From birth and during the whole life every person tries to develop an individual set of values which is common only for this particular person. There are significant number of reasons and things helping to develop the appropriate sense of identity on the part of people. Some of them influence this process positively, and others have the negative impact on identity formation of people in the modern society. A remarkable role in the process of identity formation is attached to the society, such as media, family and peers, the so-called every-day environment of people. So how can we define what identity formation is? Well, according to a helpful site on Google called Wikipedia Identity formation, also known as individuation, is the development …show more content…
This process defines individuals to others and themselves. Pieces of the person's actual identity include a sense of continuity, a sense of uniqueness from others, and a sense of affiliation. Identity formation leads to a number of issues of personal identity and an identity where the individual has some sort of comprehension of themselves as a discrete and separate entity. However, there are a set of characteristics that the society has embedded on both male and female counterparts that would look otherwise unacceptable if challenged.
Males are always looked upon as strong working leaders, at least that’s what is expected for them to be. At an early age males are given cars or action figures to play with, encouraged to go and try out for a sport and guided towards a path that male ancestors before them took. It would be very unlikely or so called “weird” if a male had a liking towards the
…show more content…
Over the course of time this expectation has changed and taken a path that would be very acceptable for a woman to work, drive and basically do anything a man can. In “Thelma and Louise”, Thelma is seen as a lower order of life, to be tolerated so long as she keeps her household duties straight. Just like a servant who doesn’t have any rights or freedom, and Louise is a waiter in a coffee shop and whose boyfriend is a musician that will never be going to be ready to settle down. They live under high patriarchal domination. They see themselves very ordinary and want to go fishing alone. But that means they are stepping over and breaking the lines of their sexual roles in the community. Thelma has extreme difficulty in asking for permission to go on the fishing trip alone with her friend due to her being seen as a whore because it is very unacceptable to go anywhere alone. Later on in the movie, Louise and Thelma break the rules and go on that trip together without their husband’s consent. However, luck isn’t on their side and end up facing many challenges. For example, the scene at the bar, we get to see the feminist side of Thelma when she gets a few drinks and flirts a little, as such flirtations sometimes tragically lead to an attempted rape in the parking lot. Louise kills the man with her gun and they start to run away because they think that they can’t
Before beginning the explanation of how an identity is formed, one must understand what an identity is. So, what is identity? To answer this, one might think of what gives him individuality; what makes him unique; what makes up his personality. Identity is who one is. Identity is a factor that tells what one wants out of life and how he is set to get it. It tells what kind of a person one is by the attitude and persona he has. And it depends upon the mixture of all parts of one’s life including personal choices and cultural and societal influences, but personal choices affect the identity of one more than the others.
Identity is a group of characteristics, data or information that belongs exactly to one person or a group of people and that make it possible to establish differences between them. The consciousness that people have about themselves is part of their identity as well as what makes them unique. According to psychologists, identity is a consistent definition of one’s self as a unique individual, in terms of role, attitudes, beliefs and aspirations. Identity tries to define who people are, what they are, where they go or what they want to be or to do. Identity could depend on self-knowledge, self-esteem, or the ability of individuals to achieve their goals. Through self-analysis people can define who they are and who the people around them are. The most interesting point about identity is that some people know what they want and who they are, while it takes forever for others to figure out the factors mentioned before. Many of the individuals analyzed in this essay are confused about the different possible roles or positions they can adopt, and that’s exactly the reason they look for some professional help.
Identity is within all of us. Without it, we would be nothing. It determines just about any personality trait, habit or manner one can think of. That humans have such varied attitudes is intriguing, but where does identity come from? People identify themselves using not only qualities within them, but through culture and family as well.
A person’s identity is made from various characteristics that make the person who he is. It is partly constructed from physical characteristics like skin tones, hair color, and body shape. But it is also formed by more abstract ideas like religion, education, family, gender identity, political beliefs, sexual orientation, and personality traits. All of these things amount to an identity. Scholars and philosophers have debated for many years over how much humans have control over their identities and, if they do have any control, how much should they control? Philosophers like Albert Camus and Thomas Nagel would argue that humans have and should control their identities in order to escape philosophical suicide and to accept the absurdity of everyday life. However, it seems that writers like Chantay Leonard and Alice Walker are more in touch with the relationship between environment and identity. Although humans have free will to make their own choices, they are not in control of the environment and other people around them, and therefore, a great deal of their identity is formed without their consent.
There are many factors to consider in understanding the process of identity formation. Structuralists believe that we are the product of our society. Therefore there are many environmental and social factors that go into the formation of an identity. For example children that grow up in the bush will have different influences in their lives to children that grow up in the cit...
