ABSTRACT
The interaction model derives its rationale from the Meadian position and goes beyond it. The role-identity is always being imaginatively rehearsed for presentation in social encounters. Every social encounter is a negotiating situation in which identities are marketed at their current market value. Interaction becomes a contest with the participants engaged in legitimation of their identities: If an important role identity has been unequivocally threatened by loss of role support from an important audience, one is likely to experience misery and anguish. The alternation between Jewish identity at home and student identity at university could have results which entail not only anxiety, but also a degree of dissociation. The student radical identity involves a set of behaviours, meanings, symbols, expressions, which are confirmed by other student radicals. The essential thief, or the essential Black, or the essential Jew is thus brought face to face with his identity when that identity is signified by others.
