**** Acts of identity: process and constraints

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Three strategies: projection, focussing, and diffusion

A speaker "projects" his or her inner self upon the group. Through repeated interaction with the group, individuals "focus" their respective behaviour and speech toward that required by the group. As a result, their own identities become variable, in a process of "diffusion."

Four constraints:

This process is constrained in the following four ways: By the ability of the speaker to identify with the group; by the speaker's access to, and ability to analyze, the group; by the speaker's motivation to join the group, whether through positive or negative behaviorial feedback; and finally, by the speakers ability, or lack thereof, to modify behavior toward the norms of the group.

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Taboret-Keller and LePage, _Acts of Identity_