Summarise two theories of identity and compare their usefulness for explaining real world issues.

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Summarise two theories of identity and compare their usefulness for explaining real world issues.

Question one.

Everybody has an idea of who they are as people and the character traits that differentiate them from others. This essay seeks to summarise and compare two identity theories and compare their usefulness when they are applied to real world issues, specifically bullying in schools and adult racism. The two theories that will be examined are firstly Erikson's theory of psychosocial identity (PIT) and secondly Tajfel's social identity theory (SIT).

Firstly, a description of Erik Erikson's psychosocial identity theory. Erikson believed that identities are shaped with the help of the community in which children and adolescents lived. For Erikson, 'identity involved the development of a stable, consistent, and reliable sense of who we are'. This quote suggests that Erikson viewed identity at an individual level. He saw identity as being a lifelong process that involved resolving normative crisis between individual needs and social demands. ( Phoenix, A,, pg 53)

Erikson had identified eight stages of identity development, beginning in infancy to old age, Although he viewed identity as a lifelong process, he believed the fifth stage to be the most significant. This stage embarks upon adolescence. Erikson seen adolescence as a period of 'Psychosocial Moratorium' meaning that it is a socially accepted period of time for young people to try out different roles so that ultimately they discover who they are. Life decisions have to be tackled during this period, i.e. employment and sexual relationships. The end goal is to have established a secure feeling of who and what one is. Erikson's term for this is 'Ego Identity' If young people failed to achieve a secure ego identity, problems could arise, such as the inability to hold down one specific job and constantly moving between different social roles. In extreme cases in western societies turning to drugs and even committing suicide. This is known as an 'Identity Crisis' (Phoenix. A, pg. 56).  Because adolescent identity crisis was a potentially frightening prospect, Erikson suggested that ' young people may temporarily over-identify with cliques and crowds' Adolescents can be nasty to people that they consider to be out-groupers'. ( Erikson, 1968, pp.132-3, cited in Phoenix. A, pg. 56) as a defence mechanism to feelings of loss of identity. They can be incredibly cruel, and intolerant towards people they consider different to themselves, For example: skin colour or religion. Erikson argued that 'People whom we consider to be different from ourselves can threaten our sense of identity and this can lead to aggression'. Erikson's view of identity was both a personal and social one, although they were treated as separate. Psychosocial theory focuses on identities associated with 'I' and 'Me' it looks at how people achieve their individual identities as opposed to how group identities are developed.

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Moving onto Tajfel's social identity theory, Tajfel divided identity into two separate sub-systems, Personal Identity (relationships) and Social Identity (Black, Woman, English). The main notion of the social identity theory is that 'Social identity is largely composed of self descriptions which derive from the characteristics that we believe define the social groups to which we belong'.  (Phoenix. A, pg.62). This quote signifies that one individual represents a whole group and not just a single person. 'It is the actual feeling of belonging to a particular group that is important in social identity theory, and not the membership of it ...

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