Discuss major theories regarding the nature of personal and social identity
Discuss major theories regarding the nature of personal and social identity.
Richard Jenkins said that 'Without social identity, there is in fact, no Society'. Sociologists see identity as related to the society in which people live. They believe that our identity is formed against a social background, which tries to make social interaction meaningful, understandable and organised by categorising people in order of the group they belong to. Because we are categorised in such a way, we become recognisable as people such as mothers, daughters, students etc.
The nature of identity is seen as a social phenomenon and a key factor of our social lives because our identities are also based on where we work, live and the community etc. The concept of identity relates an understanding of what and who we are and also what we and other people believe us to be.
In order for us to develop this sense of identity we need to have a sense of self- awareness and this can be increased through socialisation where we can learn the morals of social interaction on the basis of various cultural identities.
Our identity can also be seen as a social construct because once we have required a certain identity we acquire and display social characteristics.
When looking as to how people obtain their identities the phenomenological perspective believes that we attach a meaning to reality and that we make sense of our experiences and by doing so we search for 'the self' and once we have found this we are able to construct our own meaningful identity.
The structuralist perspective places great emphasis on socialisation as the key to social identity being constructed. It's sees socialisation as a great influence in terms of the way people are labelled and categorised into certain structures of cultural identities.
For symbolic interactionists, such as Cooley who developed the 'looking-glass self theory', he stated that once an individual had established his own self-awareness, they would then use the behaviours of others towards them as a 'mirror' in which is a reflection of the image the individual is and this creates their identity. This theory is similar to that of the self fulfilling prophecy idea in that if you are labelled as something you then 'live up' to that label.
George Herbert Mead another interactionist, argued that the perceptions and behaviour we produce is influenced by the social groups in which we belong and that our identity (our self) is only meaningful to ourselves because we interact differently in each social group we are a member of. Therefore, what one person perceives us to be, another may not. For example, if I am a daughter my mother will most likely see me as innocent and precious where as if I am a teacher my pupils should hopefully see me as a person of authority and in charge and not innocent and precious. As a result of this our self-image only really applies to ourselves as we have many different images that we portray in society but it's important to note that without the existence of social groups 'the self' would not develop because we would probably only have one identity.
Goffman again holds the symbolic Interaction view; he saw social encounters and interactions between people in society in theatrical terms and uses a theatrical metaphor to represent socialisation. He viewed the 'world as a stage' with individuals performing and acting for their audiences in everyday life in that each of our social groups we have a 'role' to follow such as mother, teacher, students etc. and we try to create a different impression for each of them. He believed that people were like actors in that each of us has a 'backstage' where our performances our firstly prepared ...
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Goffman again holds the symbolic Interaction view; he saw social encounters and interactions between people in society in theatrical terms and uses a theatrical metaphor to represent socialisation. He viewed the 'world as a stage' with individuals performing and acting for their audiences in everyday life in that each of our social groups we have a 'role' to follow such as mother, teacher, students etc. and we try to create a different impression for each of them. He believed that people were like actors in that each of us has a 'backstage' where our performances our firstly prepared and the front stage is what people actually see. Because most of the time our backstage is private and we don't want people to see what we're actually thinking in comparison to what we say. This is because when we interact with people we want them to arrive at a certain understanding of our actions and this can be done by language, gestures and dress etc. to ensure we are able to achieve the desired understanding so that we ourselves are not misunderstood by others and labelled incorrectly because of it.
Marxists believe that social class is the key factor in social identity and self-image, because class in society is seen as a social category, which indicates our individual social position and defines our social place in society and this then gives us our identity.
The biological perspective would disagree with the structuralists in that our identity comes from experience, as they believe that it's innate, in that the characteristics that we are born with make up our identity. For example our gender is seen as a significant source of identity due to the social characteristics we place on children of different genders. Gender identity circles around the view that we have things in common with others such as, people of the same gender have the same biology and have similar ways of perceiving and behaving within the social world. For example, men are seen as active, strengthful and aggressive where as women are seen as weak and feeble.
