self identity essay conclusion

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You are a network

You cannot be reduced to a body, a mind or a particular social role. an emerging theory of selfhood gets this complexity.

by Kathleen Wallace   + BIO

Who am I? We all ask ourselves this question, and many like it. Is my identity determined by my DNA or am I product of how I’m raised? Can I change, and if so, how much? Is my identity just one thing, or can I have more than one? Since its beginning, philosophy has grappled with these questions, which are important to how we make choices and how we interact with the world around us. Socrates thought that self-understanding was essential to knowing how to live, and how to live well with oneself and with others. Self-determination depends on self-knowledge, on knowledge of others and of the world around you. Even forms of government are grounded in how we understand ourselves and human nature. So the question ‘Who am I?’ has far-reaching implications.

Many philosophers, at least in the West, have sought to identify the invariable or essential conditions of being a self. A widely taken approach is what’s known as a psychological continuity view of the self, where the self is a consciousness with self-awareness and personal memories. Sometimes these approaches frame the self as a combination of mind and body, as René Descartes did, or as primarily or solely consciousness. John Locke’s prince/pauper thought experiment, wherein a prince’s consciousness and all his memories are transferred into the body of a cobbler, is an illustration of the idea that personhood goes with consciousness. Philosophers have devised numerous subsequent thought experiments – involving personality transfers, split brains and teleporters – to explore the psychological approach. Contemporary philosophers in the ‘animalist’ camp are critical of the psychological approach, and argue that selves are essentially human biological organisms. ( Aristotle might also be closer to this approach than to the purely psychological.) Both psychological and animalist approaches are ‘container’ frameworks, positing the body as a container of psychological functions or the bounded location of bodily functions.

All these approaches reflect philosophers’ concern to focus on what the distinguishing or definitional characteristic of a self is, the thing that will pick out a self and nothing else, and that will identify selves as selves, regardless of their particular differences. On the psychological view, a self is a personal consciousness. On the animalist view, a self is a human organism or animal. This has tended to lead to a somewhat one-dimensional and simplified view of what a self is, leaving out social, cultural and interpersonal traits that are also distinctive of selves and are often what people would regard as central to their self-identity. Just as selves have different personal memories and self-awareness, they can have different social and interpersonal relations, cultural backgrounds and personalities. The latter are variable in their specificity, but are just as important to being a self as biology, memory and self-awareness.

Recognising the influence of these factors, some philosophers have pushed against such reductive approaches and argued for a framework that recognises the complexity and multidimensionality of persons. The network self view emerges from this trend. It began in the later 20th century and has continued in the 21st, when philosophers started to move toward a broader understanding of selves. Some philosophers propose narrative and anthropological views of selves. Communitarian and feminist philosophers argue for relational views that recognise the social embeddedness, relatedness and intersectionality of selves. According to relational views, social relations and identities are fundamental to understanding who persons are.

Social identities are traits of selves in virtue of membership in communities (local, professional, ethnic, religious, political), or in virtue of social categories (such as race, gender, class, political affiliation) or interpersonal relations (such as being a spouse, sibling, parent, friend, neighbour). These views imply that it’s not only embodiment and not only memory or consciousness of social relations but the relations themselves that also matter to who the self is. What philosophers call ‘4E views’ of cognition – for embodied, embedded, enactive and extended cognition – are also a move in the direction of a more relational, less ‘container’, view of the self. Relational views signal a paradigm shift from a reductive approach to one that seeks to recognise the complexity of the self. The network self view further develops this line of thought and says that the self is relational through and through, consisting not only of social but also physical, genetic, psychological, emotional and biological relations that together form a network self. The self also changes over time, acquiring and losing traits in virtue of new social locations and relations, even as it continues as that one self.

H ow do you self-identify? You probably have many aspects to yourself and would resist being reduced to or stereotyped as any one of them. But you might still identify yourself in terms of your heritage, ethnicity, race, religion: identities that are often prominent in identity politics. You might identify yourself in terms of other social and personal relationships and characteristics – ‘I’m Mary’s sister.’ ‘I’m a music-lover.’ ‘I’m Emily’s thesis advisor.’ ‘I’m a Chicagoan.’ Or you might identify personality characteristics: ‘I’m an extrovert’; or commitments: ‘I care about the environment.’ ‘I’m honest.’ You might identify yourself comparatively: ‘I’m the tallest person in my family’; or in terms of one’s political beliefs or affiliations: ‘I’m an independent’; or temporally: ‘I’m the person who lived down the hall from you in college,’ or ‘I’m getting married next year.’ Some of these are more important than others, some are fleeting. The point is that who you are is more complex than any one of your identities. Thinking of the self as a network is a way to conceptualise this complexity and fluidity.

Let’s take a concrete example. Consider Lindsey: she is spouse, mother, novelist, English speaker, Irish Catholic, feminist, professor of philosophy, automobile driver, psychobiological organism, introverted, fearful of heights, left-handed, carrier of Huntington’s disease (HD), resident of New York City. This is not an exhaustive set, just a selection of traits or identities. Traits are related to one another to form a network of traits. Lindsey is an inclusive network, a plurality of traits related to one another. The overall character – the integrity – of a self is constituted by the unique interrelatedness of its particular relational traits, psychobiological, social, political, cultural, linguistic and physical.

Figure 1 below is based on an approach to modelling ecological networks; the nodes represent traits, and the lines are relations between traits (without specifying the kind of relation).

We notice right away the complex interrelatedness among Lindsey’s traits. We can also see that some traits seem to be clustered, that is, related more to some traits than to others. Just as a body is a highly complex, organised network of organismic and molecular systems, the self is a highly organised network. Traits of the self can organise into clusters or hubs, such as a body cluster, a family cluster, a social cluster. There might be other clusters, but keeping it to a few is sufficient to illustrate the idea. A second approximation, Figure 2 below, captures the clustering idea.

Figures 1 and 2 (both from my book , The Network Self ) are simplifications of the bodily, personal and social relations that make up the self. Traits can be closely clustered, but they also cross over and intersect with traits in other hubs or clusters. For instance, a genetic trait – ‘Huntington’s disease carrier’ (HD in figures 1 and 2) – is related to biological, family and social traits. If the carrier status is known, there are also psychological and social relations to other carriers and to familial and medical communities. Clusters or sub-networks are not isolated, or self-enclosed hubs, and might regroup as the self develops.

Sometimes her experience might be fractured, as when others take one of her identities as defining all of her

Some traits might be more dominant than others. Being a spouse might be strongly relevant to who Lindsey is, whereas being an aunt weakly relevant. Some traits might be more salient in some contexts than others. In Lindsey’s neighbourhood, being a parent might be more salient than being a philosopher, whereas at the university being a philosopher is more prominent.

Lindsey can have a holistic experience of her multifaceted, interconnected network identity. Sometimes, though, her experience might be fractured, as when others take one of her identities as defining all of her. Suppose that, in an employment context, she isn’t promoted, earns a lower salary or isn’t considered for a job because of her gender. Discrimination is when an identity – race, gender, ethnicity – becomes the way in which someone is identified by others, and therefore might experience herself as reduced or objectified. It is the inappropriate, arbitrary or unfair salience of a trait in a context.

Lindsey might feel conflict or tension between her identities. She might not want to be reduced to or stereotyped by any one identity. She might feel the need to dissimulate, suppress or conceal some identity, as well as associated feelings and beliefs. She might feel that some of these are not essential to who she really is. But even if some are less important than others, and some are strongly relevant to who she is and identifies as, they’re all still interconnected ways in which Lindsey is.

F igures 1 and 2 above represent the network self, Lindsey, at a cross-section of time, say at early to mid-adulthood. What about the changeableness and fluidity of the self? What about other stages of Lindsey’s life? Lindsey-at-age-five is not a spouse or a mother, and future stages of Lindsey might include different traits and relations too: she might divorce or change careers or undergo a gender identity transformation. The network self is also a process .

It might seem strange at first to think of yourself as a process. You might think that processes are just a series of events, and your self feels more substantial than that. Maybe you think of yourself as an entity that’s distinct from relations, that change is something that happens to an unchangeable core that is you. You’d be in good company if you do. There’s a long history in philosophy going back to Aristotle arguing for a distinction between a substance and its properties, between substance and relations, and between entities and events.

However, the idea that the self is a network and a process is more plausible than you might think. Paradigmatic substances, such as the body, are systems of networks that are in constant process even when we don’t see that at a macro level: cells are replaced, hair and nails grow, food is digested, cellular and molecular processes are ongoing as long as the body is alive. Consciousness or the stream of awareness itself is in constant flux. Psychological dispositions or attitudes might be subject to variation in expression and occurrence. They’re not fixed and invariable, even when they’re somewhat settled aspects of a self. Social traits evolve. For example, Lindsey-as-daughter develops and changes. Lindsey-as-mother is not only related to her current traits, but also to her own past, in how she experienced being a daughter. Many past experiences and relations have shaped how she is now. New beliefs and attitudes might be acquired and old ones revised. There’s constancy, too, as traits don’t all change at the same pace and maybe some don’t change at all. But the temporal spread, so to speak, of the self means that how a self as a whole is at any time is a cumulative upshot of what it’s been and how it’s projecting itself forward.

Anchoring and transformation, sameness and change: the cumulative network is both-and , not either-or

Rather than an underlying, unchanging substance that acquires and loses properties, we’re making a paradigm shift to seeing the self as a process, as a cumulative network with a changeable integrity. A cumulative network has structure and organisation, as many natural processes do, whether we think of biological developments, physical processes or social processes. Think of this constancy and structure as stages of the self overlapping with, or mapping on to, one another. For Lindsey, being a sibling overlaps from Lindsey-at-six to the death of the sibling; being a spouse overlaps from Lindsey-at-30 to the end of the marriage. Moreover, even if her sibling dies, or her marriage crumbles, sibling and spouse would still be traits of Lindsey’s history – a history that belongs to her and shapes the structure of the cumulative network.

If the self is its history, does that mean it can’t really change much? What about someone who wants to be liberated from her past, or from her present circumstances? Someone who emigrates or flees family and friends to start a new life or undergoes a radical transformation doesn’t cease to have been who they were. Indeed, experiences of conversion or transformation are of that self, the one who is converting, transforming, emigrating. Similarly, imagine the experience of regret or renunciation. You did something that you now regret, that you would never do again, that you feel was an expression of yourself when you were very different from who you are now. Still, regret makes sense only if you’re the person who in the past acted in some way. When you regret, renounce and apologise, you acknowledge your changed self as continuous with and owning your own past as the author of the act. Anchoring and transformation, continuity and liberation, sameness and change: the cumulative network is both-and , not either-or .

