Identity Processes and Social Stress

Abstract

Social stress can be understood by incorporating interruption theory as developed in research on stress into a model of processes drawn from theory. From this perspective, social stress results from interruption of the feedback loop that maintains processes. I discuss four mechanisms of interruption of processes: broken loops, interference between systems, over-controlled systems, and the invocation of episodic identities. Each of these four mechanisms is associated with conditions known to produce feelings of distress. Finally, I discuss how personal evaluation relates to processes and distress, and how distress can lead to changes in identity. T hirty years ago inldentity andAnxiety, Stein, Vidich and White (1960) expressed the concern that the advent of a mass society would lead to a loss of identity and hence to widespread anxiety or stress. Today, research on social stress is more likely to emphasize the excessive demands and pressures arising from the many roles and identities that people maintain (Holroyd and Lazarus 1982; House 1974). While the implicit contradiction between these contrasting themes of too few or too many identities has not yet been resolved, interest in the relationship between stress or anxiety and has grown. In this paper, I propose a model of the relationship between stress and identity. I show that in a variety of situations known to produce stress, stress results from a common mechanism: disruption of the process. The importance of this common mechanism is two-fold. First, from the point of view of theory, it underlines the importance of understanding as a continuous process rather than as a state or trait of an individual. Second, it gives a focus to research on coping and problem solving as mechanisms for dealing with anxiety and distress. While Thoits (1991) has recently suggested that life events related to identities are more likely to produce distress than other life events, the present paper presents a model that helps to clarify this link.