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Using 77 status-imbalanced dyads, we experimentally test the effect of status on identity stability, setting the stage for research on identity change. From an identity theory perspective, we hypothesize that those with higher status will maintain greater identity stability over the course of a task-oriented interaction than their relatively lower status partners. We further test the role of identity-discrepant information. Results indicate that higher status actors are better able to maintain stable identity meanings than those with lower status. However, this relationship dissipates when situational meanings contrast with high-status actors’ self-views. More generally, this indicates that high status positively affects identity stability, yet high-status actors remain vulnerable to situational inputs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses aspects of Transabled.org., an online community for people with body integrity identity disorder (BID), with details on how BID is collectively constructed and individually articulated through the introduction statements of twenty-two bloggers. The author provides an overview on how bloggers essentialize their impairment-needs, painting a picture of a ruptured self. She enables the bloggers to describe their impairment-needs as existential and deeply intrinsic supporting them in several ways, such as focusing on childhood. She then argues that the essentialist narrative locates impairment-needs within a natural frame and in doing so acts as a form of moral stigma resistance.