Transformation can happen to a self or it can be chosen. It can be positive or negative. It can be liberating or diminishing. Take a chosen transformation. Lindsey undergoes a gender transformation, and becomes Paul. Paul doesn’t cease to have been Lindsey, the self who experienced a mismatch between assigned gender and his own sense of self-identification, even though Paul might prefer his history as Lindsey to be a nonpublic dimension of himself. The cumulative network now known as Paul still retains many traits – biological, genetic, familial, social, psychological – of its prior configuration as Lindsey, and is shaped by the history of having been Lindsey. Or consider the immigrant. She doesn’t cease to be the self whose history includes having been a resident and citizen of another country.

T he network self is changeable but continuous as it maps on to a new phase of the self. Some traits become relevant in new ways. Some might cease to be relevant in the present while remaining part of the self’s history. There’s no prescribed path for the self. The self is a cumulative network because its history persists, even if there are many aspects of its history that a self disavows going forward or even if the way in which its history is relevant changes. Recognising that the self is a cumulative network allows us to account for why radical transformation is of a self and not, literally, a different self.

Now imagine a transformation that’s not chosen but that happens to someone: for example, to a parent with Alzheimer’s disease. They are still parent, citizen, spouse, former professor. They are still their history; they are still that person undergoing debilitating change. The same is true of the person who experiences dramatic physical change, someone such as the actor Christopher Reeve who had quadriplegia after an accident, or the physicist Stephen Hawking whose capacities were severely compromised by ALS (motor neuron disease). Each was still parent, citizen, spouse, actor/scientist and former athlete. The parent with dementia experiences loss of memory, and of psychological and cognitive capacities, a diminishment in a subset of her network. The person with quadriplegia or ALS experiences loss of motor capacities, a bodily diminishment. Each undoubtedly leads to alteration in social traits and depends on extensive support from others to sustain themselves as selves.

Sometimes people say that the person with dementia who doesn’t know themselves or others anymore isn’t really the same person that they were, or maybe isn’t even a person at all. This reflects an appeal to the psychological view – that persons are essentially consciousness. But seeing the self as a network takes a different view. The integrity of the self is broader than personal memory and consciousness. A diminished self might still have many of its traits, however that self’s history might be constituted in particular.

Plato, long before Freud, recognised that self-knowledge is a hard-won and provisional achievement

The poignant account ‘Still Gloria’ (2017) by the Canadian bioethicist Françoise Baylis of her mother’s Alzheimer’s reflects this perspective. When visiting her mother, Baylis helps to sustain the integrity of Gloria’s self even when Gloria can no longer do that for herself. But she’s still herself. Does that mean that self-knowledge isn’t important? Of course not. Gloria’s diminished capacities are a contraction of her self, and might be a version of what happens in some degree for an ageing self who experiences a weakening of capacities. And there’s a lesson here for any self: none of us is completely transparent to ourselves. This isn’t a new idea; even Plato, long before Freud, recognised that there were unconscious desires, and that self-knowledge is a hard-won and provisional achievement. The process of self-questioning and self-discovery is ongoing through life because we don’t have fixed and immutable identities: our identity is multiple, complex and fluid.

This means that others don’t know us perfectly either. When people try to fix someone’s identity as one particular characteristic, it can lead to misunderstanding, stereotyping, discrimination. Our currently polarised rhetoric seems to do just that – to lock people into narrow categories: ‘white’, ‘Black’, ‘Christian’, ‘Muslim’, ‘conservative’, ‘progressive’. But selves are much more complex and rich. Seeing ourselves as a network is a fertile way to understand our complexity. Perhaps it could even help break the rigid and reductive stereotyping that dominates current cultural and political discourse, and cultivate more productive communication. We might not understand ourselves or others perfectly, but we often have overlapping identities and perspectives. Rather than seeing our multiple identities as separating us from one another, we should see them as bases for communication and understanding, even if partial. Lindsey is a white woman philosopher. Her identity as a philosopher is shared with other philosophers (men, women, white, not white). At the same time, she might share an identity as a woman philosopher with other women philosophers whose experiences as philosophers have been shaped by being women. Sometimes communication is more difficult than others, as when some identities are ideologically rejected, or seem so different that communication can’t get off the ground. But the multiple identities of the network self provide a basis for the possibility of common ground.

How else might the network self contribute to practical, living concerns? One of the most important contributors to our sense of wellbeing is the sense of being in control of our own lives, of being self-directing. You might worry that the multiplicity of the network self means that it’s determined by other factors and can’t be self -determining. The thought might be that freedom and self-determination start with a clean slate, with a self that has no characteristics, social relations, preferences or capabilities that would predetermine it. But such a self would lack resources for giving itself direction. Such a being would be buffeted by external forces rather than realising its own potentialities and making its own choices. That would be randomness, not self-determination. In contrast, rather than limiting the self, the network view sees the multiple identities as resources for a self that’s actively setting its own direction and making choices for itself. Lindsey might prioritise career over parenthood for a period of time, she might commit to finishing her novel, setting philosophical work aside. Nothing prevents a network self from freely choosing a direction or forging new ones. Self-determination expresses the self. It’s rooted in self-understanding.

The network self view envisions an enriched self and multiple possibilities for self-determination, rather than prescribing a particular way that selves ought to be. That doesn’t mean that a self doesn’t have responsibilities to and for others. Some responsibilities might be inherited, though many are chosen. That’s part of the fabric of living with others. Selves are not only ‘networked’, that is, in social networks, but are themselves networks. By embracing the complexity and fluidity of selves, we come to a better understanding of who we are and how to live well with ourselves and with one another.

To read more about the self, visit Psyche , a digital magazine from Aeon that illuminates the human condition through psychology, philosophical understanding and the arts.

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124 Personal Identity Essay Topic Ideas & Examples

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Personal Identity Essay Topic Ideas & Examples

Personal identity is a complex and multi-faceted concept that encompasses how individuals perceive themselves and how they are perceived by others. Exploring personal identity can lead to a deeper understanding of oneself and one's place in the world. In this article, we will provide you with 124 personal identity essay topic ideas and examples to help inspire your writing.

• The role of culture in shaping personal identity
• How do social media profiles influence personal identity?
• The impact of family background on personal identity
• Exploring the concept of self-identity
• How do personal experiences shape one's identity?
• The relationship between personal identity and self-esteem
• The influence of gender on personal identity
• How do personal values shape one's identity?
• The impact of education on personal identity
• The role of religion in shaping personal identity
• How does race and ethnicity influence personal identity?
• The impact of language on personal identity
• The influence of societal norms on personal identity
• How does personal identity change over time?
• Exploring the concept of multiple identities
• The impact of social class on personal identity
• The relationship between personal identity and mental health
• How do personal relationships shape one's identity?
• The influence of physical appearance on personal identity
• The role of personal beliefs in shaping identity
• How does personal identity influence career choices?
• The impact of trauma on personal identity
• Exploring the concept of collective identity
• The relationship between personal identity and social identity
• How does personal identity influence decision-making?
• The influence of media on personal identity
• The impact of technology on personal identity
• The role of personal interests in shaping identity
• How do personal goals influence one's identity?
• The influence of political beliefs on personal identity
• Exploring the concept of national identity
• The impact of globalization on personal identity
• The relationship between personal identity and self-expression
• How does personal identity influence social interactions?
• The influence of personal experiences on cultural identity
• The impact of migration on personal identity
• The role of language in shaping cultural identity
• How do personal values influence cultural identity?
• The relationship between cultural identity and national identity
• Exploring the concept of hybrid identity
• The impact of globalization on cultural identity
• The influence of media on cultural identity
• The role of education in shaping cultural identity
• How does cultural identity influence social interactions?
• The impact of colonialism on cultural identity
• The relationship between cultural identity and language
• Exploring the concept of diaspora identity
• The influence of religion on cultural identity
• The role of food in shaping cultural identity
• How do cultural traditions influence identity?
• The impact of migration on cultural identity
• How does cultural identity influence personal relationships?
• The influence of societal norms on cultural identity
• The role of music in shaping cultural identity
• Exploring the concept of intercultural identity
• The impact of technology on cultural identity
• The influence of fashion on cultural identity
• The relationship between cultural identity and social identity
• How does cultural identity influence decision-making?
• The impact of globalization on national identity
• The role of history in shaping national identity
• Exploring the concept of ethnic identity
• The influence of language on national identity
• The relationship between national identity and cultural identity
• How does national identity influence political beliefs?
• The impact of colonialism on national identity
• The role of symbols in shaping national identity
• Exploring the concept of regional identity
• The influence of geography on national identity
• The relationship between national identity and social identity
• How does national identity influence personal values?
• The impact of migration on national identity
• The role of education in shaping national identity
• Exploring the concept of national pride
• The influence of media on national identity
• The relationship between national identity and global identity
• How does national identity influence decision-making?
• The impact of nationalism on national identity
• The role of sports in shaping national identity
• Exploring the concept of national heritage
• The influence of language on regional identity
• The relationship between regional identity and cultural identity
• How does regional identity influence social interactions?
• The impact of history on regional identity
• The role of geography in shaping regional identity
• Exploring the concept of local identity
• The influence of traditions on regional identity
• The relationship between regional identity and national identity
• How does regional identity influence personal relationships?
• The impact of migration on regional identity
• The role of education in shaping regional identity
• Exploring the concept of regional pride
• The influence of media on regional identity
• The relationship between regional identity and social identity
• How does regional identity influence decision-making?
• The impact of globalization on regional identity
• The role of sports in shaping regional identity
• Exploring the concept of regional heritage
• The influence of language on local identity
• The relationship between local identity and cultural identity
• How does local identity influence social interactions?
• The impact of history on local identity
• The role of geography in shaping local identity
• Exploring the concept of community identity
• The influence of traditions on local identity
• The relationship between local identity and national identity
• How does local identity influence personal relationships?
• The impact of migration on local identity
• The role of education in shaping local identity
• Exploring the concept of local pride
• The influence of media on local identity
• The relationship between local identity and social identity
• How does local identity influence decision-making?
• The impact of globalization on local identity
• The role of community events in shaping local identity
• Exploring the concept of community heritage
• The influence of language on community identity
• The relationship between community identity and cultural identity
• How does community identity influence social interactions?
• The impact of history on community identity
• The role of geography in shaping community identity
• Exploring the concept of neighborhood identity
• The influence of traditions on community identity

In conclusion, personal identity is a complex and nuanced concept that is shaped by a variety of factors, including culture, social interactions, personal experiences, and more. By exploring different facets of personal identity, individuals can gain a deeper understanding of themselves and the world around them. We hope that the essay topic ideas and examples provided in this article will inspire you to further explore the concept of personal identity and its impact on individuals and society as a whole.

