CoChat
Sign Up
Cited by 542Education, Achievement, and GiftednessCareer Development and DiversityRacial and Ethnic Identity Research

Identity-Based Motivation: Implications for Intervention

Open access
Oyserman, Daphna, Destin, Mesmin·2010·The Counseling Psychologist
DOI 10.1177/0011000010374775PMC PMC3079278
Open this paper in CoChat — free account

Abstract

Children want to succeed academically and attend college but their actual attainment often lags behind; some groups (e.g., boys, low-income children) are particularly likely to experience this gap. Social structural factors matter, influencing this gap in part by affecting children’s perceptions of what is possible for them and people like them in the future. Interventions that focus on this macro—micro interface can boost children’s attainment. We articulate the processes underlying these effects using an integrative culturally sensitive framework entitled identity-based motivation (IBM). The IBM model assumes that identities are dynamically constructed in context. People interpret situations and difficulties in ways that are congruent with currently active identities and prefer identity-congruent to identity-incongruent actions. When action feels identity congruent, experienced difficulty highlights that the behavior is important and meaningful. When action feels identity incongruent, the same difficulty suggests that the behavior is pointless and “not for people like me.”

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1177/0011000010374775

Cites

10 of 10 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Claims the paper makes

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

  • Motivation involves beliefs, values, interests, goals, drives, needs, reinforcements, and identities; influences choice, persistence, and effort; and is essential for engagement and learning.

    “Motivation involves beliefs, values, interests, goals, drives, needs, reinforcements, and identities (Oyserman & Destin, 2010;Wigfield et al., 2015); influences choice, persistence, and effort (Wigfield et al., 2015); and is essential for engagement and learning.”

    From Malleability, plasticity, and individuality: How children learn and develop in context<sup>1</sup> (2019) · cites this paper as Oyserman & Destin, 2010

    The citation is attached to the first clause, not the later claims about choice, persistence, effort, engagement, or learning. The Identity-based motivation section says identities have motivational force and links them to goals and values, but it does not support the full list of beliefs, interests, drives, needs, and reinforcements. Page numbers are unavailable in our copy. (LLM, conf=0.87)

    Experimental — accuracy not yet measured

  • Cultural dissonance makes it harder for students to perceive themselves as learners or successful learners and to visualize the connection between their schoolwork, current lives, and promising futures.

    “Cultural dissonance makes it harder for students to perceive themselves as learners (or successful learners) and to visualize the connection between their schoolwork, current lives, and promising futures (Ambrose & Lovett, 2014;Oyserman & Destin, 2010).”

    From Malleability, plasticity, and individuality: How children learn and develop in context<sup>1</sup> (2019) · cites this paper as Oyserman & Destin, 2010

Self-check

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

The self-check needs the paper’s full text.

