Is the status of individuals who have made a commitment but have not experienced a crisis?

Approaches to measurement in psychosocial theory

Identity formation is a dynamic process that unfolds as young people assess their competencies and aspirations within a changing social context of expectations, demands, and resources. A variety of potential resolutions of the psychosocial crisis of personal identity versus identity confusion have been described (Kroger, 2012; Kroger & Marcia, 2011). Several strategies have been used to assess and compare adolescents with regard to progress in the formation of personal identity. The focus of this measurement has been on the content of identity, typologies of identity status, contexts that impact identity work, and personality and family correlates of the various identity status positions (Kroger, 2000). Three approaches to measurement are described here: Marcia’s Ego Identity Interview, The Extended Objective Measure of Ego Identity Status (EOM-EIS-2), and the Multigroup Ethnic Identity Measure (Phinney, 1992; Phinney & Ong, 2007).

5 Criticism and Suggestions for Further Research

Both the Eriksonian approach to identity, as an individual personality variable, and the identity status approach to the study of Eriksonian ego identity have not been without their critics. Some theorists see society constructing individuals' identities, rather than individuals' constructing their own identities out of social givens (e.g., Gergen and Gergen 1997). These critics, though, have difficulty in explaining individual differences in identity content and process within the same culture. Some writers have questioned the degree to which the identity statuses fully represent Erikson's ideas (e.g., Cote and Levine 1988, but see also Waterman 1988). However, these critics overlook the substantial nomological network of studies that have actually yielded accrued meaning to both the identity statuses and to Erikson's identity construct. Similar to any scientific construct, the identity status paradigm is a ‘work in progress.’ Yet, it remains the predominant method for studying the development of ego identity in adolescence.

There is a clear need for longitudinal studies on a developmental theory such as Erikson's. This includes tracing, empirically, the childhood antecedents of adolescent identity as well as the transformations of identity throughout the life cycle. What are the necessary childhood conditions for identity formation at adolescence? What does identity look like at adulthood, at old age? In addition, now that we have some validated measures of the adult psychosocial stages we can be more specific about identity development's impact on their resolution. Is identity formation at adolescence a necessary condition for, say, generativity at middle adulthood? Additional areas of research concern include the impact of social conditions on identity formation. What kinds of social contexts foster or restrict identity development at adolescence? How does identity differ cross-culturally?

Who one is, to oneself and to others, is a lifetime project and a singularly cherished accomplishment and possession. Human history is replete with stories of persons and nations willing to go to any lengths to preserve or establish their own identities. What is significant about Erikson's approach to identity, in addition to the richness of his description, is that he locates its initial formulation within the individual lifecycle as the specific developmental task of adolescence, to be continued by means of successive reformulations throughout adulthood.

Asian American research

Though scant, there is empirical research using the identity formation model among Asian American adolescents, suggesting a positive relationship between an achieved ethnic identity status and positive self-concept. Asian American adolescents with an achieved ethnic identity status report higher levels of self-esteem, self-concept, and perceptions of academic abilities. Among Asian American adolescents, more committed and positive feelings toward one's group predicted better physical health, psychological, and social outcomes. Additional empirical research has used the MMRI and found that private regard and racial centrality have been positively correlated with educational utility, intrinsic value of school, utility values of school, academic value, identification with school, and school respect in a sample of Chinese American adolescents. Though the empirical research is scant, it is consistent with that of African American and Latino youth, suggesting that ethnic identity is beneficial for Asian American adolescents.

1.3 Identity in young adulthood

Cultivating a strong and stable sense of identity—a coherent set of defining goals, values, and commitments—is a crucial developmental milestone of early adulthood (Arnett, 2000). Identity status theory (Marcia, 1993) postulates that identity statuses (achieved, foreclosed, moratorium, and diffuse) are defined by the absence or presence of commitments (i.e., personal involvement and investment in specific ideological stances) and exploration (i.e., actively trying out or reviewing different roles). For example, Kunnen, Sappa, van Geert, and Bonica (2008) examined identity development in 89 university students, who were assessed twice over the course of 6 months. Strength and content of commitments and exploration were assessed through semi-structured interviews at both time points. Briefly, participants identified their most important commitment across several domains (e.g., parents, friends, self, and intimate relationships) and then completed a questionnaire that resulted in strength of commitment and exploration composite scores in that domain.

