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Cited by 0Identity, Memory, and TherapyLanguage, Discourse, Communication StrategiesSocial Representations and Identity

The DOI matches its Crossref record; 41 of the 41 references it cites were found in a registry or an index; none of the 26 sources its claims cite is checked for support yet.

Studying Identity Development in Everyday Conversations: A Practical Guide to Developmental Discursive Micro-Analysis (DDMA)

Open access
Gmelin, Jan-Ole Harald·2026·Identity
DOI 10.1080/15283488.2026.2708720
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Abstract

Young people’s identities develop in the context of their everyday lives, but traditional approaches to identity development have limited access to the concrete, situated and action-oriented mechanisms underlying long-term development. This paper addresses this gap by outlining a developmental discursive approach to the study of identity development within contexts (i.e. micro-analysis). Grounded in a social constructionist epistemology and discursive psychology, the approach treats identity as an unfolding, situated process shaped by talk and interaction; it is explicitly developmental (i.e. it examines how identities unfold over time) and psychological (i.e. it centers individuals and their situated meaning-making practices). Developmental discursive micro-analysis (DDMA) can show how the processes underlying long-term identity development (e.g. identity exploration, meaning-making, or narrative engagement) are enacted as people engage with each other and the world. The manuscript provides an accessible introduction to discursive psychology for identity researchers, and includes concrete guidance on the full analytic cycle – from the design of research projects to the analysis of identities in interactions. The analytic strategies are outlined using data from a video-recorded coming out conversation between a young gay man and his mother, highlighting how analysis can capture identity processes at individual, relational and cultural levels.

Overview

AI snapshot

Written from the paper’s full text.

TL;DR

The paper introduces developmental discursive micro-analysis (DDMA), a social constructionist and discursive psychological approach for studying identity development as it unfolds in everyday talk, illustrated with a video-recorded coming out conversation between a young gay man, Ryan, and his mother. It argues DDMA can show how macro-level identity processes such as exploration are enacted in micro-level interaction, while cautioning that it cannot demonstrate reflective intra-individual outcomes.

Key findings

  • DDMA treats identity as situated, action-oriented, and co-constructed in talk; it draws on Bamberg’s positioning framework across three levels: identity content, relational/interactional context, and cultural repertoires. The paper outlines four discursive assumptions: talk performs actions; identities are constructed through and in the service of action; identity constructions draw on shared cultural meanings; and identity implications are interactionally managed.
  • The worked example comes from a larger collection of video-recordings (N = 9) of young gay men and one of their parents, uploaded to YouTube by the young men themselves between 2012 and 2019. In the analyzed conversation, Ryan repeatedly probes his mother for reassurance and evaluation, while the mother constructs conditional love (“I’ll always love you Ryan, as long as you don’t hurt anybody”) and later mobilizes the category “parent”/“good parent” to manage threats to her identity.
  • The paper proposes an analytic cycle: familiarization through “unmotivated looking,” identifying identity constructions, analyzing their function in sequential context, and tracing how interactional moves accumulate across the interaction(s). It reports that discursive psychological approaches commonly use fewer than ten transcripts, with many convincing studies relying on single cases, and suggests that for repeated interactions, three dyads across three interactions each will likely allow sufficient variability.
  • Developmentally, the analysis illustrates how identity exploration can emerge from conflict management, for example through the mother’s boundary work around “What kind of mother am I?”; however, the paper states that internalization remains a theoretical conjecture rather than an analytic finding.

Methods

  • Design: a practical, methodological guide to DDMA, grounded in social constructionism and discursive psychology, using Bamberg’s positioning framework and analytic resources from conversation analysis, membership categorization analysis, discursive psychology, and positioning analysis.
  • Data: the worked example uses one video-recorded coming out conversation between Ryan and his mother, drawn from a larger archival collection of N = 9 YouTube videos uploaded by young gay men between 2012 and 2019; because of their archival nature, the data are exempt from ethics review.
  • Analysis: case-by-case micro-analysis of transcripts, moving through familiarization, identification of identity-implicative claims (person-pronouns coupled with attributes), sequential/function analysis, and tracing accumulation across the interaction; trustworthiness practices include participant orientation, next-turn proof procedure, deviant-case analysis, researcher diary, and reflexivity.

Limitations

  • Stated in the paper: DDMA can identify situated processes but cannot demonstrate reflective outcomes such as identity statuses or personal identity narratives; it cannot know what happens to a momentary construction beyond the recorded moment, and claims about internalization remain theoretical conjectures.
  • Stated in the paper: generalizability is not a central concern, and the approach is best understood as “generalizing to possibility”; DDMA also risks invoking unobservable psychological states for observable discursive moves, which the author addresses by taking an intentional stance.
  • Evident from the text: the worked example is a single interaction from a small archival YouTube collection (N = 9), with little known about the dyad beyond the recorded moment, and no longitudinal or reflective assessments are included, so links to long-term development are illustrative rather than tested.

Model-written summary. Check it against the paper before relying on it.

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1080/15283488.2026.2708720

Cites

41 of 41 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Nothing to recompute.

Verification

Claims the paper makes

0 of 26 cited sources checked · 0 supported · 0 flagged

Show all 29 claims

  • It may state two separate claims as one. 28
  • Probably not a substantial claim. 38
  • The quote only partly states this claim. 3
51 of 51

  • The authors state this as an assumption.

    Knowledge and meaning (and ultimately reality itself) are constructed through language in social interactions.

