Between Agency and Constraint: Towards an Understanding of {Sexual} Identity Content Development in Context

How do we become the people that we are? In his dissertation, titled “Beyond Static Factors: Introducing An Approach for Studying the Situated Development of {Sexual} Identity Content in Interactions” Ole Gmelin explores the challenges faced by sexual minority individuals in developing adaptive sexual identities. One of the key contributions of this dissertation is to highlight the tension between individual agency and societal norms in identity exploration. Individuals draw on cultural models of “ways of being” to make meaning of their experiences, and this occurs within everyday social interactions. To gain a deeper insight into how social and cultural contexts shape the emergence of adaptive (sexual) identities, it is essential to understand the situated mechanisms that contribute to identity formation. However, within (developmental) Psychology cultural and social environments are predominantly studied in terms of abstract and decontextualized variables in developmental and social psychology. The aim of the dissertation was to examine the concrete actions and behaviors through which cultural and social environments shape the emergence of sexual identities in emerging adults’ everyday conversations. To allow for the study of how identity content is formed in the context of everyday interactions, the dissertation introduces Iterative Micro-Identity Content Analysis (IMICA). Drawing on this new methodological approach, the dissertation was able to highlight not only how individuals explore personal identities, but also how emerging adults jointly negotiate the meanings of social identities when talking about sex.