Cluster analysis was used to classify individuals by their average levels of commitment and exploration across both time points and by their difference from time 1 to time 2. Among other findings, seven clusters emerged from the data, and they were interpreted in light of identity status theory: Three clusters demonstrated stable achieved, diffused, or moratorium identities, respectively (with little change across time 1 and time 2), and the other four clusters demonstrated changes in commitments and exploration from time 1 to time 2. Clusters with stable, strong commitments were associated with the highest levels of wellbeing. Although these findings help illuminate individual differences in identity development processes (e.g., there were 7 identity clusters), little is known about how these identity formation processes occur for an individual person in one of those clusters; although the analysis technique is person-centered, it still assumes homogeneity within clusters. Thus, these cluster-level effects do not necessarily translate to individuals, and they may even be unrelated to effects between variables within aperson (Molenaar, 2015; Molenaar and Beltz, 2020). Moreover, identity is a dynamic, self-organizing system that is shaped from day-to-day (Bosma & Kunnen, 2001), and so, annual measurements may be missing key experiences in the lives of young adults.

An idiographic approach to the study of identity development in young adulthood could reveal ways in which individuals come to understand their unique goals, values, and commitments. This can be informed by dynamic structural equation modeling (DSEM)—a multilevel extension of SEM (Hamaker & Wichers, 2017). DSEMs can be used to model autoregressive (i.e., the prediction of future values of a variable based on past values of the same variable), cross-lagged (i.e., directional effects of one variable on another at a different time point), and bidirectional (i.e., reciprocal) relations among variables. Thus, DSEMs have the potential to explicate covariation between commitment and exploration processes, the stability of these processes over time, and bidirectional associations between identity commitment and exploration processes that amplify or strengthen one another.

An illustration of how DSEM can be applied to identity formation processes in early adulthood can be found in Becht, Nelemans, Branje, Vollebergh, and Meeus (2021). In this longitudinal study with an embedded burst design (i.e., a period of intense assessments nested in a larger longitudinal study), 494 adolescents were followed annually into adulthood (age 24). During the first 5 years of the study, adolescents participated in three measurement bursts a year in which they completed an adapted interpersonal daily identity questionnaire (Utrecht-Management of Identity Commitments Scale; Klimstra, Hale III, Raaijmakers, Branje, & Meeus, 2010) that measured the strength of their commitments (i.e., confidence in interpersonal identity), reconsideration (i.e., uncertainty about interpersonal identity), and exploration (i.e., active assessment of interpersonal identity) every day for 5 days, resulting in 75 assessments. Then, as young adults, participants reported on their identity commitments annually using the same scale.

Among other findings, DSEMs revealed that commitment, reconsideration, and exploration processes were moderately stable across days, and that adolescents who demonstrated relatively high commitment on 1 day reported relatively low reconsideration the next day. Further, these daily processes predicted identity in young adulthood: Youth who were who were more flexible in their daily identity formation processes (evidenced by less negative cross-lagged paths between commitments and reconsideration), tended to demonstrate an “achieved” (i.e., stable commitments) identity status in emerging adulthood.

Compared to cluster analyses and other person-centered approaches, DSEMs and other SEMs adapted for time series data analysis can better explicate how daily processes translate to, and form the building blocks for, the long-term development of stable identity statuses in young adulthood. Although cluster analyses showed strong between-person differences (Kunnen et al., 2008), DSEM further revealed how daily processes supported the development of identity statuses in young adulthood (Becht et al., 2021). It is still unclear, however, whether the daily processes accurately reflect the identity development processes for an individual youth; DSEMs estimate average within-person effects, and so, individuals can still be misrepresented, as their estimates are functionally constrained by the sample (Curran & Bauer, 2011).

