Personality Change and Identity Formation in Iranian-Americans

A question many personality theorists have been grappling with is, does personality change over time or is it basically fixed? Caspi (1993) believes that personality is relatively stable over time and that in fact people are least likely to change during times of stress. He believes that during stressful times such as times of transition, people solely experience uncertainty and ambiguity and that they become unreflective and rigid in their thinking and behavior. He also believes that during times of transition individuals become more resistant to social influence, making them more isolated and closed to embracing change. In fact, he believes people’s neuroses and mal adaptive behaviors and coping strategies emerge during such times. Finally, he contends that the only real change is “deep” change.

Contrary to Caspi’s beliefs, Cantor, Zirkel, and Norem (1993) believe that personality is not as rigid, but that it is actually elastic or reflexive, and that during life transitions including illness and even death people can take on a positive “affective flavor” rather than a more negative one (p.276). They also believe that social support can be a factor in helping individuals cope with change. During times of change, they explain, individuals can show the reflexive nature of personality by using their social world in useful ways to navigate crisis and transitions.

Other authors such as Ozer and Gjerde (1989) have shown that while personality does change over time, there are at the same time wide differences among individuals in the degree personality changes or remains consistent over time. Further, Heatherton and Nichols (1995) explain that whether personality is viewed as stable or malleable basically depends on how it is defined or looked at. For example, they say that if personality is defined as standing on basic traits, such as agreeableness, open to new experiences, optimism, etc. then we should not expect to see much change through out the person’s lifespan. However, if the definition of personality is expanded to include motives, life goals, and overall psychological functioning then there is room for change.

In this paper, the personality of Iranians who immigrated to the United States as early as 1979 and more recently during the last decade will be examined. However, before the examination can take place, it is important to first define what is meant by personality so that change or stability can be assessed and/or measured according to those terms.

Allport (1961) defined personality as “the dynamic organization within the individual of those psychophysical systems that determine his characteristic behavior and thought” (p. 28). There are three elements to this definition, with Costa and McCrae (1995) adding three more making it a total of six elements. These six elements of personality include: a) a dynamic organization or set of processes that integrate the flow of experience and behavior; b) psychophysical systems that represent basic tendencies and capacities of the individual; c) characteristic behavior and thought such as habits, attitudes and relationships; d) external influences or the environment, broadly construed to include both the immediate situation and the broader social, cultural and historical context; e) objective biography, or every significant thing that a person felt and thought and said and did from the start to the finish of his life; and f) the self-concept or the individuals sense of who he or she is.

Based on current studies on Iranians, it seems that Iranians who have assimilated into the Western culture are the ones whose personalities have changed the most over time, whereas those who still struggle with keeping the old traditions alive and work hard at not assimilating have not changed much. In a study by Ghaffarian (2001), the author wanted to examine the difference between levels of acculturation between young Iranian men and women living in the United States. Her results showed that Iranian men tend to be significantly more acculturated than Iranian women in all areas other than sex roles and sexuality. In these areas, Iranian women held more modern values than did the men. For example, they were more open to women having premarital sex. In another study by (Hojat, et. al., 2000) findings also showed that Iranian male immigrants are more likely than their female counterparts to view premarital sex, marriage and the family from a traditional stand prescribed by the Iranian culture.

In Hanassab’s (1991) study, age and maturity as a dynamic organization can be the agent for change. When it comes to becoming assimilated and acculturated, the younger the individual, the more adaptable and more open they are to change. Her report on the level of acculturation in women shows that there is a strong correlation between how young the age of the woman was when she left Iran and her level of acculturation into the Western culture. In other words, the younger the individual was when she left Iran, the more acculturated she is, and the more liberal are her attitudes towards sex roles and intimate relationships.

