Abstract copyright UK Data Service and data collection copyright owner.
Beyond basic motives to seek food, water, affiliation and security, people's thoughts and actions are often guided by symbolic motives. These include 'identity motives', which guide people to see themselves in particular ways. Existing research suggests that people are motivated to see themselves in a positive light (the self-esteem motive), but also to believe that they are distinguished from others (the distinctiveness motive), that their identities persist through time (the continuity motive), that they are accepted by others (the belonging motive), that they are competent (the efficacy motive), and that their lives are ultimately meaningful (the meaning motive). Yet, little is known about the generality of these motives to people from non-Western cultural backgrounds, the majority of the world's population, and the little available evidence is controversial. The researchers have assembled a network of research collaborators in 34 nations chosen to provide a broad representation of global variation in cultural values. They designed two complementary studies to test these new theoretical ideas. Study 1 tested the hypotheses among high school students in 19 nations. A longitudinal design was used so data were collected over two different periods. Study 2 used a simplified design to reach adults in a larger number of cultural groups, aiming to sample maximum possible cultural diversity. In total, the research involved the participation of over 12,000 respondents in over 50 cultural groups. Further information is available on the Motivated identity construction in cultural context ESRC Award web page. For the second edition (September 2016), updated versions of the data files were deposited, with some erroneous cases corrected.
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The files contain data from two separate studies: Study 1 and Study 2. Participants in Study 1 were high school students from 19 nations (Time 1) and 16 nations (Time 2). Participants in Study 2 were adults from 34 nations. Within many of the Study 2 nations, participants are divided into two or three cultural groups, depending on the grouping relevant in each nation. Study 1 involved two waves of data collection: Time 1 and Time 2. The Time 2 data files contain both Time 2 data and the corresponding Time 1 data for those participants who remained in the study. For each wave of Study 1 and for Study 2, there are two different data files, corresponding to two levels of analysis: identity and individual. Identity files contain all data at the identity element level. Identity elements refer to the separate aspects of identity that people listed in the questionnaire: in Study 1 each participant listed 10 identity elements, and in Study 2 they listed 8 identity elements. These were then rated on various dimensions related to motivated identity construction (e.g. perceived centrality, positive affective association, self-esteem, distinctiveness, belonging: adapted from Vignoles et al., 2006). Hence, the identity files contain 8-10 times as many cases as the individual files and can be analysed at the level of these separate aspects of people’s identity. The individual files contain variables measured at the level of the individual; hence there are as many cases as there are participants. Individual difference variables in Study 1 Time 1 were as follows: selected items from the Horizontal and Vertical Individualism-Collectivism scale (Singelis, Triandis, Bhawuk, and Gelfand, 1995); short version of the Portrait Value Questionnaire (Schwartz, 2007); Immutability Beliefs (Bastian and Haslam, 2006); Contextualism Beliefs (Owe et al., 2011); Religiosity (unpublished measure); selected demographic details. Individual difference variables in Study 1 Time 2 were as follows: Self-Construal Scale (adapted from Gudykunst, Matsumoto, Ting-Toomey, and Nishida, 1996); Community Relations (unpublished measure); Self-Attributed Need for Uniqueness scale (Lynn and Harris, 1997); Need to Belong scale (Leary et al., 2007). Study 2 contained: Self-Construal Scale (unpublished measure); Contextualism Beliefs (Owe et al, 2011); Immutability Beliefs (Bastian and Haslam, 2006); short version of Portrait Value Questionnaire (Schwartz, 2007); Community Relations (unpublished measure); selected demographic details. Identity and individual files can be linked (via participant number) for use in multilevel analyses.
Convenience sample
Self-completion