This section's traverse through research on gender homophily in childhood, peer relationships in adolescence, and identity in young adulthood emphasize that traditional longitudinal—and even cross-sectional—studies are essential to developmental science; they provide important insights about how youth behave, think, change, and grow—on average. Intensive longitudinal data combined with advanced analysis techniques, such as actor-based models, state space grids, and DSEMs, further illuminate these developmental processes, particularly their directed or bidirectional nature over moments or days and their variation within youth. Although these techniques are being increasing applied in empirical applications, they are still widely under-utilized. Moreover, despite the ways in which these techniques get closer to individuals through clustering and calculating mean within-person estimates, they are still not idiographic. Thus, developmental science remains at least partially constrained by averages, the personalized nature of development remains elusive in many ways, and most importantly, parents, educators, and clinicians are still wondering about the outcomes of individual youth.

4.1 Class and Peripheral Nationalism

Hechter (1975) extended the metropole-periphery logic to ethnic conflict in the UK. In defiance of functionalist logic, the incorporation of the (Celtic) periphery by the (English) center did not result in the creation of a homogenous national society, but a dynamic of ‘internal colonialism’ instead. The subordination of the underdeveloped periphery was ensured by its economic dependence on a developed center and a rigid ethnic division of labor which enabled the English to monopolize power and status privileges. The persistence of ascriptive status identities and the superimposition of class and ethnic conflicts run counter to the expectations of modernization theory: instead of integration and consensus, uneven development leads to the resurgence of peripheral nationalism.

Studying the same case, Nairn (1977) came to a different conclusion: peripheral ‘neonationalism’ could be caused by ‘relative overdevelopement’ as well. Thus, the resurgence of Scottish neonationalism was the result of the relative economic decline of the English center and new opportunities opened by oil exploitation in the North Sea. A newly awakened Scottish bourgeoisie in search of profit appealed to nationalism in its struggle against a parasitic center. In a larger historical perspective, nationalism was the product of the ideological reaction of the awakened intelligentsia of the semiperiphery to uneven development and imperialist exploitation of their countries (not yet ‘nations’) by the centers of world capitalism (England and France). The nationalism of the center, in turn, developed in a ‘dialectical countermobilization’ against its semiperipheral counterparts.

Contributions of identity theory for adolescence

The psychosocial crisis of adolescence, personal identity versus identity confusion, highlights the need for individuals to find self-definition and a sense of meaning and purpose as they move into adulthood. The achievement of personal identity requires reworking the self concept, including an integration of past identifications, current talents and abilities, and a vision of oneself moving into the future. Identity formation is widely adopted as a central developmental challenge of adolescence. The concept captures the spirit of a push toward individuality, societal values of self-determination and agency, and expectations that young people will begin to take ownership of their path toward adulthood by making commitments to specific roles and values, and by rejecting others.

One of the most widely used frameworks for assessing identity status was devised by James Marcia. Erikson conceptualized identity as a tension between two states: identity achievement and identity confusion. In contrast, Marcia differentiated four states based on two criteria: crisis and commitment. Crisis consists of a period of role experimentation and active decision making among alternative choices. Commitment consists of demonstrations of personal involvement in occupational choice, religion, political ideology, and interpersonal relationships. Identity status is assessed as identity achievement, foreclosure, moratorium, or confusion. People who are classified as identity achieved have experienced a period of questioning and exploration, and have made occupational and ideological commitments. Those classified as foreclosed have not experienced a period of exploration, but demonstrate strong occupational and ideological commitments. Their occupational and ideological beliefs are often close to those of their parents. People classified as being in a state of psychosocial moratorium are involved in ongoing crisis and questioning. They have postponed their commitments, but are comfortable with experiencing a period of open exploration. Those classified as identity confused are unable to make commitments, and experience anxiety and distress about their uncertainty.

This framework of identity formation and identity status has led to mid-level theories about specific aspects of identity, including gender identity, career identity, ethnic identity, and multicultural identity. In each of these areas, scholars have recognized the dynamic interaction between personal qualities and the social roles, opportunities, and demands that may exist at the time.

Theorists such as Michael Berzonsky and Wim Meeus have provided micro theories to explore differences in how young people process identity-relevant information. For example, some adolescents are very close-minded, rejecting experiences that disconfirm their strongly held beliefs. Others are open to diverse experiences, seeking new ideas and information to widen their view of what might be possible in life. These theories focus on daily experiences that provide information which may confirm or modify the sense of identity.

