User:VirtualSwayy/sandbox

Deidentification is a cognitive identity-formation process that increases the extent to which one sibling (or both) in a sibling dyad defines his or her identity in terms of difference from other sibling. Although extremely common, not all siblings deidentify. Deidentification, as a process of difference, is in direct competition with processes that cause similarity in siblings, such as modeling and a shared environment. In most sibling relationships, all of these effects will exert influence on identity formation, some causing identification (siblings judge themselves as similar) and some causing deidentification (siblings judge themselves to be different).

Conceptual Foundations in Early Scientific Psychology Psychoanalysis
Scientific Psychology - Although, the term deidentification itself was coined in 1976, theorizing about the effects of sibling relationships on adolescent identity formation, and thus later life outcomes, began more than a century earlier. Sir Francis Galton's study of birth order effects tracks directly to early deidentification studies, in which the causal variable was a subtle variation on birth order called "birth-order pair". In 1874, Sir Francis Galton wrote a book called English Men of Science: Their Nature and Nurture, reporting his research finding that among England's leading scientists, many more were firstborn sons than would be expected by chance (twice as many). Much of Galton's finding wasn't due to sibling psychology because, as he explained, primogeniture laws gave firstborns an immeasurable advantage. However, Galton offered another causal explanation; that firstborns receive more parental attention, which is a direct precedent for some of the psychological causes of deidentification discussed below. Galton's psychological explanation is a more important precedent for deidentification than birth order, because the most recent research and theory on deidentification aren't concerned with birth order.

In Psychoanalysis - Although social science is the current research domain for Deidentification, as well as the earliest intellectual foundation, the early deidentification studies in 1976 &1977 track most directly back to the psychoanalytical theories of the mid-20th century,. Specifically, the work of Alfred Adler, in which birth order, again, was central to psychological development and outcomes across the lifespan. Adler, much more so that Galton, was much ore focused on sibling psychological processes, than on using birth order as a predictor (not that predictive modeling was in his wheelhouse. As a psychoanalyst, Adler didn't conduct scientific research). Adler agreed with Galton, that a firstborn would benefit from undivided parental attention. but not about the psychological processes that would result. Adler argued that as later siblings were born, the firstborn would suffer a psychological process he called dethronement, causing later negative life outcomes, e.g., substance abuse or criminal insanity. Although this theory wasn’t supported by later scientific research, Adler left an important mark on sibling research for two reasons. First his work demonstrates the importance of theorizing underlying psychological processes over simple structural predictors like birth order. Second, he understood and made clear the one central question that he, Galton, and deidentification researchers all ask, “why are siblings so different from one another?”

Causes
Adolescent siblings may begin to deidentify for a number of reasons.


 * Sibling Conflict: Siblings deidentification can occurs as a result of conflict within the sibling relationship, which is common. For example, 62% of high school seniors report having physically struck their sibling in the past year.


 * Sibling Rivalry/Niche-filling: Siblings may use deidentification to reduce competition for finite parental resources (sibling rivalry). Thus, deidentification process reduces sibling rivalry. Deidentification (and the corresponding niche filling) allows them to branch off to form their own, different identity and to become familiarized with their individual personality.


 * Social Comparisons: Some findings suggest that deidentification is a process by which siblings can protect themselves from social comparison. It is more common in siblings who share common characteristics, such as age and sex.
 * Split-Parent Identification: In analyzing the family as a system, rather than a single sibling dyadic relationship alone, more complex relationships give rise to more complex effects. Counter-intuitively, one of the similarity processes discussed above, modeling, can actually cause sibling deidentification in certain family structures. For example, When two parents are very different from each other, two siblings may each model a different parent (which is is split-parent identification). Modeling the differences, in turn, causes deidentification between the siblings.

TALK PAGE
2) UNCONSCIOUS PROCESS: PROPOSED CHANGE: REMOVE THE WORD "INTENTIONALLY". No research supports deidentification as an intentional process (or even a conscious one). Take this logical example, since it would be impossible to cite evidence of an argument that researcher's don't make. Take for example, an older brother whose parents praise his success in baseball, reinforcing the part of his identity that is "I'm a baseball player". The second son becomes a basketball player. As a result there is no competition for parental baseball praise, and the second son receives basketball praise, reinforcing the part of his identity that is "I'm am basketball player" AND the part of his identity that is "I am different from my brother". Like so many of the causes of human behavior and identity formation, some or all of the cognitive processes that combine to cause the outcome (like both the decision to play basketball, AND the resulting process of deidentification) may be unconscious processes, unknown to the person whose cognition and outcomes they affect. Cognitive psychology is replete with research findings, across many different research areas, demonstrating people are rarely, if ever, fully aware of the causes of their own behavior, even if they confabulate reasons that explain it. For one of many examples of unconscious processes causing behavior, all of the cognitive biases that affect people's decision-making are unconscious (by definition), like the [4-card selection task] (Wason, 1968) in which researcher's can predict that most people (90%) can't solve it as a generic logic problem using rules that establish certain numbers match certain colors (like even must be red), but the vast majority solve the same problem easily and quickly when presented in a social context, such as people's ages (rather than generic numbers) matched by use of a social rule to a behavior like buying beer versus soda (rather than generic colors). This finding makes it clear that the explanation for people's correct choices in the second condition (at least for the 90% of people that can't deduce it as a pure logic problem) is the presentation of the problem in a social context where the matching rule is based on violation of a social rule (age cards under 21 matching beer cards) or not violating a social rule (age cards under 21 matching soda). Specifically, the reason behind their reasoning is that the context engages a very fast, accurate, and efficient heuristic process in the brain, which humans evolved (Cosmides & Tooby, 1992) to police social rules. Are people aware of this reason? Did they intentionally think, "Ok brain, engage your social-rule-policing heuristic now and notify me of the solution when processing is complete"?. Of course not, we know that intuitively, but this has also been confirmed by experimental research. Wason & Evans (1975) asked subject to state the rationale for their correct solution, and subjects rationalized their reasoning process after the fact, by confabulating all sorts of explanations, none of which were correct (that they unconsciously used a social rule policing heuristic), except possibly "I just kind of knew" (which is actually a fairly accurate representation of how heuristics work. Heuristic are just one of countless examples of how humans usually are not fully aware of why they do what they do. Applying this to our deidentification example, did the younger brother intentionally decide to play basketball, to reduce competition by finding a niche? Quite possibly, but maybe he "just knew it". Regardless, it matters not because that choice is not deidentification, its simply the niche filling of younger sibling predicted by the resource dilution model. Because the younger bother found is basketball niche, he will deidentify from his brother, the process of beginning to perceive himself as different from his baseball playing brother at least in this dimension of his identity, his role identity in the context of his athletic role. Is it likely he was conscious of the process driving those changing self-perceptions? No. Is it likely that he chose basketball because he intentionally sought to change identity? That his rational for basketball was, if a play this sport I can differentiate my self-concept more from my sibling than it now, so it includes includes "I am different from my brother in the roles we fill in sports? Absolutely not. It's highly doubtful the words identity or self concept eve entered him mind, meaning that triggering a deidentification process was not intentional. That is still irrelevant bc we know that he did know consciously manage the process of doing that cognitively, and THAT is what the deidentification process is, doing it cognitively.