Abstract
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.