K Positive identity

Theoretically, purpose and identity share conceptual and behavioral territory as critical developmental tasks in adolescence (Yeager & Bundick, 2009). In research, youth purpose is measured in a variety of ways akin to identity's measurement. Purpose researchers define forms; identity researchers examine statuses. Purpose researchers talk about seeking or identifying one's PIL; identity researchers speak of identity moratorium and achievement. Individuals without purpose are drifting; individuals lacking direction are described as having diffused identities (Marcia, 1980). Exploration and commitment are distinguishing characteristics of both youth purpose and identity.

In any case, the research on identity statuses and positive youth outcomes is far more established than the research on youth purpose and thriving. Adolescent identity achievement and moratorium are clearly associated with positive outcomes, such as aspects of psychological well-being. Like purpose, identity formation plays a protective role. A secure ethnic identity especially among ethnic minority adolescents, for instance, is associated with better self-esteem, optimism, and a sense of mastery over one's environment (e.g., St. Louis & Liem, 2005; Umana-Taylor & Updegraff, 2007). Extended moratorium and diffusion, however, yield less positive outcomes (e.g., see Adams & Marshall, 1996; Berzonsky, 2003; Berzonsky & Kuk, 2000; Schwartz, Zamboanga, Weisskirch, & Rodriguez, 2009). It is no wonder therefore that purpose researchers are interested in associations between purpose and identity. If there is such an alignment, could what we already know about identity and thriving tell us something about purpose and thriving? The proposition seems viable.

We know that young people who have deeper “sparks” are more likely to have a positive sense of their own ethnic identity (Scales, Roehlkepartain, & Benson, 2010, p. 27). To date, however, only one study explicitly investigates identity status alignment with purpose in a way that could tell us something about positive development. The evidence is that purpose and identity align quite well, at least for certain subgroups of adolescents. In their sample of predominantly White 14- to 18-year-olds, Burrow, O'Dell, & Hill (2010) found it possible to classify adolescents into four profiles by levels of purpose exploration and commitment in ways that concur with theories on identity formation. Results indicate a high level of purpose commitment relative to exploration within their “achieved” and “foreclosed” groups, while the opposite pattern was depicted in their “uncommitted” profile. Their “diffused” profile was distinguished by comparatively lower scores on both purpose exploration and commitment.

The terms used by Burrow, O'Dell, and Hill (2010) do not concur exactly with some interpretations of classic identity profiles because they emphasize exploration (or “seeking”) to a greater degree than do these profiles. Thus, their achieved purpose groups may be very different from “identity achieved” individuals who, according to at least one author (Berk, 2009, p. 465), are not necessarily distinguished by their levels of search. Similarly, the uncommitted purpose profile, which is low on commitment but highest of all profiles on exploration, aligns much better with an explanation of youths in identity moratorium (p. 465). The distinction is important for understanding purpose's relation to thriving variables. In the study, linkages with a number of positive attributes (hope, positive emotions, and goal-directed thinking) were most apparent among achieved and foreclosed purpose groups and least apparent among the uncommitted and diffused groups. In contrast, research on identity formation favors achieved and moratorium (like the uncommitted group in Burrow, O'Dell, & Hill's study) statuses when it comes to positive developmental indicators. Identity foreclosed (along with identity diffused) individuals tend to have more adjustment difficulties (Berk, 2009, p. 465). This research thus suggests that when it comes to PYD, identity and purpose may work in slightly different ways. As Burrow et al. (2010) note, there may be “a correspondence between stronger commitments to purpose and youths’ sense of personal agency and well-being.” Purpose might promote youth thriving to the degree that it engenders commitment to something good. The issue of purpose search may not be as important for positive development as it is in identity research.