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

Research works printed but not linked: 74

  1. Abrams D 1994 Social self-regulation Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 20 473 483
  2. Alexander KL Entwisle DR 1988 Achievement in the first two years of school: Patterns and processes Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development 53 3226426
  3. Alexander KL Entwisle DR Bedinger SD 1994 When expectations work: Race and socioeconomic differences in school performance Social Psychology Quarterly 57 283 299
  4. Altschul I Oyserman D Bybee D 2008 Racial-ethnic self-schemas and segmented assimilation: Identity and the academic achievement of hispanic youth Social Psychology Quarterly 71 302 320
  5. Arbona C 2000 The development of academic achievement in school aged children: Precursors of career development Brown SD Lent RW Handbook of Counseling Psychology 270 309 3rd Hoboken, NJ Wiley
  6. Banaji M Prentice D 1994 The self in social contexts Annual Review of Psychology 45 297 332
  7. Berger J Health C 2007 Where consumers diverge from others: Identity signaling and product domains Journal of Consumer Research 34 121 134
  8. Betz N Fitzgerald L 1993 Individuality and diversity: Theory and research in counseling psychology Annual Review of Psychology 44 348 381 19954328
  9. Brewer MB 1991 The social self: On being the same and different at the same time Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 17 475 482
  10. Butler R 2000 Making judgments about ability: The role of implicit theories of ability in moderating inferences from temporal and social comparison information Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 78 965 978 10821202
  11. Constantine M Erickson C Banks R Timberlake L 1998 Challenges to the career development of urban racial and ethnic minority youth: Implications for vocational intervention Journal of Multicultural Counseling and Development 26 83 95
  12. Coon HM Kemmelmeier M 2001 Cultural orientations in the United States: (Re-) examining differences among ethnic/racial groups Journal of Cross-Cutural Psychology 32 348 364
  13. Cross WE Jr Cross TB 2007 The big picture: Theorizing Self-Concept Structure & Construal Draguns Juris G Lonner Walter J Trimble Joseph E Counseling Across Cultures Sixth 73 88 Thousand Oaks, CA Sage Publications
  14. Cross WE Jr Cross TB 2008 Racial-ethnic-cultural identity development (REC-ID): Theory, research, and models McKown Clark Quintana Stephen Handbook of Race, Racism, and the Developing Child 154 181 Hoboken, NJ Wiley Press
  15. Davies PG Spencer SJ Steele CM 2005 Clearing the air: Identity safety moderates the effects of stereotype threat on women's leadership aspirations Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 88 276 287 15841859
  16. Destin M Oyserman D 2009 From assets to outcomes: How finances shape children's perceived possibilities and intentions Psychological Science 20 414 418 19298260
  17. Destin M Oyserman D in press Incentivizing education: Seeing schoolwork as an investment, not a chore Journal of Experimental Social Psychology PMC2930839 20824201
  18. Dweck CS 2002 The development of ability conceptions Wigfield A Eccles JS Development of achievement motivation 57 88 New York Academic Press
  19. Fiske AP Kitayama S Markus HR Nisbett RE 1988 The cultural matrix of social psychology Gilbert D Fiske S Lindzey G Handbok of social psychology 2 915 981 New York Guilford Press
  20. Fiske S 1992 Thinking is for doing: Portraits of social cognition from daguerreotype to laserphoto Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 63 877 889 1460557
  21. Gelso C Fassinger R 1990 Counseling psychology: Theory and research on interventions Annual Review of Psychology 41 355 386 2407174
  22. Greenwald A Banaji M 1989 The self as a memory system: Powerful, but ordinary Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 57 41 54
  23. Grinstein-Weiss M Greeson J Yeo Y Birdsong S Despard M Quercia R 2009 The impact of low- and moderate-wealth homeownership on parental attitudes and behavior: Evidence from the community advantage panel Children and Youth Services Review 31 23 31 PMC4437217 25999617
  24. Heyman G Dweck C 1998 Children's thinking about traits: Implications for judgments of the self and others Child Development 69 391 403 9586214
  25. Higgins ET 1998 Promotion and prevention: Regulatory focus as a motivational principle Zanna MP Advances in experimental social psychology 1 41 London Academic Press
  26. Hogg M Terry D White K 1995 A tale of two theories: A critical comparison of identity theory with social identity theory Social Psychology Quarterly 58 255 269
  27. Hong Y Chiu C Dweck CS 1995 Implicit theories of intelligence: Reconsidering the role of confidence in achievement motivation Kernis MH Efficacy, agency and self-esteem 197 216 New York Plenum Press
  28. Kashima ES Hardie EA 2000 The development and validation of the relational, individual, and collective self-aspects (RIC) scale Asian Journal of Social Psychology 3 19 48
  29. King LA Smith NG 2004 Gay and straight possible selves: Goals, identity, subjective well-being, and personality development Journal of Personality 72 967 994 15335334
  30. Lee S Oyserman D Bond M in press Am I doing better than you? That depends on whether you ask me in English or Chinese: Self-enhancement effects of language as a cultural mindset prime Journal of Experimental Social Psychology
  31. Lew J 2006 Burden of acting neither White nor Black: Asian American identities and achievement in urban schools The Urban Review 38 335 352
  32. Li W J L Jr Solmon M 2004 College students' implicit theories of ability in sports: Race and gender differences Journal of Sport Behavior 27 291 304
  33. Markus H Oyserman D 1989 Gender and thought: The role of the self-concept Crawford M Gentry M Gender and thought: Psychological perspectives New York Springer-Verlag
  34. Markus H Wurf E 1987 The dynamic self-concept Annual Review of Psychology 299 337
  35. McGuire W McGuire C Child P Fujiota T 1978 Salience of ethnicity in the spontaneous self-concept as a function of one's ethnic distinctiveness in the social environment Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 36 20 511 671213
  36. Mello ZR 2009 Racial/ethnic group and socioeconomic status variation in educational and occupational expectations from adolescence to adulthood Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology 30 494 504 18605835