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Essay on Self Identity

Students are often asked to write an essay on Self Identity in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

Let’s take a look…

100 Words Essay on Self Identity

Understanding self identity.

Self identity is the way we see and define ourselves. It’s like a mental picture we have about who we are. It includes our likes, dislikes, beliefs, and values. Our self identity helps us understand our unique qualities.

Factors Shaping Self Identity

Many things shape our self identity. Our family, friends, and experiences play a big role. For example, if we grow up in a family that loves sports, we might identify as a sporty person. Our culture and society also influence our self identity.

Self Identity and Relationships

Our self identity affects how we relate to others. If we see ourselves as kind, we will treat others kindly. If we see ourselves as strong, we will act confidently. Our self identity can shape our friendships and how we work in teams.

Importance of Self Identity

Self identity is important because it gives us a sense of who we are. It helps us make choices that align with our values. A strong self identity can make us feel confident and happy. It can help us find our path in life.

Changing Self Identity

Our self identity can change over time. As we grow and have new experiences, our self identity can evolve. This is a normal part of life. It’s okay to change and grow. This helps us become better versions of ourselves.

250 Words Essay on Self Identity

What is self identity.

Self Identity is the way we see and think about ourselves. It is a mix of our beliefs, personal values, and roles in society. It is the image we carry of ourselves in our minds. Our self identity helps us understand who we are and where we fit in the world.

Building Blocks of Self Identity

There are many things that shape our self identity. Our experiences, the people around us, our culture, and our personal choices all play a part. For example, if you are good at sports, you might see yourself as an athlete. If you love to help others, you might see yourself as a helper.

Why is Self Identity Important?

Self identity is important because it influences our actions, decisions, and relationships. When we know who we are, we can make choices that align with our values and beliefs. This can lead to a sense of fulfillment and happiness.

Our self identity can change over time. As we grow and have new experiences, we may start to see ourselves in different ways. For instance, a student who discovers a love for art may start to see themselves as an artist. This is a normal part of life and personal growth.

In conclusion, self identity is a vital part of who we are. It is shaped by many factors and can change over time. Understanding our self identity can help us make choices that align with who we truly are, leading to a more fulfilling life.

500 Words Essay on Self Identity

Self Identity is the way we see and think about ourselves. It is a collection of beliefs that we have about our own nature, qualities, and behavior. We form these beliefs through our experiences, relationships, and interactions with the world around us. Our self identity is like a personal map, guiding us through life. It helps us understand where we fit in the world and how we relate to others.

The Building Blocks of Self Identity

There are many parts that make up our self identity. These include our personal characteristics, values, and beliefs, as well as our physical attributes, skills, and talents. Our personal characteristics might include being kind, honest, or brave. Our values and beliefs are the things we think are important, like fairness, respect, or love. Our physical attributes include things like our height, weight, and hair color. Our skills and talents can be anything from playing a sport, to painting, to solving math problems.

How Self Identity Develops

Our self identity starts to form when we are very young. As babies, we start to recognize ourselves in the mirror. As we grow older, we start to notice differences between ourselves and others. We begin to form opinions about ourselves based on these differences. For example, we might think, “I’m taller than my friend,” or “I’m not as good at drawing as my sister.” These thoughts and observations shape our self identity.

Role of Others in Shaping Self Identity

Other people play a big role in shaping our self identity. This can include our family, friends, teachers, and even people we see on TV or read about in books. These people can influence our self identity in both positive and negative ways. For example, if our parents often tell us we are smart, we might start to believe that we are. On the other hand, if a friend often makes fun of us for being bad at a certain sport, we might start to believe that we are not athletic.

Why Self Identity is Important

Understanding our self identity is very important. It helps us make decisions, set goals, and build relationships. When we know who we are, we can make choices that align with our values and beliefs. This can lead to a more fulfilling and happy life. Having a strong self identity can also help us feel more confident and secure in who we are.

In conclusion, self identity is a complex and ever-changing part of who we are. It is shaped by many factors, including our personal characteristics, values, beliefs, physical attributes, skills, talents, and the influence of others. Understanding our self identity is important for making decisions, setting goals, and building relationships. It is a lifelong journey to understand and embrace our unique self identity.

That’s it! I hope the essay helped you.

If you’re looking for more, here are essays on other interesting topics:

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Essay Samples on Self Identity

How do i define myself: unraveling the layers of my identity.

The essence of being human lies in the intricate tapestry of individuality that weaves together experiences, beliefs, aspirations, and values. In this introspective essay, I embark on a journey to explore the profound question of how do I define myself. From the colors that paint...

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Online Identity vs. Real Life Identity: Unveiling the Dual Self

The advent of the digital age has ushered in a new dimension of identity — one that exists both in the physical world and the virtual realm. The distinction between online identity and real life identity is complex, blurring the lines between authenticity and projection....

How Do You Define Yourself: the Concept of Self-Perception

How do you define yourself? Defining oneself is a complex and introspective task that delves into the core of one's identity and beliefs. This essay embarks on a journey to understand how individuals define themselves, exploring the factors that shape their sense of identity and...

Evolving Identities: The Concept of Self-Identity and Self-Perception

For centuries psychologists, like Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung have discussed the concept of self-identity and self-perception. In social sciences, identity refers to an individual's or party's sense of who they are and what defines them. As the human condition, we have evolved to form...

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Theme of Self-Identity in the Graphic Novels American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang, and Skim by Mariko and Jillian Tamaki

The coming of age genre is reflective of the life-changing moments in the lives of every growing adolescent. The stories share a mixture of minor yet pivotal events that allow the readers to see themselves in a moment where they are experiencing numerous emotions that...

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Theme of Questioning One's Own Identity in the Poem The Love Song by J. Alfred Prufrock

One of the many different types of characteristics of modernism in literature is that it questions self and identity by strong expression of emotion. Writers will often show modernism to dig deeper into the questions of self and identity. In poem 'The Love Song of...

• The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

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First, Second, and Other Selves: Essays on Friendship and Personal Identity

Jennifer Whiting, First, Second, and Other Selves: Essays on Friendship and Personal Identity , Oxford University Press, 2016, 261pp., $74.00 (hbk), ISBN 9780199967919.

Reviewed by David O. Brink, University of California, San Diego

This is the first of three volumes of Jennifer Whiting's collected papers and focuses on issues about personal identity and friendship. The volume's eight essays are all previously published, but in disparate venues, so the volume allows the reader to see the cumulative force of ideas developed piecemeal and recurrent themes. Whiting herself identifies three such themes. First, she focuses on psychic contingenc y and variability , which is sometimes a symptom of pathology but often a reminder that familiar assumptions of moral psychology are neither universal nor necessary. Second, she explores Aristotle's conception of the friend as another self and its significance for our understanding of intrapersonal and interpersonal relations and concern. Her third theme emerges from the second and involves a non-egocentric perspective on self-love and love of others. She treats the interpersonal case as prior in explanation and justification to the intrapersonal case.

Her outside-in strategy contrasts with the inside-out strategy that goes with an egocentric assimilation of the interpersonal case to the intrapersonal case. This leads her to defend an ethocentric , or character-based, conception of both prudential concern and friendship. There are important kinds of historical influence and inspiration in these essays, including Whiting's exploration of Aristotle's conception of friendship, her discussion of Platonic love, and her discussion of Plato's conception of the soul in the Republic . However, most of the essays concentrate on systematic, rather than historical, issues and debates. Apparently, the other two volumes of essays will be more historical, focusing on the metaphysical and psychological basis of Aristotle's ethics.

These essays are long and densely argued, defying easy summary. But they are extremely rewarding and repay careful study. They display philosophical imagination and give expression to an independent voice. Whiting's essays are also deeply personal, reflecting ongoing conversations with her philosophical mentors, colleagues, and friends. Whiting is engaged in dialogue with Plato, Aristotle, Locke, Sydney Shoemaker, Derek Parfit, Annette Baier, and Terence Irwin, among others, and one comes away with a strong sense of her as a philosophical interlocutor . Her essays on personal identity and friendship are among the most important work on these topics in the last three decades. Her defense of a broadly psychological reductionist conception of personal identity is a worthy successor to the contributions of Shoemaker and Parfit, and her ethocentric conception of friendship and self-love is an important and original contribution to the literature on love and friendship. Anyone interested in these philosophical topics will profit from reading these essays together.

In what follows, I summarize the contributions of individual essays and then turn to raising some questions about her claims about personal identity and friendship.

In traditional debates about the nature of personal identity, Locke, Bishop Butler, and Thomas Reid agree that personal identity is a forensic concept, tied to backward-looking normative concerns about responsibility and desert and forward-looking ones involving the special concern one has for one's own future that is different from the sort of concern one has for others to whom one stands in no special relationship. In "Friends and Future Selves" Whiting explores the worry that Butler and Reid raise that Lockean conceptions of personal identity cannot explain and justify special concern, because they recognize identity in only a "loose and popular," not a "strict and philosophical," sense.

Though she raises questions about whether personal identity is sufficient for special concern, her main claim is that it is not necessary. Interpersonal relationships, such as friendship, also display a form of special concern that does not presuppose personal identity. In fact, friendship allows us to stand the normal assumption that special concern requires personal identity on its head -- it's not just that special concern does not presuppose personal identity but rather that personal identity presupposes special concern. Just as special concern for one's friend is part of what makes that person a friend, so too special concern for oneself is part of what establishes psychological continuity within one's own life. Presumably, special concern involves not only positive affective regard for its target but also a suite of behavioral dispositions to make various investments and sacrifices for the sake of that person. Whiting's claim is that special concern is not the product of personal identity so much as an essential constituent of it.

