The social representation of the identity perception among China’s new social strata: a central nucleus analysis

Introduction China’s new social strata represent a critical demographic for social governance, with shared identity perceptions serving as a cohesive force for group solidarity and behavioral regulation. Methods This study employed a word association task with 256 participants from China’s new social strata, followed by lexical network analysis including K-core decomposition to uncover hierarchical identity structures. Results The social representations of “identity” among this demographic comprise a primary component and three K-core sub-networks. The central core identity system contains 37 pivotal elements classified into categorical identity, relational identity, and symbolic identity, with “Status” and “ID Card” as the most central elements. Discussion The new social strata perceive identity across three interconnected dimensions forming a “periphery-margin-core” tripartite network model. This structure reveals how institutional mechanisms, particularly China’s household registration system, shape subjective identity perceptions in contemporary society.