  37. Nisbett R 2003 The geography of thought: How Asians and Westerners think differently… and why New York, NY Free Press
  38. Nurra C Oyserman D 2010 The future self and current action Manuscript under editorial review
  39. Oyserman D 1993 The lens of personhood: Viewing the self and others in a multicultural society Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 65 993 1009
  40. Oyserman D 2007 Social identity and self-regulation Kruglanski AW Higgins ET Social Psychology: Handbook of Basic Principles second New York Guilford Press
  41. Oyserman D 2008 Racial-ethnic self-schemas: Multi-dimensional identity-based motivation Journal of Research on Personality 42 1186 1198 PMC2577588 19122837
  42. Oyserman D 2009a Identity-based motivation: Implications for action-readiness, procedural-readiness, and consumer behavior Journal of Consumer Psychology 19 250 260
  43. Oyserman D 2009b Identity-based motivation and consumer behavior Journal of Consumer Psychology 19 276 279
  44. Oyserman D Brickman D Bybee D Celious A 2006 Fitting in matters: Markers of in-group belonging and academic outcomes Psychological Science 17 854 861 17100785
  45. Oyserman D Coon HM Kemmelmeier M 2002 Rethinking individualism and collectivism: Evaluation of theoretical assumptions and meta-analyses Psychological Bulletin 128 3 72 11843547
  46. Oyserman D Fryberg S Yoder N 2007 Identity-based motivation and health Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 93 1011 1027 18072851
  47. Oyserman D Gant L Ager J 1995 A socially contextualized model of African American identity: Possible selves and school persistence Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 69 1216 1232
  48. Oyserman D James L 2009 Possible selves: From content to process Markman K Klein WMP Suhr JA The Handbook of Imagination and Mental Stimulation 373 394 New York Psychology Press
  49. Oyserman D Johnson E James L Seeing the destination but not the path: Effects of socioeconomic disadvantage on school-focused possible self content and linked behavioral strategies Self and Social Identity PMC3204662 22053148
  50. Oyserman D Kemmelmeier M Fryberg S Brosh H Hart-Johnson T 2003 Racial-ethnic self-schemas Social Psychology Quarterly 66 333 347
  51. Oyserman D Lee SSW 2007 Priming ‘culture’: Culture as situated cognition Kitayama S Cohen D Handbook of cultural psychology 255 279 New York Guilford Press
  52. Oyserman D Lee SWS 2008 Does culture influence what and how we think? Effects of priming individualism and collectivism Psychological Bulletin 134 311 342 18298274
  53. Oyserman D Markus HR 1998 Self as social representation Flick U The psychology of the social 107 125 New York, NY Cambridge University Press
  54. Oyserman D Packer M 1996 Social cognition and self-concept: A socially contextualized model of identity Nye JL Brower AM What's Social About Social Cognition? 175 201 Thousand Oaks, CA Sage Publications
  55. Oyserman D Sorensen N 2009 Understanding cultural syndrome effects on what and how we think: A situated cognition model Wyer R Hong Y Chiu C Understanding culture: Theory, research and application 25 52 New York Psychology Press
  56. Oyserman D Sorensen N Reber R Chen SX 2009 Connecting and separating mind-sets: Culture as situated cognition Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 97 217 235 19634972
  57. Prentice DA Miller DT 2006 Essentializing differences between women and men Psychological Science 17 129 135 16466420
  58. Rivera LM Schaefer MB 2009 The career institute: A collaborative career development program for traditionally underserved secondary (6-12) school students Journal of Career Development 35 406 426
  59. Roberts DF 2000 Media and youth: Access, exposure, and privatization Journal of Adolescent Health 27S 8 14 10904200
  60. Rothman AJ Schwarz N 1998 Constructing perceptions of vulnerability: Personal relevance and the use of experiential information in health judgments Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 24 1053 1064
  61. Schwarz N 1998 Accessible content and accessibility experiences: The interplay of declarative and experiential information in judgment Personality and Social Psychology Review 2 87 99 15647137
  62. Schwarz N 2002 Feelings as information: Moods influencejudgment and processing style Gilovich T Griffin D Kahneman D Heuristics and biases: The psychology of intuitive judgment 534 547 Cambridge Cambridge University Press
  63. Schwarz N in press Meaning in context: Metacognitive experiences Barrett LF Mesquita B Smith E The mind in context New York Guilford
  64. Settles IH 2004 When multiple identities interfere: The role of identity centrality Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 30 487 500 15070477
  65. Shih M Pittinsky T Ambady N 1999 Stereotype susceptibility: Identity salience and shifts in quantitative performance Psychological Science 10 81 84 11554671
  66. Smith E Semin G 2007 Situated social cognition Current Directions in Psychological Science 16 132 135 PMC2663908 19343102
  67. Steele CM 1997 A threat in the air: How stereotypes shape the intellectual identities and performance of women and African Americans American Psychologist 52 613 629 9174398
  68. Trafimow D Triandis H Goto S 1991 Some tests of the distinction between the private self and the collective self Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 60 649 655
  69. Triandis H 1995 Individualism and collectivism Boulder, CO Westview Press
  70. Trusty J 2000 High educational expectations and low achievement: Stability of educational goals across adolescence Journal of Educational Research 93 356 395
  71. Turner JC Hogg MA Oakes PJ Reicher SD Wetherell MS 1987 Rediscovering the Social Group: A Self-Categorization Theory Oxford Blackwell
  72. Vera EM Reese LE 2000 Preventive interventions with school-age youth Brown SD Lent RW Handbook of Counseling Psychology 411 434 3rd Hoboken, NJ Wiley
  73. Wheeler SC Petty RE 2001 The effects of stereotype activation on behavior: A review of possible mechanisms Psychological Bulletin 127 797 826 11726072
  74. Woike BA 1994 The use of differentiation and integration processes: Empirical studies of “separate” and “connected” ways of thinking Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 67 142 150