Friendship is the focus of "Impersonal Friends," where Whiting examines Aristotle's claim that the friend is "another oneself" ( Nicomachean Ethics 1161b 19, 28-35, 1169b4-6; Magna Moralia 1213a2-23) and defends her ethocentric interpretation that the ground of the best sort of friendship is the friend's virtuous character. She defends this kind of impersonal friendship for another's virtue against Gregory Vlastos's objections and against an egocentric interpretation defended by Irwin and myself, according to which friendship makes the beloved's interests an extension of the agent's own interests. [1] Both the egocentric and ethocentric interpretations agree that friends stand to each other in psychological relations much as a person stands psychologically to his own future self and that friends should care for each other as they care for themselves. But whereas the egocentric interpretation reads these claims from the inside-out -- extending claims from the intrapersonal case to the interpersonal one -- Whiting's ethocentric interpretation reads these claims from the outside-in -- drawing lessons for the intrapersonal case from the interpersonal one. She thinks that the outside-in strategy is to be preferred, in part because she thinks the egocentric approach supports a "colonial" attitude toward friends. [2]

In "Trusting First and Second Selves", Whiting examines Baier's claims about the importance of trust among friends. She subjects Baier's claims to friendly amendment in which she argues that a certain amount of distrust or at least a willingness to distrust is a mark of healthy relationships to friends and to oneself. She leverages Virginia Woolf's concerns in Three Guineas to raise questions about whether we ought to trust ourselves fully. Presumably, these forms of distrust are also justified in response to blindspots and implicit bias. We can't imagine theoretical or practical reasoning without some substantial degree of trust in our earlier selves, but that trust needs to be balanced with a healthy dose of fallibilism. Presumably, these reasons to adopt a fallibilist attitude toward ourselves apply to friends and others. Common projects won't succeed without considerable trust, but that trust should be leavened with a willingness to question the assumptions and commitments of our friends.

In "Back to 'The Self and the Future'" Whiting revisits a debate between Shoemaker and Bernard Williams over the possibility of "body swaps" of the sort discussed by Shoemaker in the famous Brownson case, in which Brown's brain is transplanted into Robinson's body. [3] To separate psychological continuity and sameness of brain, we might modify the Brownson case so that Brownson is psychologically continuous with Brown without having Brown's brain. We could do this by scanning Brown's brain states and then reconfiguring Robinson's brain so as to realize Brown's psychology. Brownson would then be psychologically, but in no way physically, continuous with Brown. Even Williams initially agrees with Shoemaker that Brownson seems to be Brown, because he inherits Brown's mental life. But Williams thinks that our intuitions here are unstable. If we re-describe such a case in terms of psychological changes that will be induced in you prior to the person in your body being tortured, Williams claims, we will find that we still experience special concern for the psychologically discontinuous person who will be tortured, revealing that our criteria of identity are physical or bodily.

Whiting does a nice job of reconstructing the dialectic and pointing out ways in which Williams begs the question against Shoemaker and psychological continuity. Moreover, she invokes her comparison of friends and future selves to motivate the idea, which Williams must deny, that personal identity can be indeterminate. Interpersonal associations come in degrees, with the result that some associations are clearly friendships, some are clearly not, and some have an indeterminate status. If intrapersonal relations are relevantly like friendship, we should be receptive to the idea that some forms of psychological continuity are sufficient for personal identity, some are insufficient, and some have an indeterminate status.

"Personal Identity: The Non-Branching Form of What Matters" is an excellent exposition and defense of a broadly psychological reductionist claim that personal identity consists in non-branching psychological continuity. Whiting usefully distinguishes two strands in this tradition -- a reductionist strand, which she associates with Parfit, and a non-reductionist strand, which she associates with Shoemaker and defends. This distinction might also be understood as a contrast between two different kinds of reductionism with different objects. Shoemaker and Parfit both accept psychological reductionism about personal identity insofar as they both think that persons P1 and P2 are identical insofar as the later one is related to the earlier one by non-branching psychological continuity. [4] Notice that the definiens of reductionism about personal identity invokes the concept of a person. Parfit and Shoemaker part company over whether to accept reductionism about persons, with Parfit embracing reductionism about persons and Shoemaker denying it. Parfit thinks that persons can be reduced to (or perhaps eliminated in favor of) mental happenings that need not be ascribed to a person or thinker ( Reasons and Persons §81), whereas Shoemaker thinks that mental states should be understood functionally as states of a system -- a person -- with characteristic inputs, outputs, and relations to other internal states of the system. Whiting plausibly suggests that the debate between Shoemaker and Parfit can be traced to two different strands in Locke's views about personal identity. Parfit's reductionism about persons fits best with the passive dimensions of Locke's focus on experiential memory, whereas Shoemaker's non-reductionism about persons fits best with Locke's emphasis on the forensic role of persons and the connection between persons and agency.

"One is Not Born but Becomes a Person: The Importance of Philosophical Mothering" engages some of Baier's reflections about the limitations in traditional rationalist conceptions of persons as anti-naturalistic, individualistic, and intellectualist. Whiting wants to endorse many aspects of Baier's naturalism about persons and her emphasis on the way in which normative maturation is dependent on proper nurture from another. But she wants to embrace these claims while rejecting Baier's critique of the method of cases and thought experiments prevalent in the literature on personal identity.

"Love: Self-Propagation, Self-Preservation, or Ekstasis?" looks at the analysis of interpersonal love in Plato's Symposium and Phaedrus , comparing three different kinds of readings -- Irwin's egocentric conception, Harry Frankfurt's identificationist conception, and her own ecstatic conception, in which the lover literally transcends himself. Whiting thinks the ecstatic conception is necessary to explain the claims the beloved makes on the lover and the reciprocity that one finds in the best sort of love.

"Psychic Contingency in the Republic " is a discussion of Plato's claims about the human soul in the Republic . Whiting contrasts a realist reading that takes seriously Plato's talk of parts of the soul and identifies the person with the rational part of her soul with a deflationist reading that understands parts of the soul to be simply different aspects of an agent. This debate seems bound up with how many parts of the soul Plato recognizes and which parts these are. Some commentators think that Book IV's understanding of akrasia requires a deflationist conception of the parts of the soul so that we can understand the agent acting against her own better judgment, but they also think that the discussion of deviant constitutions and souls in Books VIII-IX requires taking seriously the idea that different parts of an agent's soul act as independent agents. Both realists and deflationists tend to assume that we need a consistent reading of the soul and its parts throughout the Republic and that Plato accepts a tripartite division of the soul throughout.

Whiting questions these assumptions. She argues that when Plato talks about the relations among the parts of the soul in virtuous and non-virtuous people the number and identity of the relata and the nature of the relation can vary. In the virtuous person, there is a reason-responsive harmony between reason, emotion, and the appetites, so that it is misplaced to think of faction and rule of one part by others. By contrast, in non-virtuous persons there is psychic conflict, and the number and identity of the factions will depend on the ways in which the individual is reasons-responsive or not. This leads Whiting to defend a hybrid reading of Books II-IV and VII-IX in which deflationists are roughly right in their treatment of the appetites in II-IV and the realists are roughly right about the parts of corrupt souls in VIII-IX. Her case for contingency and variability in Plato's moral psychology in the Republic is exceptionally rich and interesting and repays careful reading.

Any reader should find these essays rewarding and stimulating. Different readers will be drawn to different themes and will assess Whiting's claims differently. I'll close by raising some questions about Whiting's contrast between egocentric and ethocentric conceptions of intrapersonal and interpersonal unity, and her defense of the ethocentric conception.

Both intrapersonal and interpersonal unity are matters of psychological continuity, and what separates intrapersonal and garden-variety interpersonal cases is a matter of degree, not kind. The egocentric conception adopts an inside-out approach, claiming that interpersonal psychological continuity extends the person's interests, even when it does not extend her life. Fission in which Tom's psychology is transferred to two persons -- Dick and Harry -- is the limiting form of interpersonal psychological continuity, because the degree of continuity is, by hypothesis, maximal. Here, Tom does not literally survive fission, because identity is a one-one relation and psychological continuity is a one-many relation, but nonetheless we can see Tom's interests preserved in the lives of Dick and Harry. Tom has posthumous interests in the lives of Dick and Harry. Of course, fission is a thought experiment. But there are real forms of interpersonal psychological continuity all around us, notably in relationships between friends and loved ones who share experiences and discussion with each other, influence each other psychologically, and care about each other. We often talk about the interests of the beloved as part of the interests of the lover, and the egocentric conception asks us to take this seriously.

By contrast, the ethocentric conception adopts an outside-in approach, claiming that self-love should be understood on the model of love of another. In particular, the ethocentric conception claims that the basis of interpersonal love is love of the character -- in particular, the virtuous character or perhaps the capacity for virtuous character -- of another. This is a kind of impersonal love. When we extend this conception to the intrapersonal case, we see that even love of one's future self is not egocentric but is or should be an impersonal love of the virtuous character of one's future self. Rather than loving another as myself, I should love myself as I love another.

As we have seen, Whiting defends her ethocentric conception both as an interpretation of Aristotle's conception of friendship and as a systematic proposal in part because she thinks that the egocentric approach imparts an objectionably colonial attitude toward interpersonal love and friendship. I am skeptical of both claims. I think that Aristotle's eudaimonism commits him to the egocentric conception, that his claims about the friend as another self conform to the inside-out approach ( EN 1170b6-9), and that treating the good of another as a complete, but not unconditionally complete, good can avoid taking a colonial attitude toward others. [5] I have argued for these claims elsewhere but don't want to re-litigate them here. Instead, I want to raise a concern about Whiting's ethocentric conception and mention an alternative to both egocentric and ethocentric conceptions that she might find congenial.

The basis of ethocentric concern for another is the other's valuable traits. This explains one's reasons for becoming friends with another on account of the other's traits. But it seems more problematic as the ground for concern for another who is already one's friend. If my reason for caring for my friend consists in her virtuous or valuable traits, then it seems that I care about her virtue, rather than herself. The ethocentric conception has difficulty explaining why I should care more about my friend than other virtuous people with whom I am not friends or why I shouldn't be willing to "trade up" from my virtuous friend to a still more virtuous stranger. Whiting does offer pragmatic reasons for privileging one's virtuous friends over virtuous strangers -- epistemic and causal factors allow one to better promote virtue with those one already knows and associates with (p. 61). But like Henry Sidgwick's similar pragmatic utilitarian justification of special concern and special obligations and John Perry's impersonal justification of personal projects, these pragmatic rationales for special concern may seem insufficient to underwrite robust special concern for oneself and one's friends. [6]

We can avoid these worries about ethocentric special concern by claiming that it is the shared history with the individual who is a friend that grounds an agent-relative form of special concern for her that one doesn't have for a stranger, however virtuous. One form of agent-relative concern is egocentric. But we can make sense of agent-relative concern that is not egoistic. Let us stipulate that prudence and egocentric concern presuppose personal identity, inasmuch as both assume that reasons are grounded in self-interest. Fission teaches us that we can have agent-relative special concern in the absence of personal identity, provided there is psychological continuity. But then we can formulate agent-relative concern that presupposes continuity, rather than identity. Taking a page from the Lockean reply to Butler's circularity worry, we might call this special concern quasi-prudence and treat it as a quasi-egocentric conception. Once we see that there is interpersonal psychological continuity to be found outside of fission cases in more familiar forms of association, we can see how we might defend a quasi-egocentric conception of friendship. This quasi-egocentric conception would be different from the egocentric conception in not viewing the friend through the lens of self-interest, but it would also be different from the ethocentric conception in assigning intrinsic, and not just pragmatic, significance to the shared history between friends.

