590 vI. SELF‑ AND S OCIAL P ROCESSES
relevant parties persist. As noted earlier, 
however, ongoing identity negotiations may 
be imperceptible to outsiders if the identity- 
relevant behaviors of the interaction part -
ners are subtle. Even the interaction partners 
themselves may not realize that an identity 
negotiation is underway given the tendency 
for such negotiations to become automatic 
and to fade from consciousness.
Principles of  Identity Negotiation  Processes
The foregoing discussion suggests that iden -
tity negotiation is a special form of negotia -
tion processes that is unique in its function, 
ubiquity, and structural properties. Given 
these distinctive qualities, it is not surprising 
that a unique set of principles governs the 
identity negotiation process. People presum -
ably learn these principles in the same way 
that they learn all rules of social interaction: 
through trial and error (Goffman, 1959). 
As noted earlier, people routinely conform 
to these principles even though they are sel -
dom aware of them. Rather, their adherence 
to these principles typically occurs auto -
matically and implicitly (Jones & Pittman, 
1982). Although there could be many such 
principles, we focus here on four of the most 
important ones.
Clarity
Ambiguity regarding matters of identity and 
relationship goals can be misleading, put 
partners off balance, undermine trust, and 
produce disappointing outcomes. Hence, 
the first principle of interpersonal identity 
negotiation is that to ensure clarity, targets 
should communicate their desired identities 
and interaction goals to perceivers as early 
in the interaction as possible. Moreover, tar -
gets should communicate their desired iden -
tity and relationship goals via as many chan -
nels of communication as possible, because 
redundancy provides perceivers with cor -
roborating information and thereby dimin -
ishes the probability of misunderstanding 
and conflict. Thus, for example, people may 
simultaneously communicate their identities 
through verbalizations and through the dis -
play of identity cues : overt signs and symbols 
of who they are (Goffman, 1959; Schlenker, 1980; Swann, 1983). Such cues may range 
from T-  shirts to titles and honorifics (e.g., 
“Dr.”), bedroom and office décor (Gosling, 
Ko, Mannarelli, & Morris, 2002), and on -
line posts on social network sites such as 
Facebook (Back et al., 2010).
Of course, maximal clarity is only pos -
sible or desirable insofar as people are cer -
tain about the identity that they want to ne -
gotiate. If someone is uncertain of a given 
identity, either for situational reasons (e.g., 
the situation is a novel one) or dispositional 
reasons (e.g., the individual is low in self- 
concept certainty; Pelham, 1991), then clar -
ity may suffer. In such circumstances, people 
may achieve clarity by looking to their inter -
action partner for cues regarding the iden -
tity that he or she expects them to assume. 
When this occurs, people are particularly 
likely to adopt identities that provide behav -
ioral confirmation of perceivers’ expecta -
tions (e.g., Snyder & Klein, 2005; Snyder & 
Swann, 1978).
Cooperation
Targets should cooperate with perceivers 
by honoring the identities that they negoti -
ate. One obvious way to uphold the coop -
eration principle is to behave in an identity- 
consistent manner throughout a given 
interaction. In this way, targets can avoid 
identity renegotiation, which can be highly 
disruptive and may undermine the interac -
tion goals of one or both partners.
For targets to communicate that they are 
following the cooperation principle, the 
timing of their behaviors can be critical. At 
times, identity negotiations resemble asset 
negotiations, in that people may bargain 
back and forth in an offer–  counteroffer 
fashion (e.g., Goffman, 1959; Homans, 
1974). In such scenarios, people may uphold 
the cooperation principle by following each 
concession on their partner’s part with a 
concession of their own (Axelrod & Ham -
ilton, 1981). For example, after receiving 
feedback indicating that a perceiver accepts 
a target’s desired identity, the target should 
reciprocate by accepting the identity that the 
perceiver offers. Such reciprocal concessions 
should reinforce the mutual confirmation of 
identities that provides the basis for success -
ful identity negotiation.