5 Intersecting socioeconomic and racial-ethnic identities

Castillo-Lavergne and Destin (2019) recruited a sample of 98 Latina students attending 4-year colleges across the country to participate in a cross-sectional study. Participants were predominantly from low-income backgrounds and/or the first in their family to attend college. They completed a survey including the measure of status uncertainty in addition to the ethnic identity scale, a measure of racial-ethnic identity (Douglass & Umaña-Taylor, 2015). Participants also completed a one-item Rosenberg self-esteem question (Robins, Hendin, & Trzesniewski, 2001) and the satisfaction with life scale (Diener, Emmons, Larson, & Griffin, 1985) as measures of their psychological well-being. The study hypothesis was that the negative relationship between status uncertainty and well-being observed in other research (see Destin et al., 2017) might be attenuated by a strong identification with participants' racial-ethnic group.

As predicted Castillo-Lavergne and Destin (2019) did observe a negative relationship between status uncertainty and well-being where low SES Latina college students who felt less clear about their place on the socioeconomic hierarchy expressed lower self-esteem and lower satisfaction with life. Ethnic identity was not a significant predictor of well-being, but the interaction between status uncertainty and ethnic identity did predict both indicators of well-being at a marginal level of statistical significance. Interestingly, the pattern of the interaction differed from the original study hypothesis. For those who were high in ethnic identity, status uncertainty was a stronger predictor of worse well-being than for those who were low in ethnic identity. At the same time, for those who were low in ethnic identity, status uncertainty was less predictive of well-being. So, ethnic identity did not buffer against the negative consequences of status uncertainty. Rather, those who were high in ethnic identity and low in status uncertainty showed the highest levels of psychological well-being (Fig. 3).

The observed interaction between a measure of socioeconomic identity and a measure of racial-ethnic identity should be considered a starting point for much more theory and research regarding this particular intersection of identities. Because identities are constantly reconstructed depending on aspects of the context, there are numerous possibilities for how young people's ideas about their race, ethnicity, and SES shape their experiences within certain domains like education. For those who aim to support young people through critical developmental periods and transitions, systemic approaches that address multiple levels of context (e.g., schools, neighborhoods, teachers, parents, peers) provide the best route to holistically engage the dynamic, intersecting identities that influence achievement and well-being. For example, a program focused at the student level aiming to reinforce students' racial-ethnic identities (e.g., Umaña-Taylor, Douglass, Updegraff, & Marsiglia, 2018) might be partnered with a program at the teacher level aiming to help teachers foster students' developing thoughts about the future and their place in society (e.g., Horowitz, Sorensen, Yoder, & Oyserman, 2018). Additional research is necessary to understand how multiple levels of context can be engaged in a coordinated way to meaningfully harness students' developing racial-ethnic, socioeconomic, and various other unique combinations of identities over time.

Additional research could also delve into the suggested possible dynamic connections between aspects of status-based identity or status uncertainty and racial-ethnic identity development. In particular, how do experiences of power, privilege, and oppression in various contexts shape the simultaneous development of young people's understandings of their socioeconomic status and race-ethnicity? To what extent do they experience and articulate these identities as interconnected and how does that influence their pursuit of goals in life? Advancement of research in these areas may better equip practitioners and policymakers to leverage the individual and community strengths of young people as they face society's evolving challenges.

Combinations of calls

In contrast to speech, animal communication is considered to be holistic and lacking features that mark particular relationships between one call and another – Hockett’s notion of duality of patterning. Although some animals combine acoustic units into patterned sequences, this behavior usually only serves to advertise identity, status, or quality, with no evidence of any sort of referential function.

A number of studies have provided empirical evidence that may require revision of current theory. At least two species of nonhuman primates have been found to combine calls into structurally more complex units, thereby modifying the semantic content of the entire utterance. An example is provided by free-ranging Campbell’s monkeys. Like the Diana monkeys described previously, male Campbell’s monkeys produce acoustically distinct alarm calls to leopards and eagles. However, if males witness other disturbing events that are not directly linked with these predators (e.g., a falling tree or a fleeing forest duiker), they usually produce a pair of low-sounding ‘booms’ before giving a series of alarm calls. Playback experiments have shown that other monkeys ignore such boom-introduced alarm calls, suggesting that the booms selectively change the meaning of subsequent alarm calls from predator-specific alarm signals to more general sign of disturbance (Figure 6).