We might compare the quasi-egocentric conception of special concern with C.D. Broad's doctrine of self-referential altruism in his unjustly neglected essay "Self and Others." [7] Broad was reacting to the reductionist tendencies in Sidgwick's two methods of ethics -- egoism and utilitarianism. Broad thought that egoism cannot do justice to our duties to others and that utilitarianism cannot do justice to our special obligations. So, he introduced an agent-relative alternative between these extremes that he thought better reflected ordinary views about special concern for others. Self-referential altruism recognizes non-derivative reason to benefit others but it says that

each of us has specially urgent obligations to benefit certain individuals and groups which stand in certain special relations to himself , e.g. his parents, his children, his fellow-countrymen, etc. And it holds that these special relationships are the ultimate and sufficient ground for those specially urgent claims on one's beneficence. ("Self and Others," 279-80).

Self-referential altruism is a hybrid of two non-derivative elements: an agent-neutral concern for anyone it is in one's power to affect for better or worse and an agent-relative special concern for those to whom one stands in special relationships. The quasi-egocentric conception stands to egocentric and ethocentric rivals much as self-referential altruism stands to egoism and utilitarianism. Because it is a hybrid of inside-out and outside-in elements, a quasi-egocentric conception may have virtues that its purebred rivals don't. Perhaps the take-home message from "Friends and Future Selves" should be a hybrid conception, rather than the ethocentric conception we find in "Impersonal Friends."

[1] See Gregory Vlastos, "The Individual as Object of Love in Plato" in Platonic Studies (Princeton University Press, 1981) and Terence Irwin, Aristotle's First Principles (Clarendon Press, 1988), ch. 18. I have defended the egocentric interpretation in "Rational Egoism, Self, and Others" in Identity, Character, and Morality , ed. O. Flanagan and A. Rorty (MIT Press, 1990); "Self-love and Altruism" Social Philosophy & Policy Social Philosophy & Policy 14 (1997): 122-57; "Eudaimonism, Love and Friendship, and Political Community" Social Philosophy & Policy 16 (1999): 252-89; and "Eudaimonism and Cosmopolitan Concern" in Virtue, Happiness, and Knowledge: Themes from the Work of Gail Fine and Terence Irwin , ed. D. Brink, S. Meyer, and C. Shields (Clarendon Press, forthcoming).

[2] I find it puzzling that Whiting thinks that I badly misread her "Friends and Future Selves" (1986) in my "Rational Egoism, Self, and Others" (1990) as presupposing a form of rational egoism (pp. 9, 198). I explicitly acknowledge that we come to the intrapersonal/interpersonal comparison from different perspectives: "On the surface, her position is just the reverse of mine; she wants to model the justification of self-concern on concern for one's friends, whereas I want to model the justification of concern for one's friends (and others more generally) on self-concern. I'm less clear that our different routes to this comparison between self-concern and concern for one's friends require us to disagree on the substance of the comparison." ("Rational Egoism, Self, and Others," 373). So not only do I not presuppose that she is a rational egoist, I deny it, but nonetheless wonder if we could agree on the substance of the comparison. To put it in terms of the metaphors introduced here, I acknowledge that while my approach is inside-out and hers is outside-in, I wonder if we could nonetheless meet somewhere in the middle.

[3] See Sydney Shoemaker, Self-knowledge and Self-Identity (Cornell University Press, 1963), esp. pp. 22-25 and Bernard Williams, "The Self and the Future" reprinted in Bernard Williams, Problems of the Self (Cambridge University Press, 1973).

[4] Derek Parfit, Reasons and Persons (Clarendon Press, 1984), Part III and Sydney Shoemaker, "Personal Identity: A Materialist's Account" in S. Shoemaker and R. Swinburne, Personal Identity (Blackwell, 1984).

[5] See my essays mentioned in note 1. However, as Whiting points out (p. 10), Magna Moralia 1212b18-20 can be read so as to support the outside-in reading.

[6] Henry Sidgwick, The Methods of Ethics , 7 th ed. (Macmillan, 1907), esp. pp. 431-39 and John Perry, "The Importance of Being Identical" in The Identities of Persons , ed. A. Rorty (University of California Press, 1976). Interestingly, Whiting's pragmatic rationale for special concern in "Impersonal Friends" seems in tension with her criticism of Perry's pragmatic rationale for personal projects in "Friends and Future Selves" (pp. 35-38).

[7] C.D. Broad, "Self and Others" in Broad's Critical Essays in Moral Philosophy , ed. D. Cheney (George Allen and Unwin, 1971).

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3 Self and Identity

For human beings, the self is what happens when “I” encounters “Me.” The central psychological question of selfhood, then, is this: How does a person apprehend and understand who he or she is? Over the past 100 years, psychologists have approached the study of self (and the related concept of identity) in many different ways, but three central metaphors for the self repeatedly emerge. First, the self may be seen as a social actor, who enacts roles and displays traits by performing behaviors in the presence of others. Second, the self is a motivated agent, who acts upon inner desires and formulates goals, values, and plans to guide behavior in the future. Third, the self eventually becomes an autobiographical author, too, who takes stock of life — past, present, and future — to create a story about who I am, how I came to be, and where my life may be going. This module briefly reviews central ideas and research findings on the self as an actor, an agent, and an author, with an emphasis on how these features of selfhood develop over the human life course.

Learning Objectives

• Explain the basic idea of reflexivity in human selfhood—how the “I” encounters and makes sense of itself (the “Me”).
• Describe fundamental distinctions between three different perspectives on the self: the self as actor, agent, and author.
• Describe how a sense of self as a social actor emerges around the age of 2 years and how it develops going forward.
• Describe the development of the self’s sense of motivated agency from the emergence of the child’s theory of mind to the articulation of life goals and values in adolescence and beyond.
• Define the term narrative identity, and explain what psychological and cultural functions narrative identity serves.

Introduction

In the Temple of Apollo at Delphi, the ancient Greeks inscribed the words: “Know thy self .” For at least 2,500 years, and probably longer, human beings have pondered the meaning of the ancient aphorism. Over the past century, psychological scientists have joined the effort. They have formulated many theories and tested countless hypotheses that speak to the central question of human selfhood: How does a person know who he or she is?

The ancient Greeks seemed to realize that the self is inherently reflexive —it reflects back on itself. In the disarmingly simple idea made famous by the great psychologist William James ( 1892/1963 ), the self is what happens when “I” reflects back upon “Me.” The self is both the I and the Me—it is the knower, and it is what the knower knows when the knower reflects upon itself. When you look back at yourself, what do you see? When you look inside, what do you find? Moreover, when you try to change your self in some way, what is it that you are trying to change? The philosopher Charles Taylor ( 1989 ) describes the self as a reflexive project . In modern life, Taylor agues, we often try to manage, discipline, refine, improve, or develop the self. We work on our selves, as we might work on any other interesting project. But what exactly is it that we work on?

Imagine for a moment that you have decided to improve your self . You might, say, go on a diet to improve your appearance. Or you might decide to be nicer to your mother, in order to improve that important social role. Or maybe the problem is at work—you need to find a better job or go back to school to prepare for a different career. Perhaps you just need to work harder. Or get organized. Or recommit yourself to religion. Or maybe the key is to begin thinking about your whole life story in a completely different way, in a way that you hope will bring you more happiness, fulfillment, peace, or excitement.

Although there are many different ways you might reflect upon and try to improve the self, it turns out that many, if not most, of them fall roughly into three broad psychological categories ( McAdams & Cox, 2010 ). The I may encounter the Me as (a) a social actor, (b) a motivated agent, or (c) an autobiographical author.

The Social Actor

Shakespeare tapped into a deep truth about human nature when he famously wrote, “All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.” He was wrong about the “merely,” however, for there is nothing more important for human adaptation than the manner in which we perform our roles as actors in the everyday theatre of social life. What Shakespeare may have sensed but could not have fully understood is that human beings evolved to live in social groups. Beginning with Darwin ( 1872/1965 ) and running through contemporary conceptions of human evolution, scientists have portrayed human nature as profoundly social ( Wilson, 2012 ). For a few million years, Homo sapiens and their evolutionary forerunners have survived and flourished by virtue of their ability to live and work together in complex social groups, cooperating with each other to solve problems and overcome threats and competing with each other in the face of limited resources. As social animals, human beings strive to get along and get ahead in the presence of each other ( Hogan, 1982 ). Evolution has prepared us to care deeply about social acceptance and social status, for those unfortunate individuals who do not get along well in social groups or who fail to attain a requisite status among their peers have typically been severely compromised when it comes to survival and reproduction. It makes consummate evolutionary sense, therefore, that the human “I” should apprehend the “Me” first and foremost as a social actor .

For human beings, the sense of the self as a social actor begins to emerge around the age of 18 months. Numerous studies have shown that by the time they reach their second birthday most toddlers recognize themselves in mirrors and other reflecting devices ( Lewis & Brooks-Gunn, 1979 ; Rochat, 2003 ). What they see is an embodied actor who moves through space and time. Many children begin to use words such as “me” and “mine” in the second year of life, suggesting that the I now has linguistic labels that can be applied reflexively to itself: I call myself “me.” Around the same time, children also begin to express social emotions such as embarrassment, shame, guilt, and pride ( Tangney, Stuewig, & Mashek, 2007 ). These emotions tell the social actor how well he or she is performing in the group. When I do things that win the approval of others, I feel proud of myself. When I fail in the presence of others, I may feel embarrassment or shame. When I violate a social rule, I may experience guilt, which may motivate me to make amends.

Many of the classic psychological theories of human selfhood point to the second year of life as a key developmental period. For example, Freud ( 1923/1961 ) and his followers in the psychoanalytic tradition traced the emergence of an autonomous ego back to the second year. Freud used the term “ego” (in German das Ich , which also translates into “the I”) to refer to an executive self in the personality. Erikson ( 1963 ) argued that experiences of trust and interpersonal attachment in the first year of life help to consolidate the autonomy of the ego in the second. Coming from a more sociological perspective, Mead ( 1934 ) suggested that the I comes to know the Me through reflection, which may begin quite literally with mirrors but later involves the reflected appraisals of others. I come to know who I am as a social actor, Mead argued, by noting how other people in my social world react to my performances. In the development of the self as a social actor, other people function like mirrors—they reflect who I am back to me.

