602 vI. SELF‑ AND S OCIAL P ROCESSES
satisfying life situation or because they as -
pire to self-  improvement. People may, for ex -
ample, decide that they are dissatisfied with 
their standard of living and take systematic 
steps to adopt an identity that will accom -
modate a more lucrative profession. Some 
research suggests that such intentional iden -
tity change requires a self-  focused state of 
mental preparedness or subjective readiness 
to change  (Anthis & LaVoie, 2006). Even 
those who feel prepared for change, howev -
er, will likely find it difficult to alter deeply 
entrenched aspects of their identity simply 
because they want to (e.g., Swann, 1996). 
Indeed, for self-  initiated identity change to 
take root successfully, people should change 
not only their own self-views and/or narra -
tives but also other aspects of the identity 
negotiation process that sustained their for -
mer identity, such as specific relationship 
partners and social contexts.
Gateway  Identities
At times, people may engage in behavior but 
resist internalizing an identity that befits the 
behavior. For example, earlier this century, 
smoking rates stabilized at around 21% of 
U.S. adults (Centers for Disease Control and 
Prevention, 2005), but the stigma associated 
with smoking has increased steadily (Kim 
& Shanahan, 2003). An outgrowth of these 
dual trends is that many people take their 
smoking behavior underground or identify 
merely as “social smokers,” even though they 
may smoke as often as self-  acknowledged 
smokers. This “pseudo-  non- smoker” iden -
tity may be a gateway identity,  a relatively 
safe and nonthreatening transitional identity 
that can lull people into behaviors that even -
tually precipitate full-blown addiction. Once 
addiction takes hold, it promotes behaviors 
that are emblematic of the undesired identity. 
Although the behaviors justified by the gate -
way identity might be quite different, they all 
share the common effect of allowing people 
to cling to their established identities while 
engaging in behaviors that conflict with that 
identity. If the behaviors persist, it becomes 
increasingly likely that the individual will be 
forced to recognize the behavior for what it is 
and update the identity in question.
In short, although identities tend to re -
main fairly stable, there are several mecha -nisms that can contribute to identity change. 
If there is a single quality that all of these 
mechanisms share, it is that they are either 
triggered by or lead to changes in the social 
environment. In this respect, identity ne -
gotiation theory shares the assumption of 
both self-  categorization theory (e.g., Turner, 
Oakes, Haslam, & McGarty, 1994) and self- 
perception theory (Bem, 1972) that stability 
in people’s interpersonal relations fosters 
stability in identity. Despite this similarity, 
however, identity negotiation theory does 
not assume that people’s sense of identity is 
computed on an ad hoc basis from current 
inputs from the social environment. Identity 
negotiation theory rejects this “empty self” 
assumption, arguing instead that people de -
rive a sense of self not only from currently 
available social inputs but also from chroni -
cally activated beliefs about the self that 
influence, as well as reflect, social inputs. 
This feature of identity negotiation theory 
bolsters its ability to explain the stability, as 
well as the flexibility, of self-  knowledge.
Summary and  Conclusions
Identity negotiation processes  refer to those 
intrapsychic and interpersonal activities 
through which people establish, maintain, 
and change their identities. This chapter 
has offered a rudimentary theory of identity 
negotiation. We assume that the identity ne -
gotiation process begins when people enter 
social interactions and strive to establish the 
identities they are to assume. To this end, 
people follow (largely without awareness 
or intention) a host of principles. Generally, 
these principles encourage people to negoti -
ate identities that are compatible with their 
chronic self-views. Under some conditions, 
however, people may reorganize or trans -
form their identity to accommodate new 
social realities. As a result, although iden -
tity negotiation processes and their accom -
panying intrapsychic mechanisms usually 
stabilize identities, they can lead to identity 
change under specifiable conditions.
In constructing our model of identity nego -
tiation, we have elaborated the interpersonal 
principles and intrapsychic mechanisms that 
guide identity negotiation processes, and 
have explained how these processes unfold 