Second, work on free-ranging putty-nosed monkeys in Nigeria has revealed similar results. In this species, the males produce two basic alarm call types, the ‘hacks’ and ‘pyows.’ These calls are not predator specific because males produce them to both eagles and leopards. Instead, callers concatenate the two calls into different sequence types, and these sequences are predator specific. In other words, putty-nosed monkeys encode predator class at the level of the call sequence and not at the level of the individual call. In addition, the males produce a peculiar pyow–hack sequence used to instigate group progression.

In summary, some primates do assemble calls into higher-order sequences and thereby generate information that is unrelated to the meaning conveyed by constituent elements. Although these combinatorial systems may lack the generative power of recursion, they provide an efficient means of increasing message repertoire without the need to invent new calls.

New road rage: home away from home

The concept of a car's interior space will change to fit its new role as a space used not just for transportation but as a space for rest, entertainment, or work. One way to examine how people will interact with and relate to cars in a new way, beyond ownership or transportation or even as symbols of freedom or personal identity, is the space of study around the concept of human territoriality behaviors. Furthermore, in the framework of examining road rage through the lens of territoriality, the scope should necessarily narrow to a primary actor or actors within the vehicle first engaging in aggressive behaviors, so territoriality in terms of individual or small groups, rather than larger sets of participants.

A territory may be defined as a space used, controlled, marked/personalized, and defended by an individual or groups. The control that people attempt to enforce over their territory is a type of social regulation behavior through defining bounded areas of ownership. Territorial behaviors are part of how society functions, by marking spaces for needs like privacy or specific uses, and for establishing relationships such as ownership of a particular thing or space. In other words, the basic concept of territoriality is central to human culture and is used to regulate many social interactions. The value in territoriality behaviors is the establishment of some agreed upon spaces for specific functions or activities. Additionally, privacy is safeguarded in this protected or guarded personal space or territory. The result of successful territory defense is, of course, the creation of a safe space from others who are deemed unknown and/or dangerous.

However, feelings surrounding the ownership aspects of territory can also elicit negative individual or group behaviors and attitudes based on their perception of control and ownership (Gifford, 2007) of the space and any violation of those boundaries.

Altman and Chemers (1984) proposed territory and territorial response can be defined by these characteristics:

A place or object that is controlled and owned on a temporary or permanent basis.

The place or object may be small or large.

Ownership is by a person or group.

The territory can serve any of several functions, including social (status, identity, family, stability) and physical functions (child-rearing, food regulation, food storage).

Territories are often personalized or marked.

Defense may occur when territorial boundaries are violated. (pp. 121–122).

From this list, it is possible to make some additional conclusions. The concept of territoriality is

highly place-specific;

socially structured, constructed, supported, and maintained;

within small, in-person groups of people interacting in the same space, or at least between people acknowledging the perceived boundaries of the owned space or thing;

dependent upon temporal duration of owner(s) in the space.

Using this framework of understanding spaces then, it is possible to view even traditional cars as things people include in their territorial behaviors.

Altman and Chemers (1984) further explain that territorial behaviors have two main functions:

Establishing, maintaining, and expressing personal identity of the “owner” or owners

To regulate social interactions between people. As to the former, distinguishing a car as unique from similar models via articles like bumper stickers, custom designs, placing stuffed animals on the dashboard, and decorating the rearview mirror can all be examples of expression of the owner's personal identity. The latter point emphasizes the evolution of human territorial behaviors as a way of regulating social interaction. The creation of territorial boundaries and the related behaviors are a way of managing aggressive activities by requiring things like planning and anticipating the behavior of others.

Certainly, not all territories are valued the same by people. Individuals are not likely to regard a shared public space such as a retail store or train station in the same way as their own home.

Territorial behavior has been described as a typology of three nondiscrete categories: primary, secondary, and public (Altman, 1975; Altman, Vinsel, & Brown, 1981). In this model, primary territories are private places where the owner has exclusive rights to use or share the space. The classical example of a primary space is the home, a space easily personalized. Secondary territories are identified as semipublic spaces where someone interacts with familiar and/or geographically close people such as friends, acquaintances, or neighbors, regularly. If the secondary territory is not personalized by the regular users, conflicts over ownership of that space may arise. An example of a secondary territory might be a local pub, or a private club. The category of public territory is a space where (almost) any person may be allowed access if they follow the norms of the territory; an example of a public territory is a public park.