Age also plays a major part in shaping our identity. In most societies there tends to be four age groupings: Childhood, youth, adulthood and old age. Each of these groups is able to give their members a sense of identity as they belong to a specific grouping wit it's own norms and values and forms of behaviour. We also develop roles and social characteristics with these groups and in general, we are encouraged to identify ourselves with the different kinds of behaviour that our based on our biological age and are then labelled accordingly such as youths and old age pensioners.
Our nationality makes up part of identity because it means we are a member of another group possibly with our own language, social characteristics and set of behaviours and so we are given a national identity such as 'the welsh' and again, labelled accordingly.
Research has also shown that genetics could play a part in the building of our identity, for example in 1975, Wilson and sociobiologists argued that human beings are a product of natural selection because are traits and characteristics which will increase our survival chances will be passed on to future generations. Sociobiologists see human behaviour as being controlled by basic human drives such as the drive to survive and reproduce and we live our lives around these drives and act accordingly, for example when a women is looking for mate she looks for a man with strength and intelligence etc. to increase the chance of her child surviving because she can only reproduce so many times. Where as a man will go about mating with as many women as possible in the hope of producing plenty of offspring with good traits such as intelligence and strength etc. Although, most geneticists argue that are genes only provide the blueprint for a person's potential, not who and what we are so if we are born with high intelligence it doesn't necessarily mean we'll use it. Geneticists believe the environment has a lot to do with shaping our identity.
The Psychoanalytic perspective believes that our identities change and develop through time. Freud came up with five psychosexual stages that we pass through from birth to young adulthood in which, we all pass and supposedly shape the nature of personality from it. The stages include the oral, anal, phallic, latent and genital. Freud said that when we pass through each of these stages if we receive to much pleasure/gratification during a stage this can cause harmful results as we will have left too much 'psychic energy' behind and so there will be less available for full adult development and so our adult personality (which helps shape our identity) will then reflect the stage at which we have become fixated on and can lead to an immature personality, unusual and continual patterns of behaviour and sometimes, a psychological disorder, if this is the case each of these will contribute to the way we are identified by society.
Freud also came up with the idea that the personality has three parts too it: the id, the ego and the super ego, with the id being the pleasure principle where we say all our gratification, where as the ego is the rational part which has norm's, values and morals which will have come from society, it then tries to rationalise with the id to stop it receiving too much pleasure from society because the pleasures may deviate from the norms and values of that society where as the super ego tends to balance out between the two with it having a little bit of pleasure and a little rational thinking. This then makes up different people's personalities and contributes to the way they behave and so can give them certain identities because of the behaviours they display and are again, labelled accordingly.
Marxists differ to the most of the perspectives already put forward in that they believe that social class is the key feature in social identity and self- image. Because class in society is a social category, which indicates our individual social position and defines our social place in society and this then helps to shape our identity.
Earlier view held in the 17th and 18th century are similar to the Marxists perspective in that they believed that our identity is fixed and remains the same throughout our life and could not be affected by social situations, as it would seem that back then that our status gave us our identity. For example, in pre-industrial societies the number of statuses a person had was very small compared to nowadays where we have may different statuses within our own societies and they are open to change and we are able to achieve more statuses throughout our lives where in the past your status was fixed at birth and largely unchangeable.
Post modernists also agree with this that our identities are no longer fixed and now continually changing and we are free and able to choose our own identities and are able to pick the social groups we interact with.
From each of the perspectives we have considered most of them are in agreement with the belief that our identities are socially constructed and they reject the view that it's innate (apart from the biological), with the structuralist perspective placing great emphasis on socialisation as the key to creating a social identity. Most of them see socialisation as a great influence in terms of the way people are labelled and categorised into certain structures of cultural identities.
Each of the perspectives has it's own view on how our identity is created and maybe because there are so many different explanations for it, then maybe it is created it lots of different ways from different people. Overall, as human and social beings we need to feel we belong to various groups and this is significant as it means we receive sense of identity from each of these groups we are members of and also the social interaction we receive from these groups allows us to feel a sense of belonging and so through this we are able to identify our identities and a sense of purpose in life.
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