Gender roles are part of a psychophysical system that can be a motivator for change, especially if the prescribed roles are oppressive in nature. Because Iranian men have traditionally had more rights and privileges to seek higher education, attain better jobs, and interact more with different people out in the world, their ability to acculturate faster into the Western culture makes more sense. On the other hand, upon the discovery of a more modern and egalitarian value system here in the West, Iranian women have been more apt to let go of traditional values and upbringing in exchange for more modern ones. Also, a study by Helms (as cited in Phinney, 1996) shows that sometimes minority group members at the initial stage are likely to show a preference for the White majority culture and in turn, may be deprecating or rejecting of their own culture while adopting the host’s cultural values. Based on this premise, the more acculturated Iranian women reject their own culture due to the oppressive attitudes held against them while becoming more Western in their identity and values.

Becoming aware and possibly even having encounters with racism and discrimination as a form of external influence allows Iranians to assume different positions with respect to their ethnic identity. Those who take on a stronger and more positive attitude towards their own ethnic identity become even more ethnocentric and less open to change while others may choose to change everything about themselves, including their physical appearance in order to fit in with the white majority.

Through an autobiographical approach to study the media in the promotion of acculturation, Keshishian (2000) argues that mass media can play a contradictory role in the process of assimilation while making ethnic pride stronger as it did in her. While positive portrayal of immigrants can aid in acculturation, negative portrayals can lead to rejection of the host culture. Keshishian herself faced a great deal of discrimination in the United States as a college student during the early 1980’s hostage crisis in Iran. During that time, the media portrayed Iranians in a very negative light, which then instigated a great deal of hostility and prejudice towards Iranians living in the West.
Bakhtiar (1997) also depicts the same grim picture for Iranians during the hostage crisis. She writes, “the process of assimilation was increasingly more difficult during those times…Iranians were often lumped together by the American press and public” further adding to their plight, “many Iranians shopped at night and otherwise avoided people to reduce the threat of physical attack.” As a result of the hostility, many Iranians flocked together and formed ethnic support systems to promote ethnic pride and a sense of belongingness in the face of such adversity. Keshishian recalls how the campus-based Iranian club helped her feel more supported:

Clearly, we were all experiencing the shock of displacement without even recognizing it. These ethnic interactions eased this shock by helping us feel that we belonged…In this way, we assured one another that we were all going through similar problems and that we belonged to what I call an “on-campus Iran.” This contact gave us moral support and helped us feel somewhat safe and secure and not completely out of place.

On the other hand, in more recent years with the placement of the Bush administration in power and the president’s “crusade” to tear down the “axis of evil,” Iranians are facing yet another round of racist and discriminatory reactions from the majority culture. But this time, rather than taking on a stronger and a more positive attitude towards their own ethnic identity, many Iranians have instead abandoned their identity. These individuals have instead opted to adopt a “white” surface enabling them to more successfully assimilate into the U.S. civic society, regardless of experiences of prejudice and discrimination. Reports by Portes and Rubaut (as cited in Mostofi, 2003) explain that the mobility of many Iranians has been “credited to their ability of ‘acting white.’” Mostofi explains that in the last two decades, Iranians have been steadily utilizing their bodies as a way to uphold the image of a white model minority in the eyes of the majority. She writes, “…Many Iranians have managed to do this through plastic surgery, fake contact lenses, extraordinary diets to the point of anorexia, dyed hair, plucked eyebrows and the removal of body hair.” Also, when filling out her questionnaire, when asked about ethnicity/race, the majority of Iranians marked themselves as “white” or “Caucasian.”

However, taking on the role and appearance of the “model white immigrant” makes it difficult from a socio-psychological standpoint to assess or delineate where Iranian immigrants stand today in relation to their ethnic identity. Have Iranian Americans changed to the point of becoming white? Or is it possible that while they attempt to portray the image of the successful white person as their outer identity, their inner or core identity is still very much Iranian? If the latter is the case, then has their personality actually shifted, or are they basically the same people with some physical changes made on the surface. Mostofi (2003) claims that the settling of Iranians in the diaspora and the taking on a white identity even if it is limited to external appearance, has created a new identity which she refers to as “diasporic identity” (p. 690).

