Strategic attitude expressions as identity performance and identity creation in interaction

Abstract

We assess the strategic alignment of attitudes and the active construction of attitude-based identity across two studies. Study one assessed the twitter response (hashtags in English) to the war in Ukraine for five months after Russia’s first invasion of Ukraine 2022 (N = 8149). Results demonstrated that individuals publicly expressed hashtags similar to others close to them in the followership network, showing their support for Ukraine and condemnation of the Russian invasion in qualitatively different ways. Study two was a preregistered Prolific experiment with geographical European participants ran in September, 2022 (N = 1368). Results demonstrated that attitude interaction with ingroup members motivated interactants towards attitude alignment, and attitude alignment strengthened the identification that motivated the alignment in the first place. Results suggest that attitude expression is performative and constrained by one’s group relationship with one’s audience and the definition of social identity can be constrained by opinion-based identity performance. People align their attitudes with their network’s in an online context. Further, attitude expressors are active agents in the construction of identity, expressing attitudes performatively to construct and consolidate identities.