Awakening a social conscience: Toward a model of activist identity development.

Abstract

A Model of Activist Identity Development (MAID) is proposed having five stages: Contact, Commitment to Action, Stridency, Adaptation, and Deepened Understanding. These stages bear similarity to established models of identity change (e.g. Cross Model of Psychological Nigrescence, Downing and Roush model of feminist identity development). Implications and limitations of the research are also examined.

This study is a qualitative, phenomenological inquiry into the process of activist identity development. Specifically, the experience of identity change over time was examined in 12 animal protection and environmental activists to see if "prototypical stories" of activism exist, in order to determine the "essence" of becoming an activist. Three prototypical stories emerged from the data. In the first prototypical story, an individual becomes involved in activism at a young age, becomes strident about their cause, and then mellows somewhat with time, becoming an effective and congruent activist. In the second prototypical story, an individual becomes involved in activism later in life, experiencing their stridency as depression or anger held in, and then following the same course outlined above. The last prototypical story involves taking action, but without adopting the identity of an "activist." In this story, individuals do many things that can clearly be categorized as activists, yet do not recognize themselves in that way.