The relationship between territoriality and emotion is an important one. Often, behaviors associated with territoriality are closely linked with emotions such as anger and fear, connected to the actions that surround establishing, distinguishing, and protecting or preserving territory, such as marking and defending them. Territorial boundaries that are violated can lead to feelings of loss, invasion/victimization, or other states of being that may seem to extend beyond any material value of the actual territory, underscoring the emotional connection to the space (Altman & Chemers, 1984). Therefore, understanding the emotions surrounding territorial behaviors and conditions that incite and/or support them is important to help people in the autonomous car industry understand why users might defend territories, or when, or even how they define territorial boundaries initially, and what might constitute a threat to that territory. Focusing research on analyzing these lived situations in autonomous car interaction experiences can lead to developing targeted interventions for reducing high-risk autonomous car user behaviors such as overriding AI systems for aggressive or retaliatory purposes at other people on the road.

People intuitively understand that owning a car is more than a series of economic or practical decisions, but also an emotionally invested set of experiences that have to do with the complexities of using a space that is associated closely with the ideas of freedom, control, independence, privacy, power, protection, and self-expression while also entrenched in cultures around the world as symbols of freedom, fashion, and sexual virility (Gartman, 2004; O'Connell, 1998; O'Dell, 1997; Sandqvist, 1997; Urry, 2000). Certainly, like a great deal of other consumer products, cars are marketed and designed to evoke emotional states such as excitement and desire, and to entice people to purchase them in the first place (Desmet, Heckert, & Jacobs, 2000; Haug, 1986), and want to associate them with their own personal identity (Belk, 1992). Using territoriality behaviors as a framework for understanding how people interact with their cars acknowledges the way people feel about their time in a car, which can give insights into the cause of their actions. Neglecting a significant component of how people interact with vehicles—their emotions—is the same as ignoring a substantial part of peoples' relationship with cars, which is not only meaningful to the user but also influences a series of endless personal decisions made about car ownership and driving.

Reducing dangerous driving cannot be achieved by simply shifting all or the bulk of the driving to AI because no technology can eliminate the real world factors in an endless variety of user experiences and situations on the road, some of which will lead to passenger frustration. As Fraine, Smith, and Zinkiewisz (1999) stated, “….people will frequently become impatient, intolerant, and angry” when their preferred path is obstructed (e.g., when a tree falls in the road). Cars are not only viewed as a means of transportation but also are associated with the user's “unimpeded progress” (Fraine et al., 1999), and those impediments can come in many unpredictable forms. To improve user experiences and general road safety, it is therefore imperative to investigate the new overall relationships of user to autonomous cars, and how people interact with them in their new role as passenger. Undoubtedly, it will take years of shifting culturally to the use of cars with different levels of autonomy as the dominant choice in consumer vehicles. In these culturally formative years, human drivers will share the road with autonomously driven vehicles, and it is likely this intermingling of human-centered versus AI-centered driving will create unanticipated challenges for car design, policy and law development, safety standards reviews, and city and road planning. It is not too early to begin investigating the possible consequences (as well as benefits) of unleashing autonomous cars into a market that is culturally unprepared in many ways.

In that case, many questions for possible inquiry into this specific user experience emerge. While traditional road rage may manifest in driver-centered decisions such as aggressive driving, what dangerous or negative behaviors (if any) will emerge among users as a recognizable pattern (like the actions of road rage) when people in an autonomous car are not actively engaged in driving? What, if anything, will trigger expressions of anger or frustration related to interactions in transit via an autonomous car? What will these new expressions of road rage look like, if aggressive driving is taken out of control of the users via an AI-controlled user kill switch? What situations would be acceptable to people for a car to ever take control away from a human?

