full range of this powerful new theory accessible to students and scholars at all levels