Latest study shows people can easily change social identities

Researchers have found that people can switch between different social identities effortlessly. The study’s findings were published in the ‘Journal of Experimental Social Psychology’.

Previous research has shown that frequent switching tasks result in lower performance: longer completion times and lower accuracy. New study from the University of Exeter suggests there may be less difficulty in changing identities. “Our lives have accelerated a lot in recent years and decades, so we have to switch between different identities more often.

“Because of the pandemic, many more people now work from home – so they no longer have the slow switch to separate work from home,” said Anna Zinn of the University of Exeter. “The aim of our research is to find out whether activating rapidly or not. Distinct detection comes with a cost. We were surprised to find that these switches are extremely effective – people switch fairly rapidly without apparent difficulty. can,” said Zinn. However, the researchers note that this ability can come with a downside.

“We may have very little control over these switches. For someone working from home, staying in a professional identity can be important – but our findings suggest that you can easily get away with it,” explained Zinn. “The next step in our research is to examine these potential shortcomings.” what to do, and whether steps like having a dedicated workspace at home might limit them,” Zinn said.

Researchers conducted several studies using the “Implicit Association Test,” in which participants quickly sort words and images into categories.

Using this method, participants were made to think of a certain identity – for example, researchers asked them to sort images of faces by age to think of themselves as “young”. encouraged to. It was then possible for people to switch to a different identity – or stay in the same identity at other times – to observe the effects.

One study also created a new “minimal group” identity, in which participants were asked to remember images of people’s faces as members of a newly formed group (the participant was referred to as these people and himself as the “blue group”). was encouraged to think as part). Switching between this new identity and the existing identity was also seamless.

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