A Dementia Blog Analysis of the Association Between Multiple Identities and Psychological Wellbeing

Abstract

The present study contributes to a growing body of evidence supporting the psychological benefits of having multiple social identities by extending the Social Identity Model of Identity Change (SIMIC; Haslam et al., 2021) to the context of dementia. Moreover, a contribution of the current study lies in the novel methodology used for testing hypotheses derived from SIMIC-coding and analyzing quantitative data from personal blog narratives. We analyzed 245 blog posts written by 49 bloggers living with dementia (25 men and 24 women), coding for the presence of social identities and key indicators of psychological wellbeing ( affective tone, life satisfaction, empowerment, and optimism). We found that both men and women living with dementia who referenced a greater number of social identities in their blog narratives showed better overall psychological wellbeing, particularly empowerment. These findings suggest that social relationships may act as a buffer and protect resilience in the face of progressive cognitive decline. Notably, our results also underscore the complex nature of this relationship, especially when considering gender differences. While both men and women benefit from having more social identities, the association was more pronounced for men than for women. Unexpectedly, women reporting a greater number of social identities were also more likely to report negative feelings and states. The strongest associations were observed for disempowerment and pessimism, potentially due to the burden imposed by gendered expectations and cost of maintaining social roles and relationships amid dementia challenges. Future research is needed to explore the underlying reasons for this complex finding. Overall, the results have the potential to inform future interventions. These interventions should consider these differences between women and men to better support individuals with dementia as they adapt to living with dementia and associated stigma.