SOCIAL
PSYCHOLOGY
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.
THEORIES
Action identification is important for the personal
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 selfregulation, vulnerability to social influence, and selfconcept.
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
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 pre-disposed 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
OPTIMALITY IN ACTION
IDENTIFICATION
competition) is conveyed in the feedback. If the
feedback is evaluative (i.e., flattering vs. critical), it can
The principles of the theory work together to promote
affect the person’s self-evaluation. The tendency to
a level of identification that is most appropriate or
embrace new high-level identities in favor of current
optimal for performing the action. There is a press for
lower-level identities is referred to as the emergence
higher-level action understanding and control, but the
process.
emergent identity gives way to lower-level identities if
Because people act on the basis of their dominant act
identity, the emergence process can promote new
courses of action. If a person embraces feedback
suggesting
that
his
or
her
behavior
reflects
competitiveness, for example, he or she may seek out
competitive (as opposed to cooperative) activities in
the future. Research has established the relevance of
the emergence process for behavior change, including
the development of new goals (e.g., college activities)
and change in habitual behavior (e.g., alcohol
consumption).
it proves to be an ineffective guide to action execution.
But when action control is regained at a lower level,
the emergence process is engaged again, making the
person sensitive to higher-level identities (including
those that differ from the original high-level identities).
Over time and with repeated action, the person
converges on an identity at a level that enables that
individual to perform the action up to his or her
capacity. The more difficult or disruption-prone the
action, the lower the optimal level of identification.
Conversely, action mastery is signaled by optimality at
high levels of identification, such that action details are
The emergence process can charge even the simplest
integrated into larger action units, which then become
act with significance. If it were the only means by
the basis for conscious control of the action.
which action identification changed, people’s minds
would be populated by increasingly broad, abstract,
and evaluative notions of what they do and what they
are like. This possibility is constrained, however, by
Principle 3: When an action cannot be maintained in its
dominant identity, there is a tendency for a lower-level
identity to become dominant. A person may set out to
“persuade others,” for instance, but unless the action is
easily accomplished, he or she may have to think about
Despite the tendency toward optimality, people
sometimes identify what they do at a level that does not
reflect the action’s difficulty. The potential for nonoptimal identification is manifest in two ways. First,
the action context can make higher-level identities
dominant even when the action’s difficulty or
unfamiliarity warrants lower-level identification. The
promise of external reward, the threat of punishment,
the action in lower-level terms such as “show
evaluation by other people, and competition, for
command of the facts,” “demonstrate sincerity,” or
example,
“choose the right words.” Even if an action is easy, its
consequences, and other higher-level meanings of
details may stand out in consciousness if it is somehow
disrupted. A poor-quality sound system, for example,
might disrupt a person’s normally persuasive appeal,
causing him or her to think about his or her speech
clarity or word choice at the expense of the higher-level
“persuade” identity. An action’s lower-level identities
also tend to become conscious when performance is
imminent rather than in the distant future or distant
past, especially if the action is difficult or complex.
all
call
attention
to
the
outcomes,
action and thus can impair performance on difficult
tasks that require attention to lower-level details.
Second, an easy action can be impaired if conscious
attention is drawn to its lower-level aspects by some
means (e.g., disruption, verbal instruction). Low-level
identities are not only unnecessary for easy-tomaintain action, they can also disassemble an action
normally integrated with respect to a higher-level
understanding.
In
both
cases,
non-optimal
identification not only impairs performance, but also
has been shown to promote anxiety and self-
Gollwitzer & J. A. Bargh (Eds.), The psychology
consciousness.
of action (pp. 260-282). New York: Guilford
Press.
INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES
Vallacher, R. R., & Nowak, A. (2007). Dynamical
Vallacher and Wegner developed a scale, the
social psychology: Finding order in the flow of
behavioral identification form, to assess people’s
human experience. In A. W. Kruglanski & E. T.
characteristic
Research
Higgins (Eds.), Social psychology: Handbook of
theoretically
basic principles (2nd ed., pp. 734-758). New
employing
level
this
of
scale
identification.
has
found
meaningful differences between individuals who tend
York: Guilford Press.
to identify what they do in relatively high-level terms
(high-level agents) and those who routinely identify
their action in lower-level terms (low-level agents).
Specifically,
low-level
agents
demonstrate
less
expertise across different action domains, have a
Vallacher, R. R., & Wegner, D. M. (1987). What do
people think they’re doing? Action identification
and human behavior. Psychological Review, 94,
3-15.
weaker sense of personal control, are more impulsive,
Vallacher, R. R., & Wegner, D. M. (1989). Levels of
are more vulnerable to social influence, are less certain
personal agency: Individual variation in action
of what they are like with respect to personality traits,
identification. Journal of Personality and Social
and have a less stable self-concept.
Psychology, 57,660-671.
ACTION IDENTIFICATION AS A
DYNAMICAL SYSTEM
In
emphasizing
the
link
between
mental
representations and behavior, action identification
theory has clear relevance to models of self-regulation.
But the theory also depicts processes that are similar to
the operation of self-organizing dynamical systems in
many areas of science. Thus, an action can be viewed
as a set of inter-dependent elements (lower-level
identities) that influence each other to achieve a
coherent macro-level state (a higher-level identity).
The interplay between Principles 2 and 3, meanwhile,
captures the repeated episodes of emergence and
disassembly that underlie the evolution of complex
systems. This dynamic scenario has been invoked by
social psychologists in recent years to establish
similarity among very different topics, from the
formation of self-concept to the development of social
norms and values in society.
REFERENCES:
Vallacher, R. R., & Kaufman, J. (1996). Dynamics of
action identification: Volatility and structure in
the mental representation of behavior. In P. M.