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Authors
Oyserman, D., & Destin, M.
Affiliations
University of Michigan (US)
Corresponding author
Oyserman, Daphna
ORCID
Venue
The Counseling Psychologist
Publisher
SAGE Publications
Published
2010-08-17
Volume
38
Issue
7
Pages
1001-1043
ISSN
  • 0011-0000 (ISSN-L)
  • 1552-3861
DOI
10.1177/0011000010374775
PMC
PMC3079278
OpenAlex
W2168754497
Cited by
542
References
10
Citations by year
2026: 32 · 2025: 38 · 2024: 62 · 2023: 27 · 2022: 38 · 2021: 40 · 2020: 40 · 2019: 33 · 2018: 44 · 2017: 41 · 2016: 31 · 2015: 29 · 2014: 30 · 2013: 18 · 2012: 26
FWCI
23.45
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
journals.sagepub.com/page/policies/text-and-data-mining-license (tdm)
Locations
  • The Counseling Psychologist (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
  • Deep Blue (University of Michigan) (submittedVersion)
Funders
National Institute of Mental Health (R01MH058299)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Education, Achievement, and Giftedness
  • Social Sciences › Safety Research › Career Development and Diversity
  • Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Racial and Ethnic Identity Research
Keywords
identity-based motivation, achievement gap, higher education aspirations, socio-structural factors, culturally sensitive interventions, identity construction, gender differences in achievement, low-income children, achievement motivation

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review