| Popis: |
We bring self-attributions into identity theory by exploring respondents’ attributions for how their employment status affects the prominence of their worker identity, and ultimately, influences their self-esteem, specifically the dimensions of self-confidence and self-deprecation. Using a survey of nearly 1000 respondents, we explore respondents’ explanations of how their employment status is influenced by social structural conditions affecting employment and their own characteristics. The analysis focuses on those employed full-time, who we see as holding the normative status of the worker identity, as well as those who are unemployed and actively seeking full-time employment, who we see as holding a counter-normative identity. We find that those who are employed have higher self-esteem on the self-confidence dimension. The unemployed have lower self-esteem on the self-deprecation dimension. We contribute to the growing literature in identity theory on the importance of the social structure on actors’ lived experiences, normative and counter-normative identities, and how explanations for their identity status differentially impact self-esteem. |
