Identity anxiety is really worry about being valued by others

Evidence

Every identification, thus, becomes an evaluation. The high-status show dog King’s Royal Lassie has a more valuable identity than mid-status farm-town Lassie. When KRL interacts with others, she receives benefits others do not. This principle emerges in the phenomenon of celebrity impersonation. After the success of the film Jaws in 1975, two schlubs went around the United States pretending to be director Steven Spielberg and lead actor Richard Dreyfuss. Their mere physical resemblance to the celebrities alone provided very little; to be them, on the other hand, afforded a wide array of social benefits. In most cases, then, our anxieties about identity are worries about valuation. We don’t just want a distinct identity—but a high-status distinct identity. — W. David Marx, Status and Culture, 290

Categorization

• CANDY: The Jaws con-man pair and the King’s Royal Lassie show-dog joke make a genuinely tweetable point about identity-as-evaluation.
• XREF: connects to: Threatened self-esteem plus uncertainty drives people into rigid group identity. — Leonard S. Newman and Ralph Erber (eds.), Understanding Genocide: The Social…, 913; Anxiety about freedom drives subjects to alienate themselves in things — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 128; Status anxiety extends to being surpassed by one’s own peers and neighbors — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 2244 (+5 more)

Broader Connections

• Threatened self-esteem plus uncertainty drives people into rigid group identity. #expands (0.92) — Leonard S. Newman and Ralph Erber (eds.), Understanding Genocide, 913
• The modern discourse of identity depends on recognition by others and masks suppressed fear #corroborates (0.88)
• Each person privately fears their true indifference being detected by others #exemplifies (0.86) — Russell Hardin, Trust and Trustworthiness, 963
• Being-for-others alienates me into an objectivity I cannot reclaim for myself #corroborates (0.85)
• Anxiety about freedom drives subjects to alienate themselves in things #expands (0.82) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 128
• Existentialist anxiety is the vertigo of realizing one’s own freedom #complicates (0.80) — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café, 61
• Identity threat triggers defensive identity-management behaviors aimed at preserving a positive self #expands (0.80) — Lea Echelmeyer, Anne-Marie Slotboom, and Frank Weerman, The Putative Effect of Identity on…, 25
• Status anxiety extends to being surpassed by one’s own peers and neighbors #qualifies (0.78) — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 2244