Does social identity matter in software engineering? Assessing the case of research software engineers
For the RSE community and software engineering researchers, this work provides evidence that social identity matters for professional wellbeing, though it is an exploratory study.
This study explores social identity in Research Software Engineers (RSEs) using mixed methods, finding that a collective RSE identity emerges and influences professional wellbeing.
Social identity is a concept from psychology that refers to the part of an individual's identity that derives from their group membership(s). In this paper, we explore social identity in members of the professional community of Research Software Engineers (RSEs). Using a mixed-methods approach, our study combined computational linguistic analysis and inferential statistics to examine over 28,000 social media posts, 1,700 blogs, and survey responses from 381 professional RSEs. The findings highlight the emergence of a collective RSE identity and demonstrate its role in shaping professional wellbeing. This study contributes an interdisciplinary perspective by integrating social psychology and software engineering to show how a professional identity evolves and why it matters.