Online Edition | Washington State University | Pullman, Washington | Friday, March 9, 2001

Sociologist Peter Burke studies dynamics
of employee trust through identity theory

By Nella Letizia

Sociologist Peter Burke couldn’t be a salesperson, but he could be a Harry Potter. The necessity of constantly meeting people and selling is not part of his makeup. But the science fiction aficionado who read all four Harry Potter books last summer and fall in one interval could imagine himself playing quidditch, the game in which all players ride on a broom 10-120 feet above the ground trying to catch a ball the size of a walnut with silver wings.

Who is Burke according to Burke? An observer of human nature. A professionally oriented professor. Faculty Senate past president. Graduate and Professional Student Design Team chair. An avid skier and cook.

“I’ve probably got too many identities competing with each other for time right now,” he says wryly. “I think they work together well. (Being a) researcher helps me be a better teacher. Working with students gave me an understanding of the importance of feedback that went well (with being) Faculty Senate chair. That role gave me a view of the university’s workings that helps with the design team.” It’s not clear how his design team role works into skiing and cooking.

An originator of identity theory, Burke studies self-concept and identity, as well as small groups and social psychology. His work with that of Mark Fuller, Management Information Systems, Jerry Goodstein, Management/WSU Vancouver, Craig Parks, Psychology, and Cam Caldwell, Management and Decision Sciences, is the foundation for the new Leadership Effectiveness Project. (See related story on page 1.) The pilot project is a joint effort between Human Resource Services, faculty researchers, and employees in Business Affairs and Athletics to explore factors related to leadership, culminating in a half-day leadership-training workshop.

Burke serves as a faculty adviser on the project, started as a dissertation for Caldwell, a doctoral student in the College of Business and Economics. But the project quickly took on a life of its own, with first HRS getting involved. A month ago, the project was presented to WSU administrators, who also became interested in its merits.

“It’s moving fairly rapidly,” he says.

The second part of the project will allow supervisors to compare a self-assessment with feedback from other supervisors, peers and employees on eight leadership factors. And that relates to Burke’s study of self-concept and identity—or “what it means to be who I am,” he says.

Identity is defined in terms of roles, groups and our own personal assessments, Burke explains. Human behaviors are aimed at displaying identities in interaction with others and various environments and controlling resources to maintain those identities. But to have this happen successfully takes trust.

“Trust comes into this in that, in being ourselves with others, we rely on others for those resources,” he says. “Trust becomes the willingness to give control of these resources and meanings to another person.”

As an employee, trust may involve giving control to other co-workers to help get the job done, Burke says. With a supervisor, it’s trusting that he or she will help employees be who they are. The very heart of leadership lies here.

Much of Burke’s understanding of self-concept and trust came during a study that Irving Tallman and he started in 1991. The researchers followed newly married couples for three years to see, among other things, how each person contributed to the other’s understanding of himself or herself. In a paper with Jan Stets from the study, it was found that for the couples where a partner mirrors that understanding, trust builds. If not mirrored, trust decreases; in fact, divorce was more likely to occur where self-understanding was not reinforced. Mirroring is also important in the workplace.

“One would expect that if the way employees see themselves is confirmed by others—supervisors, co-workers—then they will be happier, less stressed,” he says. “They would also build the necessary trust to do their jobs better. If you do a good job, you gain the respect of other people. That reinforces whatever role identity you have.”

Reinforcement has to be reciprocated, too, Burke says. “You have to respect others to help them do a good job. You have to trust others in order to have them trust you.”

When self-concepts aren’t confirmed, depression and stress can result, but Burke also is finding that people can adapt their identities to fit their situations. In the marriage study, he and a former graduate student, Alicia Cast, looked at the couples’ gender identities. Where a couple had a child, they found that the women moved toward being more feminine and the men toward being more masculine. The shift wasn’t large, but it was quite detectable nonetheless, Burke says. The researchers surmised that these mothers and fathers changed their roles to match the requirements of their new situation.

“The presence of a baby is an unalterable situation,” he says with a laugh.

The same principle applies to the workplace as well. Where environments don’t change, employees do. But there is a caveat, Burke says. Employees with more complex jobs that allow them more discretion to make decisions can adapt better and are more open to new ideas. Employees who have less complex jobs and less discretion on the job can become more closed off.

“But we are also attracted to jobs that fit our identities,” he adds. Which in Burke’s case is a quidditch-playing sociologist.