The Emergence of a European Identity – there is an App for That!

Emotions are not only innately human, but also building blocks for functional interactions and hence collective identities. That is why “the difficulty of measuring self is related to our verbally biased measuring instruments, which are too crude given the complexity of the processes involved” (Turner 2000: 110). This paper describes the development of a mobile-app that will measure European identity on four different levels. First, users will be asked a series of questions, testing conscious as well as subconscious attitudes. The second step repeats questions relating to relational comparisons on a visual level. The third section introduces an abstract level, by asking affective questions. Finally, users facial expressions are recorded and measured while watching a brief movie, which will show prevalent transnational problems for both civic and cultural concepts.