Research has shown that when young children begin to make attributions about themselves, they start simple ( Harter, 2006 ). At age 4, Jessica knows that she has dark hair, knows that she lives in a white house, and describes herself to others in terms of simple behavioral traits . She may say that she is “nice,” or “helpful,” or that she is “a good girl most of the time.” By the time, she hits fifth grade (age 10), Jessica sees herself in more complex ways, attributing traits to the self such as “honest,” “moody,” “outgoing,” “shy,” “hard-working,” “smart,” “good at math but not gym class,” or “nice except when I am around my annoying brother.” By late childhood and early adolescence, the personality traits that people attribute to themselves, as well as those attributed to them by others, tend to correlate with each other in ways that conform to a well-established taxonomy of five broad trait domains, repeatedly derived in studies of adult personality and often called the Big Five : (1) extraversion, (2) neuroticism, (3) agreeableness, (4) conscientiousness, and (5) openness to experience ( Roberts, Wood, & Caspi, 2008 ). By late childhood, moreover, self-conceptions will likely also include important social roles : “I am a good student,” “I am the oldest daughter,” or “I am a good friend to Sarah.”

Traits and roles, and variations on these notions, are the main currency of the self as social actor ( McAdams & Cox, 2010 ). Trait terms capture perceived consistencies in social performance. They convey what I reflexively perceive to be my overall acting style, based in part on how I think others see me as an actor in many different social situations. Roles capture the quality, as I perceive it, of important structured relationships in my life. Taken together, traits and roles make up the main features of my social reputation , as I apprehend it in my own mind ( Hogan, 1982 ).

If you have ever tried hard to change yourself, you may have taken aim at your social reputation, targeting your central traits or your social roles. Maybe you woke up one day and decided that you must become a more optimistic and emotionally upbeat person. Taking into consideration the reflected appraisals of others, you realized that even your friends seem to avoid you because you bring them down. In addition, it feels bad to feel so bad all the time: Wouldn’t it be better to feel good, to have more energy and hope? In the language of traits, you have decided to “work on” your “neuroticism.” Or maybe instead, your problem is the trait of “conscientiousness”: You are undisciplined and don’t work hard enough, so you resolve to make changes in that area. Self-improvement efforts such as these—aimed at changing one’s traits to become a more effective social actor—are sometimes successful, but they are very hard—kind of like dieting. Research suggests that broad traits tend to be stubborn, resistant to change, even with the aid of psychotherapy. However, people often have more success working directly on their social roles. To become a more effective social actor, you may want to take aim at the important roles you play in life. What can I do to become a better son or daughter? How can I find new and meaningful roles to perform at work, or in my family, or among my friends, or in my church and community? By doing concrete things that enrich your performances in important social roles, you may begin to see yourself in a new light, and others will notice the change, too. Social actors hold the potential to transform their performances across the human life course. Each time you walk out on stage, you have a chance to start anew.

The Motivated Agent

Whether we are talking literally about the theatrical stage or more figuratively, as I do in this module, about the everyday social environment for human behavior, observers can never fully know what is in the actor’s head, no matter how closely they watch. We can see actors act, but we cannot know for sure what they want or what they value , unless they tell us straightaway. As a social actor, a person may come across as friendly and compassionate, or cynical and mean-spirited, but in neither case can we infer their motivations from their traits or their roles. What does the friendly person want? What is the cynical father trying to achieve? Many broad psychological theories of the self prioritize the motivational qualities of human behavior—the inner needs, wants, desires, goals, values, plans, programs, fears, and aversions that seem to give behavior its direction and purpose ( Bandura, 1989 ; Deci & Ryan, 1991 ; Markus & Nurius, 1986 ). These kinds of theories explicitly conceive of the self as a motivated agent.

To be an agent is to act with direction and purpose, to move forward into the future in pursuit of self-chosen and valued goals. In a sense, human beings are agents even as infants, for babies can surely act in goal-directed ways. By age 1 year, moreover, infants show a strong preference for observing and imitating the goal-directed, intentional behavior of others, rather than random behaviors ( Woodward, 2009 ). Still, it is one thing to act in goal-directed ways; it is quite another for the I to know itself (the Me) as an intentional and purposeful force who moves forward in life in pursuit of self-chosen goals, values, and other desired end states. In order to do so, the person must first realize that people indeed have desires and goals in their minds and that these inner desires and goals motivate (initiate, energize, put into motion) their behavior. According to a strong line of research in developmental psychology, attaining this kind of understanding means acquiring a theory of mind ( Wellman, 1993 ), which occurs for most children by the age of 4. Once a child understands that other people’s behavior is often motivated by inner desires and goals, it is a small step to apprehend the self in similar terms.

Building on theory of mind and other cognitive and social developments, children begin to construct the self as a motivated agent in the elementary school years, layered over their still-developing sense of themselves as social actors. Theory and research on what developmental psychologists call the age 5-to-7 shift converge to suggest that children become more planful, intentional, and systematic in their pursuit of valued goals during this time ( Sameroff & Haith, 1996 ). Schooling reinforces the shift in that teachers and curricula place increasing demands on students to work hard, adhere to schedules, focus on goals, and achieve success in particular, well-defined task domains. Their relative success in achieving their most cherished goals, furthermore, goes a long way in determining children’s self-esteem ( Robins, Tracy, & Trzesniewski, 2008 ). Motivated agents feel good about themselves to the extent they believe that they are making good progress in achieving their goals and advancing their most important values.

Goals and values become even more important for the self in adolescence, as teenagers begin to confront what Erikson ( 1963 ) famously termed the developmental challenge of identity . For adolescents and young adults, establishing a psychologically efficacious identity involves exploring different options with respect to life goals, values, vocations, and intimate relationships and eventually committing to a motivational and ideological agenda for adult life—an integrated and realistic sense of what I want and value in life and how I plan to achieve it ( Kroger & Marcia, 2011 ). Committing oneself to an integrated suite of life goals and values is perhaps the greatest achievement for the self as motivated agent . Establishing an adult identity has implications, as well, for how a person moves through life as a social actor, entailing new role commitments and, perhaps, a changing understanding of one’s basic dispositional traits. According to Erikson, however, identity achievement is always provisional, for adults continue to work on their identities as they move into midlife and beyond, often relinquishing old goals in favor of new ones, investing themselves in new projects and making new plans, exploring new relationships, and shifting their priorities in response to changing life circumstances ( Freund & Riediger, 2006 ; Josselson, 1996 ).

There is a sense whereby any time you try to change yourself, you are assuming the role of a motivated agent. After all, to strive to change something is inherently what an agent does. However, what particular feature of selfhood you try to change may correspond to your self as actor, agent, or author, or some combination. When you try to change your traits or roles, you take aim at the social actor. By contrast, when you try to change your values or life goals, you are focusing on yourself as a motivated agent. Adolescence and young adulthood are periods in the human life course when many of us focus attention on our values and life goals. Perhaps you grew up as a traditional Catholic, but now in college you believe that the values inculcated in your childhood no longer function so well for you. You no longer believe in the central tenets of the Catholic Church, say, and are now working to replace your old values with new ones. Or maybe you still want to be Catholic, but you feel that your new take on faith requires a different kind of personal ideology. In the realm of the motivated agent, moreover, changing values can influence life goals. If your new value system prioritizes alleviating the suffering of others, you may decide to pursue a degree in social work, or to become a public interest lawyer, or to live a simpler life that prioritizes people over material wealth. A great deal of the identity work we do in adolescence and young adulthood is about values and goals, as we strive to articulate a personal vision or dream for what we hope to accomplish in the future.

The Autobiographical Author

Even as the “I” continues to develop a sense of the “Me” as both a social actor and a motivated agent, a third standpoint for selfhood gradually emerges in the adolescent and early-adult years. The third perspective is a response to Erikson’s ( 1963 ) challenge of identity. According to Erikson, developing an identity involves more than the exploration of and commitment to life goals and values (the self as motivated agent), and more than committing to new roles and re-evaluating old traits (the self as social actor). It also involves achieving a sense of temporal continuity in life—a reflexive understanding of how I have come to be the person I am becoming , or put differently, how my past self has developed into my present self, and how my present self will, in turn, develop into an envisioned future self. In his analysis of identity formation in the life of the 15th-century Protestant reformer Martin Luther, Erikson ( 1958 ) describes the culmination of a young adult’s search for identity in this way:

“To be adult means among other things to see one’s own life in continuous perspective, both in retrospect and prospect. By accepting some definition of who he is, usually on the basis of a function in an economy, a place in the sequence of generations, and a status in the structure of society, the adult is able to selectively reconstruct his past in such a way that, step for step, it seems to have planned him, or better, he seems to have planned it . In this sense, psychologically we do choose our parents, our family history, and the history of our kings, heroes, and gods. By making them our own, we maneuver ourselves into the inner position of proprietors, of creators.”

— (Erikson, 1958, pp. 111–112; emphasis added).

In this rich passage, Erikson intimates that the development of a mature identity in young adulthood involves the I’s ability to construct a retrospective and prospective story about the Me ( McAdams, 1985 ). In their efforts to find a meaningful identity for life, young men and women begin “to selectively reconstruct” their past, as Erikson wrote, and imagine their future to create an integrative life story, or what psychologists today often call a narrative identity . A narrative identity is an internalized and evolving story of the self that reconstructs the past and anticipates the future in such a way as to provide a person’s life with some degree of unity, meaning, and purpose over time ( McAdams, 2008 ; McLean, Pasupathi, & Pals, 2007 ). The self typically becomes an autobiographical author in the early-adult years, a way of being that is layered over the motivated agent, which is layered over the social actor. In order to provide life with the sense of temporal continuity and deep meaning that Erikson believed identity should confer, we must author a personalized life story that integrates our understanding of who we once were, who we are today, and who we may become in the future. The story helps to explain, for the author and for the author’s world, why the social actor does what it does and why the motivated agent wants what it wants, and how the person as a whole has developed over time, from the past’s reconstructed beginning to the future’s imagined ending.

