 <p class="lead" id="first">People can switch seamlessly between different social identities, new research shows.</p><p>Each person has multiple social identities, such as: employee, parent, young person, friend or even fan of a particular sports team.</p><p>Previous research has shown that frequently switching task tends to result in lower performance: longer completion times and reduced accuracy.</p><p>The new study by the University of Exeter finds that identity switching may pose less difficulty.</p><p>"Our lives have sped up a lot in recent years and decades, so we have to switch more often between different identities," said Anna Zinn, of the University of Exeter.</p><p>"Due to the pandemic, many more people now work from home -- so they no longer have the slow switch of a commute separating home from work.</p><p>"Our research aimed to find whether rapidly activating different identities comes with a cost.</p><p>"We were surprised to find that these switches are extremely effective -- people can switch quite rapidly with no apparent difficulty."</p><p>The researchers note, however, that this ability might come with a downside.</p><p>"We might have little control over these switches," Zinn explained.</p><p>"For someone working from home, it may be important to stay in a professional identity -- but our findings suggest you could easily be drawn away from it.</p><p>"The next stage of our research is to examine these possible drawbacks, and whether steps such as having a dedicated workspace at home can limit them."</p><p>The researchers conducted several studies using the "Implicit Association Test," in which participants have to quickly sort words and images into categories.</p><p>Using this method, participants were made to think about a certain identity -- for example, the researchers encouraged them to think of themselves as "young people" by asking them to sort images of faces by age.</p><p>It was then possible to make people switch to a different identity -- or at other times stay in the same identity -- to observe the effects.</p><p>One study also created a new "minimal group" identity, by asking participants to remember images of people's faces as members of a newly formed group (the participant was encouraged to think of these people and themselves as part of the "blue group").</p><p>Switching between this new identity and existing identities was also seamless.</p><p>The study, carried out by a team including Lancaster University, was funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC).</p>