The “diasporic identity” is a split in the consciousness of Iranians when it comes to their identity making it impossible to have a cohesive sense of community. Mostofi (2003) explains that Iranians seem to be caught between two worlds; one world that identifies them as a people separate from the West and its values, the other, shows that they have willingly settled and assimilated into the Western culture letting go of some of their traditional heritage while keeping others. She writes that, “Iranians are one example of an immigrant group in the United States who simultaneously identify with their ethnic characteristics and American civic nationalism based on American notions of liberalism democracy and laws—proving the possibility of their coexistence.” However, these characteristics do not mean much in terms of an identity when there is no actual community in the first place. She writes, “Mixing traditional Iranian customs with new American political ideologies has created an Iranian-American identity that has nothing to do with the creation of a community—or lack thereof.” According to Touraine (as cited in Mostofi, 2003), in order for a group of people to be considered community, they must have a certain internal organization and the ability to make representations to the authorities.

In conclusion, this paper has attempted to examine whether the personality of Iranians living in the United States has remained stable or changed over time with assimilation. Based on the six elements of personality as defined by Allport (1961) and Costa and McCrae (1995), it seems that some aspects of the personality of Iranians have changed while other aspects have remained the same. Studies by Ghaffarian (2001) and Hojat, et al. (2000) indicate that the more open to assimilation and acculturation Iranians have been, the more accepting of change they have been too. The reverse has been true as well; the more resistant to assimilation, the more inflexible they have been to change. In other studies by Hanassab (1991), Keshishian (2000), and Mostofi (2003), it has been shown that factors such as years living in the West, age, gender roles, oppression, racism and discrimination have been important agents for change for Iranians.

References
Allport, G. W. (1961). Pattern and growth in personality. New York: Holt, Rinehart, & Winston.
Bakhtiar, S. (1997, September 30). The jasmine elsewhere does not smell as sweet: Iranian immigrants blend past and present values to survive in America. The Washington Report on Middle East Affairs. XVI(2), 66.
Cantor, N., Zirkel, S., & Norem, J. K. (1993). Human personality: Asocial and reflexive? Psychological Inquiry, 4, 273-277.
Caspi, A. (1993). Why maladaptive behaviors persist: Sources of continuity and change across the life course. In D. Funder, et al., (Eds.), Studying lives through time: Personality and development, Washington, DC: APA Books (pps. 343-376).
Costa, P. T. and McCrae, R. R. (1995). Set like plaster? Evidence for the stability of adult personality. In T. Heatherton, & J. Wienberger, (Eds.), Can personality change? (p. 21-40). Washington, DC: APA Books.
Ghaffarian, S. (2001). The acculturation of Iranians in the United States. The Journal of Social Psychology. 127(6), 565-571.
Hanassab, S. (1991). Acculturation and young Iranian women: Attitudes toward sex roles and intimate relationships. Journal of Multicultural Counseling & Development. 19(1), 11.
Heatherton, T., & Nichols, P. (1995). Conceptual issues in assessing whether personality can change. In T. Heatherton and J. Weinberger, (Eds.), Can personality change? (p. 3-18). Washington, DC: APA Books.
Hojat, M. Shapurian, R. Foroughi, D. Nayerrahmadi, H. Farzaneh, M. Shafieyan, M. & Parsi, M. (2000). Gender differences in traditional attitudes toward marriage and the family: An empirical study of Iranian immigrants in the United States. Journal of Family Issues, 21(4), 419-434.
Keshishian, F. (2000). Acculturation, communication, and the U.S. mass media: The experience of an Iranian immigrant. The Howard Journal of Communication, 11:93-106.
Mostofi, N. (2003). Who we are: The perplexity of Iranian-American identity. Sociological Quarterly. 44(4), 681-703.
Ozer, D., & Gjerde, P. (1989). Patterns of personality consistency and change from childhood through adolescence. Special Issue: Long-term stability and change in personality. Journal of Personality, 57, 483-507.
Phinney, J. S. (1996). Understanding ethnic diversity. The American Behavioral Scientist, 40(2), 143-152.