Role-Identity Salience

Abstract

The concept of role-identity salience plays a critical role in many contemporary discussions of the self-concept. It has also been invoked, in one form or another, in a variety of other areas within sociology. However, there has been conspicuously little empirical investigation of the concept. This paper attempts to fill this void with an empirical examination of role-identity salience as it applies to the act of voluntary blood donation. The data are based on 658 responses to a mail questionnaire sent to a sample of blood donors. Analyses are organized into two sections. In the first section a number of hypotheses specifying correlates with salience of the blood donor role-identity are examined. Significant associations between salience and self-definition, a tendency to view others in terms of the role-identity, increased social relations premised on the role-identity, expectations from other, andfuture behavior, were found. In the second section, salience and the variables mentioned above are used to predict number of donations six months after completing the questionnaire. Results from a regression analysis find support for salience, self-definition, and social relationships as significant predictors. Implications and limitations of the findings are discussed.