Action Identification Theory

Definition

People usually know what they are doing, intend to do, or have done in the past. How people achieve an unambiguous understanding of their behavior is rather remarkable when one considers the variety of ways in which any action can be identified. “Taking a test,” for example, could be identified as “showing one's knowledge,” “earning a grade,” or “answering questions.” Action identification theory, developed by Robin Vallacher and Daniel Wegner, specifies the principles by which people adopt a single act identity for their behavior and outlines the conditions under which people maintain this act identity or adopt a new one. The interplay of these principles has implications for central issues in social psychology, including self-regulation, vulnerability to social influence, and self-concept.

Action Identification and Behavior

The potential identities for an action, although diverse by many criteria, are hierarchically related in an identity structure. Lower-level identities in this structure convey the details of the action and thus indicate how the action is done. Higher-level identities convey a more general understanding of the action, indicating why the action is done or what its effects and implications are. Identification level is relative, so whether a particular identity is considered a means or an end, a detail or an implication, depends on the identity with which it is compared. The hierarchical level of two identities is indicated when a person performs one act identity by performing another. “Showing one's knowledge” is a higher-level identity than “taking a test,” for example, because one does the former by doing the latter rather than vice versa. “Taking a test,” however, is a high-level identity with respect to “answering questions,” since one takes a test by answering questions.

Action identification is important for the personal control of behavior. Principle 1 of the theory holds that action is undertaken with respect to the act identity that stands out in consciousness. This means that people have an idea of what they are doing or want to do and use this act identity as a frame of reference for implementing the action and monitoring its occurrence. Because act identities exist at different levels in an identity structure, this principle specifies that people can perform an action at different levels. A person may intend to “give a speech,” for instance, and monitor his or her behavior to see whether this intention has been fulfilled, or the person may intend to “talk in a deliberate tone” (a lower-level identity) or “persuade others” (a higher-level identity) and monitor the attainment of whichever identity is foremost in his or her mind.

Change in Action Identification

Action identification is a dynamic process, undergoing periods of stability and change in accordance with two principles. Principle 2 holds that when both a lowerand a higher-level act identity are available, there is a tendency for the higher-level identity to become dominant. This means that people prefer to think about their behavior in terms of its goals, effects, and implications, rather than in terms of its more mechanistic components. Thus, when a person has only a low-level understanding of his or her behavior, he or she is predisposed to adopt a higher-level identity offered by other people or made available by the action context. If the person is induced to think about the details of his or her behavior in a recent interaction, for example, he or she is sensitive to how this behavior is identified by other people, because such feedback may provide a more comprehensive (higher-level) understanding of the behavior. As a result, the person might come to believe his or her behavior reflects whatever interpersonal tendency (e.g., cooperation or competition) is conveyed in the feedback. If the feedback is evaluative (i.e., flattering vs. critical), it can affect the person's self-evaluation. The tendency to embrace new highlevel identities in favor of current lower-level identities is referred to as the emergence process.

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