Hitting Rock Bottom After Job Loss: Bouncing Back to Create a New Positive Work Identity
基于身份理论和逃避自我理论，研究失业后如何通过身份游戏和调节焦点从工作身份威胁中恢复，区分恢复与功能失调的路径。
Although people often value work identities, events sometimes threaten these identities, creating situations where individuals struggle to overcome the identity threat. Building on the theories of identity and escape from self, we develop a “rock bottom” model of generating a new positive work identity. Specifically, individuals who eventually hit rock bottom come to realize that the identity has been lost, which can lead to a path to recovery or to a path to dysfunction. The path to recovery involves escape through identity play and the oscillation between disciplined identity play and identity refinement/validation. The path to dysfunction involves escape though cognitive deconstruction. Regulatory focus is important in distinguishing between those who engage in identity play to generate possible new positive identities (i.e., promotion focus) and those who engage in cognitive dysfunction (i.e., prevention focus). A deeper understanding of why some recover and others languish provides an opportunity to develop interventions that facilitate recovery from work identity loss.