By the time they are 5 or 6 years of age, children can tell well-formed stories about personal events in their lives ( Fivush, 2011 ). By the end of childhood, they usually have a good sense of what a typical biography contains and how it is sequenced, from birth to death ( Thomsen & Bernsten, 2008 ). But it is not until adolescence, research shows, that human beings express advanced storytelling skills and what psychologists call autobiographical reasoning ( Habermas & Bluck, 2000 ; McLean & Fournier, 2008 ). In autobiographical reasoning, a narrator is able to derive substantive conclusions about the self from analyzing his or her own personal experiences. Adolescents may develop the ability to string together events into causal chains and inductively derive general themes about life from a sequence of chapters and scenes ( Habermas & de Silveira, 2008 ). For example, a 16-year-old may be able to explain to herself and to others how childhood experiences in her family have shaped her vocation in life. Her parents were divorced when she was 5 years old, the teenager recalls, and this caused a great deal of stress in her family. Her mother often seemed anxious and depressed, but she (the now-teenager when she was a little girl—the story’s protagonist) often tried to cheer her mother up, and her efforts seemed to work. In more recent years, the teenager notes that her friends often come to her with their boyfriend problems. She seems to be very adept at giving advice about love and relationships, which stems, the teenager now believes, from her early experiences with her mother. Carrying this causal narrative forward, the teenager now thinks that she would like to be a marriage counselor when she grows up.

Unlike children, then, adolescents can tell a full and convincing story about an entire human life, or at least a prominent line of causation within a full life, explaining continuity and change in the story’s protagonist over time. Once the cognitive skills are in place, young people seek interpersonal opportunities to share and refine their developing sense of themselves as storytellers (the I) who tell stories about themselves (the Me). Adolescents and young adults author a narrative sense of the self by telling stories about their experiences to other people, monitoring the feedback they receive from the tellings, editing their stories in light of the feedback, gaining new experiences and telling stories about those, and on and on, as selves create stories that, in turn, create new selves ( McLean et al., 2007 ). Gradually, in fits and starts, through conversation and introspection, the I develops a convincing and coherent narrative about the Me.

Contemporary research on the self as autobiographical author emphasizes the strong effect of culture on narrative identity ( Hammack, 2008 ). Culture provides a menu of favored plot lines, themes, and character types for the construction of self-defining life stories. Autobiographical authors sample selectively from the cultural menu, appropriating ideas that seem to resonate well with their own life experiences. As such, life stories reflect the culture, wherein they are situated as much as they reflect the authorial efforts of the autobiographical I.

As one example of the tight link between culture and narrative identity, McAdams ( 2013 ) and others (e.g., Kleinfeld, 2012 ) have highlighted the prominence of redemptive narratives in American culture. Epitomized in such iconic cultural ideals as the American dream, Horatio Alger stories, and narratives of Christian atonement, redemptive stories track the move from suffering to an enhanced status or state, while scripting the development of a chosen protagonist who journeys forth into a dangerous and unredeemed world ( McAdams, 2013 ). Hollywood movies often celebrate redemptive quests. Americans are exposed to similar narrative messages in self-help books, 12-step programs, Sunday sermons, and in the rhetoric of political campaigns. Over the past two decades, the world’s most influential spokesperson for the power of redemption in human lives may be Oprah Winfrey, who tells her own story of overcoming childhood adversity while encouraging others, through her media outlets and philanthropy, to tell similar kinds of stories for their own lives ( McAdams, 2013 ). Research has demonstrated that American adults who enjoy high levels of mental health and civic engagement tend to construct their lives as narratives of redemption, tracking the move from sin to salvation, rags to riches, oppression to liberation, or sickness/abuse to health/recovery ( McAdams, Diamond, de St. Aubin, & Mansfield, 1997 ; McAdams, Reynolds, Lewis, Patten, & Bowman, 2001 ; Walker & Frimer, 2007 ). In American society, these kinds of stories are often seen to be inspirational.

At the same time, McAdams ( 2011 , 2013 ) has pointed to shortcomings and limitations in the redemptive stories that many Americans tell, which mirror cultural biases and stereotypes in American culture and heritage. McAdams has argued that redemptive stories support happiness and societal engagement for some Americans, but the same stories can encourage moral righteousness and a naïve expectation that suffering will always be redeemed. For better and sometimes for worse, Americans seem to love stories of personal redemption and often aim to assimilate their autobiographical memories and aspirations to a redemptive form. Nonetheless, these same stories may not work so well in cultures that espouse different values and narrative ideals ( Hammack, 2008 ). It is important to remember that every culture offers its own storehouse of favored narrative forms. It is also essential to know that no single narrative form captures all that is good (or bad) about a culture. In American society, the redemptive narrative is but one of many different kinds of stories that people commonly employ to make sense of their lives.

What is your story? What kind of a narrative are you working on? As you look to the past and imagine the future, what threads of continuity, change, and meaning do you discern? For many people, the most dramatic and fulfilling efforts to change the self happen when the I works hard, as an autobiographical author, to construct and, ultimately, to tell a new story about the Me. Storytelling may be the most powerful form of self-transformation that human beings have ever invented. Changing one’s life story is at the heart of many forms of psychotherapy and counseling, as well as religious conversions, vocational epiphanies, and other dramatic transformations of the self that people often celebrate as turning points in their lives ( Adler, 2012 ). Storytelling is often at the heart of the little changes, too, minor edits in the self that we make as we move through daily life, as we live and experience life, and as we later tell it to ourselves and to others.

For human beings, selves begin as social actors, but they eventually become motivated agents and autobiographical authors, too. The I first sees itself as an embodied actor in social space; with development, however, it comes to appreciate itself also as a forward-looking source of self-determined goals and values, and later yet, as a storyteller of personal experience, oriented to the reconstructed past and the imagined future. To “know thyself” in mature adulthood, then, is to do three things: (a) to apprehend and to perform with social approval my self-ascribed traits and roles, (b) to pursue with vigor and (ideally) success my most valued goals and plans, and (c) to construct a story about life that conveys, with vividness and cultural resonance, how I became the person I am becoming, integrating my past as I remember it, my present as I am experiencing it, and my future as I hope it to be.

Text Attribution

Media attributions.

• Me in the mirror
• The Shakespeare, High Street, Lincoln

The idea that the self reflects back upon itself; that the I (the knower, the subject) encounters the Me (the known, the object). Reflexivity is a fundamental property of human selfhood.

Sigmund Freud’s conception of an executive self in the personality. Akin to this module’s notion of “the I,” Freud imagined the ego as observing outside reality, engaging in rational though, and coping with the competing demands of inner desires and moral standards.

A broad taxonomy of personality trait domains repeatedly derived from studies of trait ratings in adulthood and encompassing the categories of (1) extraversion vs. introversion, (2) neuroticism vs. emotional stability, (3) agreeable vs. disagreeableness, (4) conscientiousness vs. nonconscientiousness, and (5) openness to experience vs. conventionality. By late childhood and early adolescence, people’s self-attributions of personality traits, as well as the trait attributions made about them by others, show patterns of intercorrelations that confirm with the five-factor structure obtained in studies of adults.

The sense of the self as an embodied actor whose social performances may be construed in terms of more or less consistent self-ascribed traits and social roles.

The traits and social roles that others attribute to an actor. Actors also have their own conceptions of what they imagine their respective social reputations indeed are in the eyes of others.

Emerging around the age of 4, the child’s understanding that other people have minds in which are located desires and beliefs, and that desires and beliefs, thereby, motivate behavior.

Cognitive and social changes that occur in the early elementary school years that result in the child’s developing a more purposeful, planful, and goal-directed approach to life, setting the stage for the emergence of the self as a motivated agent.

The extent to which a person feels that he or she is worthy and good. The success or failure that the motivated agent experiences in pursuit of valued goals is a strong determinant of self-esteem.

Sometimes used synonymously with the term “self,” identity means many different things in psychological science and in other fields (e.g., sociology). In this module, I adopt Erik Erikson’s conception of identity as a developmental task for late adolescence and young adulthood. Forming an identity in adolescence and young adulthood involves exploring alternative roles, values, goals, and relationships and eventually committing to a realistic agenda for life that productively situates a person in the adult world of work and love. In addition, identity formation entails commitments to new social roles and reevaluation of old traits, and importantly, it brings with it a sense of temporal continuity in life, achieved though the construction of an integrative life story.

The sense of the self as an intentional force that strives to achieve goals, plans, values, projects, and the like.

The self as knower, the sense of the self as a subject who encounters (knows, works on) itself (the Me).

The self as known, the sense of the self as the object or target of the I’s knowledge and work.

An internalized and evolving story of the self designed to provide life with some measure of temporal unity and purpose. Beginning in late adolescence, people craft self-defining stories that reconstruct the past and imagine the future to explain how the person came to be the person that he or she is becoming.

The ability, typically developed in adolescence, to derive substantive conclusions about the self from analyzing one’s own personal experiences.

The sense of the self as a storyteller who reconstructs the past and imagines the future in order to articulate an integrative narrative that provides life with some measure of temporal continuity and purpose.

Life stories that affirm the transformation from suffering to an enhanced status or state. In American culture, redemptive life stories are highly prized as models for the good self, as in classic narratives of atonement, upward mobility, liberation, and recovery.

An Introduction to Social Psychology Copyright © 2022 by Thomas Edison State University is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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Hi all! I'm thinking about writing an essay that focuses on my personal identity. What are some ways to make this type of essay engaging and interesting to colleges? Any examples I should check out for inspiration? Thanks in advance!

Hello! Writing an essay that focuses on your personal identity can be a powerful way to showcase your unique experiences, interests, and perspectives. To make this type of essay engaging and interesting to colleges, consider the following tips:

1. Be authentic and vulnerable: Share your true feelings, thoughts, and struggles as they pertain to your identity. By being open about your experiences, you create a deep connection with the reader.

2. Focus on a specific aspect: Instead of trying to cover every detail of your identity, choose one or two key facets that define you. Delving into particular experiences and emotions will allow you to demonstrate depth and create a more compelling narrative.

3. Use descriptive language and vivid imagery: Paint a picture for the reader by using descriptive words and vivid imagery. This will help them visualize and connect with your story on a deeper level.

4. Show rather than tell: Instead of simply stating your thoughts and feelings about your identity, use anecdotes and examples to illustrate your point. By showing the reader your experiences, you'll create a more compelling and engaging essay.

5. Incorporate growth and development: Demonstrate how your understanding of your identity has evolved over time, and how it has shaped you as a person. This could include personal challenges you've faced, accomplishments, or newfound insights.

6. Reflect on the impact: Discuss how your identity has influenced your decisions, interests, and relationships. This reflection will help demonstrate the importance of your identity and its role in your life.

For examples and inspiration, you can browse through essays shared by students who were admitted to top colleges. Just be mindful not to copy their ideas or writing styles. Instead, use these examples to inspire your own unique angle in exploring your personal identity.

Best of luck with your essay and application process!