When discussing autonomous cars as a context for interactions and a medium for design, the concept of territoriality behaviors associated with autonomous cars fits closely with ideas around emotional attachment to products and place. Historically, cars have been studied as possible vectors of emotional attachment for a user to a product rather than a place (Kressmann et al., 2006), or similarly, as a possession that is owned (Gatersleben, 2007; Oliver & Westbrook, 1993). Peoples’ relationships to cars has been framed commonly as a consumer product; however, as discussed in this chapter, human interaction with cars is about to change significantly, so this model may be revised accordingly to offer place attachment in tandem with product attachment to adjust as a framework of understanding user interactions with a car as a work or living space and therefore, potentially considered a primary territory as well.

Product attachment investigates the existence of any emotional ties between a person and a thing or an object or product. Emotional attachment is a construct focused on a person's relationship with a thing that person believes is special, unique, has endured over time, and the need to remain in close physical proximity to that object (Ainsworth & Bell, 1970; Ainsworth, Blehar, Waters, & Wall, 2015; Bowlby, 1980). Attachment differs from other consumer behavior constructs—like territoriality—because it focuses on the consumer's relationship with a specific object. It is complementary to the notion of territoriality because of an overlap in similar emotions and behaviors related to the territory or object of attachment, such as an extension of personal identity, a relationship that exists over a period of time (not a fleeting interaction), a sense of shared history, and a sense of displacement, discomfort, or loss when separated from that space or thing or person (Ainsworth & Bell, 1970; Ainsworth et al., 2015; Bowlby, 1980; Carpenter, 2016).

When a person has deemed an object to be irreplaceable, it has a meaning for the owner not present in similar objects even if they are structurally identical. For example, many people own the same model of car released in the same year and manufactured at the same plant, but an owner may get emotionally attached to their specific car even if it is mechanically identical to all the other cars in that model's fleet. Reasons for this user attachment are linked with factors also present in aspects of determining territorial behaviors, such as marking behavior. For example, in the process of developing emotional attachment to a thing, users customize their cars with unique identifiers to distinguish their car from identical models, and acting as an extension of the owner's identity through self-expression, as with items like bumper stickers (Belk, 1988). There is a close relationship between territoriality and attachment.

People can become emotionally attached to a product irrespective of its intended function (Carpenter, 2016), which also makes it useful for examining a rapidly changing technology, like car autonomy. It is important to distinguish this concept further because place attachment is the emotional connection people develop for specific places. Attachment to place has often looked at human relationships with private residences or geographically bounded communities and environments (Devine-Wright, 2009; Hidalgo & Hernandez, 2001). A commonality across attachment theory has generally been an agreement that a main characteristic of the concept of attachment is the desire to maintain physical proximity to the object of attachment (Ainsworth & Bell, 1970; Ainsworth et al., 2015; Bowlby, 1980).

Models of attachment to place are concerned with the meaningfulness of the environment to a person or group, the social and individual human–place interactions and experiences that precede the development of this meaning, and the patterns of behaviors that emerge as part of this bond. Territorial behaviors are focused on access and control of the specific space in question; it is a system of beliefs and behaviors that are more than instinct and has very specific goals, such as keeping the territory as a safe space. Although territoriality is concerned with a particular bounded environment whereas attachment is focused on a thing/object outside the self, it is clear that both attachment and territorial functioning involve similar processes for user involvement, and the two concepts share a similar function for people safeguarding their personal safety, although perhaps in different ways.

There is an intersection of attachment and territoriality factors in user experiences with cars that already exists in the common relationship between owner and traditional car:

Duration of time spent in the car; a sense of shared history with that specific vehicle.

Marking the car as a belonging; believing the car is unique among similar cars.

Deeming the car a place that affords privacy, safety, an extension of home or self; feeling the car is a safe haven and offers security.

Defending the car when it is impeded, intruded, or encroached upon; separation distress when physical proximity to the car is inhibited or prevented (e.g., car is in an accident).

If the car is perceived as primary territory, then intrusions into it as a territory or another impedance of its use will be viewed very negatively, and it is likely a strong defense or series of defensive behaviors will follow. The theory of a car space as primary territory implies that people view people in other cars as a sociological other (Mead, 1934; Okolie, 2003). It is possible, then, that further research will reveal that mitigating territorial behaviors through design may reduce user aggressive tendencies.