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Ethnic Identity Achievement, Identity Verification, and Self-worth

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Identities in Action

Part of the book series: Frontiers in Sociology and Social Research ((FSSR,volume 6))

Abstract

Ethnic identity achievement is the outcome of an exploration process that results in a stable and secure understanding of one’s ethnic group. The achievement process helps people understand and cope with racial discrimination and prejudice they experience and is thus essential for the development of positive self-worth for youth and young adults. However, the theoretical relationship between ethnic identity achievement and self-worth is not entirely clear. Drawing on an ethnically diverse sample of college students (N = 1504), we test a theoretical model hypothesizing that ethnic identity achievement helps people verify their ethnic identity. In turn, this enhances how people feel about themselves as a member of their ethnic group (group-specific self-worth), and thus how they feel about themselves generally (global self-worth). We find support for our hypotheses with no evidence of gender or ethnic variation. By integrating the ethnic identity achievement model with principles from identity theory, our findings provide theoretical elaboration to the ethnic identity achievement process as well as the role played by group-specific self-worth in the verification of social identities.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    One item is different. The 14th item in the original scale is “maintaining ethnic gender roles.” Our corresponding item is “maintaining an ethnic home.”

  2. 2.

    Since the model is just-identified, there were no goodness of fit statistics to estimate.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Idaho, Moscow, ID, USA

    Matthew Grindal

  2. University of California at Riverside, Riverside, CA, USA

    Melanie Kushida & Tanya Nieri

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  1. Matthew Grindal
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  2. Melanie Kushida
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Correspondence to Matthew Grindal .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Sociology, University of Massachusetts Boston, Boston, MA, USA

    Philip S. Brenner

  2. Department of Sociology, University of California, Riverside, CA, USA

    Jan E. Stets

  3. Department of Sociology, Kent State University, Kent, OH, USA

    Richard T. Serpe

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Grindal, M., Kushida, M., Nieri, T. (2021). Ethnic Identity Achievement, Identity Verification, and Self-worth. In: Brenner, P.S., Stets, J.E., Serpe, R.T. (eds) Identities in Action. Frontiers in Sociology and Social Research, vol 6. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-76966-6_3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-76966-6_3

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