Structural Symbolic Interaction and Identity: The Indiana School and Beyond (Richard T. Serpe) -- The link between identity importance and Identity Salience: Context Matters (Peggy A. Thoits) -- The Identity Verification Process: Cognitive and Behavioral Responses (Jan E. Stets) -- The Role of the Other: How Interaction Partners Influence Identity Maintenance (Lynn Smith-Lovin) -- Identity Flexibility and Uncertainty (Peter J. Burke) -- Competing Identity Standards and Managing Identity Verification (Jessie K Finch) -- The Social Bases of Racial Identity among White and Black Americans (Matthew O. Hunt) -- Mathematics Identity, Self-Efficacy, and Interest and their Relationships to Mathematics Achievement: A Longitudinal Analysis (George W. Bohrnstedt) -- Following in the Steps of a Giant: How Incorporating Social Networks into Structural Symbolic Interactionism Enriches both Frameworks (Bernice Pescosolido) -- Rational Choice, Identity and Decision-Making (Ross Matsueda) -- A View from the Bridge: Sociological and Psychological Aspects of Identity Multiplicity (Day Deaux) -- Role Discrepancies and Psychological Distress: A Partial Test of Incorporating Identity Theory and Self-Definitions into the Stress Process Model (Richard E. Adams) -- Personality Traits and the Perceptual Control of Identities (Will Kalkhoff) -- Fortcoming (Pamela Brayboy Jackson) -- Structural Symbolic Interaction and Identity Theory: Current Achievements and Challenges for the Future (Richard T. Serpe). .

This book examines identity theory's centrality within social psychology and its foundations within structural symbolic interaction, highlighting its links not only to other prominent sociological subfields, but also to other theoretical perspectives within and beyond sociology. The book provides a synthetic overview outlining the intellectual lineage of identity theory within structural symbolic interactionism, and how the "Indiana School" of identity theory and research, associated especially with Sheldon Stryker, relates to other symbolic interactionist traditions within sociology. It also analyses the latest developments in response to the push to integrate identity theory, which initially focused on role identities, with the study of personal, group and social identities. Further, it discusses the relationship between identity theory and affect control theory, providing a sense of the many substantive topics within sociology beyond social psychology for which the study of identity has important, sometimes underappreciated implications. The book concludes with a chapter summarizing the interrelated lessons learned while also reflecting on remaining key questions and challenges for the future development of identity theory.