In addition to psychological studies, sociologists and anthropologists also apply the term 'religious identity' and examine its related processes in given social contexts. For example, one important study conducted in the United States after the events of September 11, 2001, explored the meaning-making among American Muslims[12] and how changes in identity ascription (what people think about another group of people) affected how Muslims sought to represent themselves. Other studies have applied concepts appropriated from race and gender identity theory such as disidentification[13] which undermines essentialist accounts of religious identity - that an individual has a 'fixed' religious identity, independent of pre-existing systems of representation and individuals' positioning within them.