Identity: A Matter of Choice? Identities are constructs that encompass the qualities, beliefs, and characteristics that make a particular person or group different from others. An identity is formed partly by individual choice, but is largely predetermined by society’s perceptions of an individual or group. Having individual choice is having the opportunity or power to make a decision. A person’s ability to choose their identity may be limited due to society’s perception of them, whether they are conscious or unconscious of society’s influence.
What is identity? Identity is an unbound formation which is created by racial construction and gender construction within an individual’s society even though it is often seen as a controlled piece of oneself. In Dr. Beverly Daniel Tatum’s piece, “The Complexity of Identity: ‘Who Am I?’, Tatum asserts that identity is formed by “individual characteristics, family dynamics, historical factors, and social and political contexts” (Tatum 105). Tatum’s piece, “The Complexity of Identity: ‘Who Am I?’” creates a better understanding of how major obstacles such as racism and sexism shape our self identity.
As stated by Rockquemore (1998), identity is defined as a self-understanding that positions and describes a person; in social terms it establishes the what and the where for a person. This not only places individuals in a position where they can understand themselves and others but also where they can assess themselves relative to others. Thus, an individual can’t have a fulfilled identity without others who authenticate that identity. This bec...
When thinking about Identity, it might be easy to just say that is “who we are”, or it’s just me. An identity is much more than that though. I like to think of it as a living puzzle. There are hundreds or thousands of pieces that come together to form the complete identity, or the complete “you”. I say living because an identity grows throughout the years and even changes depending on the situation. There is a multitude of influences that goes into forming a person’s identity some of which a person chooses and others they don’t. Family members and guardians are a primary source of learning when a child is young. As a person grows, the sphere of influence broadens to include mentors, media, and school. This identity is then a lens through which
DeCuir-Gunby (2009) states that identity is “a formation process begins at birth, peaks during adolescence, and continues to develop throughout adulthood, thus allowing an individual to fully negotiate multiple identities.” During adolescence, the peak of identity development, it is the most judgemental and children
Identity. What is identity? One will say that it is the distinct personality of an individual. Others will say that identity is the behavior of a person in response to their surrounding environment. At certain points of time, some people search for their identity in order to understand their existence in life. In regards, identity is shaped into an individual through the social trials of life that involve family and peers, the religious beliefs by the practice of certain faiths, and cultural awareness through family history and traditions. These are what shape the identity of an individual.
...can go through an entire lifetime and not really know how to define their own identity. In many cases people suffer through a great crisis to discover who they really are. If someone doesn?t know the meaning of their own identity, how can society apply a definition to the word? It leaves people to ponder whether or not there are some feelings and parts of life that simply cannot be explained. When defining the word identity scholars and common men alike must agree to disagree. It is a word so diverse in context that it is seemingly impossible to take it down to a simplified definition. There are some things in life that just aren?t meant to be completely understood, and one?s identity is among these things. Not until a person has a lived out their live could they sit down and tell you how their adventure has shaped them into the person they became in the end.
In conclusion, the formation of one’s identity has many components. Beginning at the onset of adolescence and continuing to expand, grow and form and reform as we live through the struggles or success of life. Many theorists have endeavored to clarify the development of identity formation. However, Erik Erickson offered one significant theory involving the formation of one’s identity. Expounding on Erickson theory, Marcia developed his Identity Status Model according to the existence or absence of crisis and commitments. These four statuses, diffusion, foreclosure, moratorium and achievement can combine in various ways to produce a self. One’s sense of identity is determined largely by the choices and commitments made, therefore, having a well-developed sense of self can provide an individual with insight to their strengths, weaknesses, and individual uniqueness. An individual that finds themselves
Identity is popularly regarded as a combination of personality, feelings and beliefs. Basically, identity defines who a person is. It is used to describe and distinguish the personality of people. It is what makes people unique. Some may believe that identity and personality are similar or the same, but personality is simply an insincere impression and does not involve a person’s hidden feelings and beliefs. That is, the way we are brought up is what defines us; it is what we become or what we are and that cannot be changed in any way until we embrace a different culture or decide to change our way of doing things.
To begin with, we technically are not born with identity; it is a socially constructed attribute. Identity is a transient thing, which changes over time as we grow and mature. The self-concept, which is our own personal understanding of who we are, combines with self awareness to cultivate a cognitive representation of the self, called identity (Aronson, Wilson, & Akert, 2010, p.118). In other words, who we are is controlled by internal and external factors that combine to make us who we become. Bring new media outlets into the equation, such as the internet, and media is now regarded as an "extension of everyday life and a tool of cultural change" (Singh, 2010). Thus, identity formation, as a social concept, is being transformed in new and even more global ways.