MCCHE Precision Convergence Webinar Series: March 1, 2022

The Homeostatic Model of Identity Protection

Dr. Constantine Sedikides

With a high-level panel of leaders in science, technology, on-the-ground action, investment, and policy

Self-protection and self-enhancement, once depicted as biases that impede accurate self-knowledge and hinder effective environmental control, have more recently been viewed as misbeliefs that can have fortuitous, adaptive consequences. I take the next step forward by construing identity protection and enhancement mechanisms as part of a routine, adaptive system. Whereas biological homeostasis regulates physiological processes, psychological homeostasis regulates the emotional states that threaten a desired identity. Ι elaborate on the nature of psychological homeostasis, the identity system that it modulates, and the immune system that safeguards it from harm. Ι discuss the construction of self-views and narratives in the ordinary stream of mental activity, as well as reparative responses to contemporaneous threats, similar to the immune system’s response to microbes that breach the body’s initial defenses. Using basic immunological principles, Ι distinguish between innate and adaptive psychological immunity, compare the spread of disease to that of threatening information among related self-views and narratives, and consider the “memories” of the biological and psychological immune systems to redress future threats. In addition, Ι offer a set of propositions that include predictions about various aspects of immunity, and end by considering the roles of awareness and self-deception in the immunity process.

About the speaker

Constantine Sedikides’ research is on self and identity, including self-evaluation, self-regulation, and evolutionary perspectives on the self. This research has been supported by grants from various national and international funding agencies (e.g., Economic and Social Re- search Council, Leverhulme Trust, National Institute of Health). Constantine has received several awards, such as the Daniel M. Wegner Theoretical Innovation Prize (Society for Personality and Social Psychology), Distinguished Lifetime Career Award (International Society for Self and Identity), and Kurt Lewin Medal for Outstanding Scientific Contribution (European Association of Social Psychology). Before joining the University of Southampton as Director of the Centre for Research on Self and Identity, Constantine taught at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA, and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA. He holds a PhD from the Ohio State University, USA, and a Bachelor’s Degree from Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece.

About the series

The Precision Convergence series is launched to catalyze unique synergy between, on the one hand, novel partnerships across sciences, sectors and jurisdictions around targeted domains of real-world solutions, and on the other hand, a next generation convergence of AI with advanced research computing and other data and digital architectures such as PSC’s Bridges-2, and supporting data sharing frameworks such as HuBMAP, informing in a real time as possible the design, deployment and monitoring of solutions for adaptive real-world behavior and context.

The Precision Convergence Webinar Series is co-hosted by The McGill Centre for the Convergence of Health and Economics (MCCHE) at McGill University and The Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center, a joint computational research center between Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Pittsburgh.