Identity and Indecisiveness: Identity Integration Impacts Experiences of Decisional Conflict.

Abstract

We all belong to and identify with many social groups, and recent research has identified important individual differences in the psychological management of the relationship between these multiple identities. This dissertation examines the relationship between Identity Integration (II)—perceptions of one’s multiple social identities as compatible versus in conflict—and experiences of decisional conflict—or, indecisiveness. Studies 1 and 2 showed that low IIs—or, individuals who generally perceive their multiple social identities to be in conflict—experienced more decisional conflict. Study 1 found that individuals with lower levels of II reported higher levels of regret after a decision, even while controlling for trait-level neuroticism. Study 2 found the same relationship across self-reported trait-like, but not behavioral or affective, measures of indecisiveness, and across different decision-making tasks. Studies 3, 4, and 5 provided evidence for the context-dependence of the link between low II and experiences of decisional conflict, suggesting that identity management processes underlie this effect. Study 3 found that among employees of a multinational organization, lower II between work-related identities is associated with higher levels of self-reported indecisiveness at work. Studies 4 and 5 demonstrated that lower II between different cultural identities among biculturals and between work and family identities among working professionals with families, respectively, is associated with post-decisional negative affect and regret, but only in tasks relevant to those identities. Study 6 used an experimental manipulation of II, demonstrating that II directly affects post-choice regret, again only in decision-making tasks related to those identities. Extending previous research on identity and decision-making, these results show that psychological management of multiple social identities is also an important driver of decision-making experiences.