Long Lost : The emotional side of identification - Complementing SIT with psychoanalytic insights
(2017) In Journal of Management Inquiry 26(1). p.3-16- Abstract
- In this essay, I aim to complement social identity theory (SIT) concepts of identification with insights from psychoanalysis to address three problematic aspects: (a) SIT emphasizes cognition and often neglects emotions, (b) emotions—if mentioned —are primarily positive, and (c) SIT-based concepts can be used to inspire simplified ideas of identification management. I argue that psychoanalytic insights can help us attend to these problematic aspects and help us advance our understanding of identification in organizations: they add an emotional focus on identification that can better explain strong relationships than a cognitive focus alone; they add the full range of emotions (positive to negative), which means that identification can also... (More)
- In this essay, I aim to complement social identity theory (SIT) concepts of identification with insights from psychoanalysis to address three problematic aspects: (a) SIT emphasizes cognition and often neglects emotions, (b) emotions—if mentioned —are primarily positive, and (c) SIT-based concepts can be used to inspire simplified ideas of identification management. I argue that psychoanalytic insights can help us attend to these problematic aspects and help us advance our understanding of identification in organizations: they add an emotional focus on identification that can better explain strong relationships than a cognitive focus alone; they add the full range of emotions (positive to negative), which means that identification can also go along with negative emotions; and they also add a distinction between identification and narcissistic attachments that involve different motivations, dynamics, and predictive potentials. I illustrate these points in an example from Pratt and highlight implications for future research. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
https://lup.lub.lu.se/record/3d932ceb-cbc5-4390-a078-535abb92b907
- author
- Müller, Monika LU
- publishing date
- 2017-01
- type
- Contribution to journal
- publication status
- published
- subject
- keywords
- identification, social identity theory, psychoanalysis, emotions, narcissistic attachment, ambivalence
- in
- Journal of Management Inquiry
- volume
- 26
- issue
- 1
- pages
- 14 pages
- publisher
- SAGE Publications
- external identifiers
-
- scopus:85002188972
- ISSN
- 1056-4926
- DOI
- 10.1177/1056492616646453
- language
- English
- LU publication?
- no
- id
- 3d932ceb-cbc5-4390-a078-535abb92b907
- date added to LUP
- 2017-05-10 11:47:53
- date last changed
- 2022-04-24 23:52:11
@article{3d932ceb-cbc5-4390-a078-535abb92b907,
abstract = {{In this essay, I aim to complement social identity theory (SIT) concepts of identification with insights from psychoanalysis to address three problematic aspects: (a) SIT emphasizes cognition and often neglects emotions, (b) emotions—if mentioned —are primarily positive, and (c) SIT-based concepts can be used to inspire simplified ideas of identification management. I argue that psychoanalytic insights can help us attend to these problematic aspects and help us advance our understanding of identification in organizations: they add an emotional focus on identification that can better explain strong relationships than a cognitive focus alone; they add the full range of emotions (positive to negative), which means that identification can also go along with negative emotions; and they also add a distinction between identification and narcissistic attachments that involve different motivations, dynamics, and predictive potentials. I illustrate these points in an example from Pratt and highlight implications for future research.}},
author = {{Müller, Monika}},
issn = {{1056-4926}},
keywords = {{identification; social identity theory; psychoanalysis; emotions; narcissistic attachment; ambivalence}},
language = {{eng}},
number = {{1}},
pages = {{3--16}},
publisher = {{SAGE Publications}},
series = {{Journal of Management Inquiry}},
title = {{Long Lost : The emotional side of identification - Complementing SIT with psychoanalytic insights}},
url = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1056492616646453}},
doi = {{10.1177/1056492616646453}},
volume = {{26}},
year = {{2017}},
}