Knowledge Bank

One can provide results showing that social identities can account for various attitudes and behaviours. The problem was, however, how to recognise identifications in quantitative research carried out on big aggregates of individuals. In this article this procedure is called shortly I-sort. Social identity of a person is a system which psychologists could analyse with insight. The question staying behind the I-sort procedure, though, is: "who are you, what is important for you? lf you respond, a sociologist will tell you in what society you live". What needs methodological discussion is the switch from individuals' responses revealing elements of his/her unique composition of identity components to peculiar set of responses which makes the comparisons of societies possible. Data from Polish-Russian survey were used to illustrate analyses.