
The benefits of acknowledging our multiple identities

Summary
Like Russian dolls, we’re all many people in one and this can yield insights to forge better strategiesThe concept of multiple identities might be one of the most under-used human behaviour characteristics in policymaking and corporate strategies. Individuals have various identities, depending on their gender, religion, caste, ethnicity or nationality. These identities are mostly inherited at birth. Then there are identities that are acquired by the individual through education, political beliefs, and their professional and other accomplishments. These are conscious identities of the individual that are often known to others.
Like Russian dolls within a doll, many identities reside inside every individual at a non-conscious level. What is interesting is that some of these identities within a person can vary more than the identities of different people do. For example, while going to sleep, there is a health-conscious identity that decides to set a wake-up alarm for a walk the next morning. But when this alarm rings, there is another identity that stretches a hand across to switch it off and urges us to sleep a bit longer. This lazy identity that switches off the alarm is poles apart from the diligent health-conscious identity that set it the night before. Many of these non-conscious identities are difficult to decipher because they surface only in particular contexts.
Even though the existence of multiple identities is a well established concept, most traditional discussions on human behaviour poo-pooed it. Consistency of behaviour, as determined by one’s personality, was always considered the mark of a true human being. Those who displayed different identities at different times have long been dismissed as chameleons or two-faced. Such attempts to project a ‘singular’ conception of human identity onto everyone is not always driven by noble intentions.
Throughout history, various vested interests have tried to compartmentalize people based on a single identity factor. Almost always, the identity played up was one of many inherited identities, like nationality or religion. Playing up inherited identities is a binary game, where winners and losers are all decided even before the game begins, at birth. Those unlucky to be born into ‘less privileged’ identities have no escape route from their perceived low status. At the same time, those lucky to be born into ‘privileged’ identities find different ways to hold on to their perceived ‘superiority’. At the core of many recent controversies are attempts to define an individual’s identity solely based on religion and use that single identity factor to override all other identities. This over-emphasis on a single identity across all facets of life can have disastrous consequences.
In recent years, there have been several studies that focused on the benefits of having multiple identities. Research by Sarah Gaither, an assistant professor in the department of psychology and neuroscience at Duke University, on a person’s multiple identities has shown that thinking about one’s self from the angle of multiple identities improves flexible social thinking and creativity. Other research projects have demonstrated that individuals who have spent time studying abroad in other cultural contexts than their own are more creative problem-solvers because they have added experience in reconciling different cultural identities and social norms. Multiple social identities are also found to be positively correlated with better health and increased well-being in retirement, because they allow individuals to both give and receive social support. According to the ‘identity accumulation hypothesis’, the more identities possessed by an actor, the less psychological distress s/he should exhibit.
Understanding multiple identities, more so our non-conscious ones, can provide significant insights for behavioural change programmes.
For example, a leading bank was trying to get its loan defaulters to pay up their dues. Initial research among the bank staff led it to realize that these loan defaulters, more so those who had not paid for more than six months, were treated very differently by the bank staff. With many of these defaulters not even willing to take phone calls from the bank, the staff perception that they were not like their usual customers only got strengthened. The single identity that the bank staff had given every defaulter was that of an absconding criminal. The tone of voice, language used by bank employees in their interactions and call-centre conversations with the defaulters reflected this perception.
But a deep dive into the multiple identities of defaulters threw up very interesting insights. Deep within most of them was an honest person who wanted to repay the money borrowed. But their present financial situation did not allow them to meet their regular-payment obligations. They wanted to pay intermittently. Yes, they avoided calls from the bank, but that was because they felt evaluated. Armed with the knowledge that there were honest individuals residing in defaulters, all further efforts at loan recovery were aimed at this upright identity of theirs. This led to a 20% increase in the collection of loan dues that had been pending for more than six months.
Every individual is a combination of multiple identities, both conscious and non-conscious. Depending on the context, one of them pops up. The more we understand the various identities of a person, the conversations and debates among these identities, the easier it will be to intervene in such self-conversations and debates. This is actually the crux of all behaviour-change strategies.
Biju Dominic is the chief evangelist, Fractal Analytics and chairman, FinalMile Consulting