    “As an epistemological perspective, social constructionism assumes that knowledge and meaning (and ultimately reality itself) are constructed through language in social interactions (Edley, 2001).”

  • The authors state this as an assumption.

    Talk performs actions.

    “(1) Talk performs actions.When people speak about the world or themselves they are not only describing or expressing things, but performing actions: talk can function to reassure, attribute responsibility or avoid it, justify or challenge decisions, and so on.”

  • The authors state this as an assumption.

    Identities are constructed through and in the service of action.

    “(2) Identities are constructed through and in the service of action.Individuals rarely enter interactions with the explicit aim of constructing (or exploring) their identities, instead everyday conversations are organized around all kinds of more immediate”

  • The authors state this as an assumption.

    Identity constructions draw on shared cultural meanings.

    “(3) Identity constructions draw on shared cultural meanings.While assembled in the moment, individuals do not construct identities”

  • The authors state this as an assumption.

    Identity implications are interactionally managed.

    “(4) Identity implications are interactionally managed.These implications are socially consequential because once established, speakers can be held accountable for actions or attributes that may be treated as inconsistent with the positioned identity (e.g.,”

  • The authors state this as an assumption.

    Speakers can select from a range of alternative formulations, grammatical structures, and lexical options when producing an utterance, and these choices matter for how actions and identities are understood.

    “The approach that I am outlining here is perhaps best understood as a way of working with and looking at data: its central assumption is that speakers can select from a range of alternative formulations, grammatical structures, and lexical options when producing an utterance, and that these choices matter for how actions and identities are understood (Deppermann, 2011;Jørgensen & Phillips, 2002).”

  • The authors state this as an assumption.

    All knowledge claims (including discursive psychology's own analytic outcomes) are socially constructed.

    “Due to its social constructionist epistemology, discursive psychology assumes that all knowledge claims (including its own analytic outcomes) are socially constructed (Jørgensen & Phillips, 2002).”

  • The paper relies on this without support.

    Young people's everyday social contexts are the arenas in which they explore, negotiate, and ultimately develop identities.

    “Young people's everyday social contexts are the arenas in which they explore, negotiate, and ultimately develop identities.This process unfolds as young people position themselves in relation to culturally available ways of being and each other.”

  • The authors state this as an assumption.

    The male figure referred to in the son's question is his (step)father.

    “which I assume to be his (step)father”

  • The paper relies on this without support.

    The parent is not aware of the camera.

    “the parent does not seem to be aware of the camera”
10 of 10

Self-check

Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.

Each contradiction between two passages listed here was confirmed by an independent check.

  • Inclusive claim is assigned to the wrong transcript lines

    Minor

    The quoted "both of us" formulation appears at lines 97-98, not 104-105. At lines 104-105, the mother says "all I care about," which does not group herself with the father as the analysis claims for those lines.

1 of 1

Citations

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

Show all 41 references

Research works printed but not linked: 10

  1. Dennett, D. C. (1989). The intentional stance. MIT Press.
  2. Edwards, D., & Potter, J. (1992). Discursive psychology. Sage Publications, Inc.
  3. Erikson, E. H. (1968). Identity: Youth and crisis. Norton.
  4. Korobov, N. (2015). Identities as an interactional process. In K.C. McLean & M. Syed (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of identity development (pp. 210–227). Oxford University Press.
  5. Peräkylä, A. (2011). Validity in research on naturally occurring social interaction. In D. Silverman (Ed.), Qualitative research (pp. 365-382, 3rd ed.). Sage Publications Ltd.
  6. Saldaña, J. (2009). The coding manual for qualitative researchers. Sage Publications Ltd.
  7. Schachter, E. P. (2015). Integrating “internal,” “interactional,” and “external” perspectives: Identity process as the formulation of accountable claims regarding selves. In M. Syed & K. C. McLean (Eds.), Handbook of identity development (pp. 228–245). Oxford University Press.
  8. Steinberg, L. (1995). Commentary: On developmental pathways and social contexts in adolescence. In L. J. Crockett & A. C. Crouter (Eds.), Pathways through adolescence: Individual development in relation to social contexts (pp. xi, 273). Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.
  9. Wetherell, M., & Potter, J. (1993). Mapping the language of racism: Discourse and the legitimation of exploitation. Columbia University Press.
  10. Willig, C. (2013). Introducing qualitative research in psychology. McGraw-Hill Education (UK).

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Metadata

Authors
Gmelin, J.-O. H.
Affiliations
University of Groningen (NL)
Corresponding author
Gmelin, Jan-Ole Harald
ORCID
Gmelin, Jan-Ole Harald
Venue
Identity
Publisher
Informa UK Limited
Published
2026-09-28
Volume
26
Issue
4
Pages
305-324
ISSN
  • 1528-3488 (ISSN-L)
  • 1532-706X
DOI
10.1080/15283488.2026.2708720
OpenAlex
W7214616884
Semantic Scholar
a806b8935beb33d8ff3547488b53607cabf08944
Cited by
0
References
41
FWCI
0.00
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
Locations
  • Identity (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • University of Groningen research database (University of Groningen / Centre for Information Technology) (publishedVersion, cc-by)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Identity, Memory, and Therapy
  • Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Language and Linguistics › Language, Discourse, Communication Strategies
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Social Representations and Identity
Keywords
identity construction, discursive psychology, social constructionism, everyday conversation, youth, coming out, identity exploration, meaning-making, narrative engagement, gay men, analytical strategies

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