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Time, Identity and the Self: Essays on Metaphysics

• © 2022
• Brian Garrett 0

School of Philosophy, Australian National University, Canberra, Australia

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• Jeremiah Joven Joaquin   ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8621-6413 0

Department of Philosophy, De La Salle University, Manila, Philippines

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• Offers an Overview of the Metaphysics of Time, Identity and the Self
• Concludes with Four New Dialogues on Key Issues in Contemporary Metaphysics
• Provides a Glimpse of How Contemporary (Analytic) Metaphysics is Done

Part of the book series: Synthese Library (SYLI, volume 442)

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Table of contents (28 chapters)

Front matter, “thank goodness that’s over” revisited.

• Brian Garrett, Jeremiah Joven Joaquin

Experience and Time

Max black and backward causation, dummett on reasons to act and bringing about the past, dummett on mctaggart’s proof of the unreality of time, a note on the grandfather paradox, bulletproof grandfathers, david lewis, and ‘can’t’-judgements, a dilemma for eternalists, identity and extrinsicness, best candidate theories and identity, possible worlds and identity, vague identity and vague objects, more on rigidity and scope, enduring endurantism, identity of truth-conditions, some notes on animalism.

• Analytic philosophy
• Metaphysics
• Personal identity
• Self-Consciousness
• Garrett on The Self
• The Metaphysics of Time
• Garret essays

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Brian Garrett

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Book Title : Time, Identity and the Self: Essays on Metaphysics

Authors : Brian Garrett

Editors : Jeremiah Joven Joaquin

Series Title : Synthese Library

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-85517-8

Publisher : Springer Cham

eBook Packages : Religion and Philosophy , Philosophy and Religion (R0)

Copyright Information : The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022

Hardcover ISBN : 978-3-030-85516-1 Published: 22 February 2022

Softcover ISBN : 978-3-030-85519-2 Published: 23 February 2023

eBook ISBN : 978-3-030-85517-8 Published: 21 February 2022

Series ISSN : 0166-6991

Series E-ISSN : 2542-8292

Edition Number : 1

Number of Pages : XVII, 226

Number of Illustrations : 1 b/w illustrations

Topics : Metaphysics , Philosophy of Mind , Ontology , Logic

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Identity and the Social Self Essay

In my opinion, one’s “presentation” of themselves changes considerably depending on the setting. This can be easily demonstrated by considering institutions or locations where individuals are expected to behave in a certain manner. In schools, universities, and workplaces most will choose to act in a more professional and sophisticated manner. Part of the transformations people endure in social spaces are dictated by social, moral, and gender norms. By enforcing specific expectations on behavior and attitude, these places facilitate changes in people. While a student may tell jokes and laugh behind the dinner table with their family, they are less likely to present the same familiarity when talking with their professor. Similarly, the context of any interaction, its location, and the relationship between the participants play a role in how each person engages in it.

This variance can also be demonstrated with an example of actors, and more recently, media personalities. Individuals in a spotlight rarely act in the same way they do behind closed doors, as both their livelihood and public perception are hinged on creating a specific “persona”, which will further their ends. This falls in line with the concept of a front and back stage described by Goffman (Cole, 2016). In this context, one’s presentation of the self is understood as a form of “acting” (Cole, 2016). When observers are present, and individual engages in social situation, they construct a character that depends on the expectations of others. For some, it may be an attempt to please people, while for others it is an opportunity to cause shock or outrage. When there are no observers, however, individuals engage in behaviors that can be considered casual, or reflect their true self more accurately.

Cole, N. L. (2016). The Difference Between Front Stage and Back Stage Behavior . ThoughtCo. Web.

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1. IvyPanda . "Identity and the Social Self." January 30, 2024. https://ivypanda.com/essays/identity-and-the-social-self/.

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IvyPanda . "Identity and the Social Self." January 30, 2024. https://ivypanda.com/essays/identity-and-the-social-self/.

• Erving Goffman Theory
• Erving Goffman's Presentation of Self Theory
• Goffman's definition of stigma is still useful in 2011
• Erving Goffman's Self-Presentation in Everyday Life
• Social Life Order: Erving Goffman and Michel Foucault' Views
• Symbolic Interaction and Dramaturgy of Mead and Goffman
• Fallacies in the media’s spotlight
• Spotlight on Catastrophe Bonds
• Presentation of self in everyday life by Erving Goffman
• Spotlight on Plagiarism Phenomenon
• Identity and National Consciousness
• Identity in the "Persepolis" Novel by Marjane Satrapi
• The Importance of Body Identity
• The American Minorities Studies Course Reflection
• Personal Identity Under the Influence of Community

Cultural Identity Essay

27 August, 2020

12 minutes read

Author:  Elizabeth Brown

No matter where you study, composing essays of any type and complexity is a critical component in any studying program. Most likely, you have already been assigned the task to write a cultural identity essay, which is an essay that has to do a lot with your personality and cultural background. In essence, writing a cultural identity essay is fundamental for providing the reader with an understanding of who you are and which outlook you have. This may include the topics of religion, traditions, ethnicity, race, and so on. So, what shall you do to compose a winning cultural identity essay?

Cultural Identity Paper: Definitions, Goals & Topics 

Before starting off with a cultural identity essay, it is fundamental to uncover what is particular about this type of paper. First and foremost, it will be rather logical to begin with giving a general and straightforward definition of a cultural identity essay. In essence, cultural identity essay implies outlining the role of the culture in defining your outlook, shaping your personality, points of view regarding a multitude of matters, and forming your qualities and beliefs. Given a simpler definition, a cultural identity essay requires you to write about how culture has influenced your personality and yourself in general. So in this kind of essay you as a narrator need to give an understanding of who you are, which strengths you have, and what your solid life position is.

Yet, the goal of a cultural identity essay is not strictly limited to describing who you are and merely outlining your biography. Instead, this type of essay pursues specific objectives, achieving which is a perfect indicator of how high-quality your essay is. Initially, the primary goal implies outlining your cultural focus and why it makes you peculiar. For instance, if you are a french adolescent living in Canada, you may describe what is so special about it: traditions of the community, beliefs, opinions, approaches. Basically, you may talk about the principles of the society as well as its beliefs that made you become the person you are today.

So far, cultural identity is a rather broad topic, so you will likely have a multitude of fascinating ideas for your paper. For instance, some of the most attention-grabbing topics for a personal cultural identity essay are:

• Memorable traditions of your community
• A cultural event that has influenced your personality 
• Influential people in your community
• Locations and places that tell a lot about your culture and identity

Cultural Identity Essay Structure

As you might have already guessed, composing an essay on cultural identity might turn out to be fascinating but somewhat challenging. Even though the spectrum of topics is rather broad, the question of how to create the most appropriate and appealing structure remains open.

Like any other kind of an academic essay, a cultural identity essay must compose of three parts: introduction, body, and concluding remarks. Let’s take a more detailed look at each of the components:

Introduction 

Starting to write an essay is most likely one of the most time-consuming and mind-challenging procedures. Therefore, you can postpone writing your introduction and approach it right after you finish body paragraphs. Nevertheless, you should think of a suitable topic as well as come up with an explicit thesis. At the beginning of the introduction section, give some hints regarding the matter you are going to discuss. You have to mention your thesis statement after you have briefly guided the reader through the topic. You can also think of indicating some vital information about yourself, which is, of course, relevant to the topic you selected.

Your main body should reveal your ideas and arguments. Most likely, it will consist of 3-5 paragraphs that are more or less equal in size. What you have to keep in mind to compose a sound ‘my cultural identity essay’ is the argumentation. In particular, always remember to reveal an argument and back it up with evidence in each body paragraph. And, of course, try to stick to the topic and make sure that you answer the overall question that you stated in your topic. Besides, always keep your thesis statement in mind: make sure that none of its components is left without your attention and argumentation.

Conclusion 

Finally, after you are all finished with body paragraphs and introduction, briefly summarize all the points in your final remarks section. Paraphrase what you have already revealed in the main body, and make sure you logically lead the reader to the overall argument. Indicate your cultural identity once again and draw a bottom line regarding how your culture has influenced your personality.

Best Tips For Writing Cultural Identity Essay

Writing a ‘cultural identity essay about myself’ might be somewhat challenging at first. However, you will no longer struggle if you take a couple of plain tips into consideration. Following the tips below will give you some sound and reasonable cultural identity essay ideas as well as make the writing process much more pleasant:

• Start off by creating an outline. The reason why most students struggle with creating a cultural identity essay lies behind a weak structure. The best way to organize your ideas and let them flow logically is to come up with a helpful outline. Having a reference to build on is incredibly useful, and it allows your essay to look polished.
• Remember to write about yourself. The task of a cultural identity essay implies not focusing on your culture per se, but to talk about how it shaped your personality. So, switch your focus to describing who you are and what your attitudes and positions are. 
• Think of the most fundamental cultural aspects. Needless to say, you first need to come up with a couple of ideas to be based upon in your paper. So, brainstorm all the possible ideas and try to decide which of them deserve the most attention. In essence, try to determine which of the aspects affected your personality the most.
• Edit and proofread before submitting your paper. Of course, the content and the coherence of your essay’s structure play a crucial role. But the grammatical correctness matters a lot too. Even if you are a native speaker, you may still make accidental errors in the text. To avoid the situation when unintentional mistakes spoil the impression from your essay, always double check your cultural identity essay. 

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Home — Essay Samples — Sociology — Individual and Society — Self Identity

Essays on Self Identity

Hook examples for self-identity essays, anecdotal hook.

Imagine a world where you could change your identity at will, stepping into different roles and personalities. While the real world may not offer such fantasy, the exploration of self-identity is equally intriguing. Join me on a journey of self-discovery.

Quotation Hook

"To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment." Ralph Waldo Emerson's words encapsulate the essence of self-identity. Let's delve into the challenge and triumph of staying true to oneself.

Identity and Culture Hook

Our identities are intricately tied to our cultural backgrounds. Explore the dynamic relationship between identity and culture, and how it influences our values, beliefs, and perceptions of the world.

Identity in the Digital Age Hook

In an era of social media and virtual personas, our self-identities take on new dimensions. Analyze how technology and online interactions impact our self-perception and the presentation of self in the digital world.

Identity and Intersectionality Hook

Our identities are multifaceted, shaped by factors such as gender, race, and sexuality. Delve into the concept of intersectionality and how it affects our understanding of self-identity and belonging.

Identity and Self-Expression Hook

Self-identity is closely linked to self-expression. Explore the ways in which individuals express their identities through art, fashion, music, and other forms of creative expression.

Identity Crisis Hook

At some point in life, many people grapple with questions of identity. Investigate the concept of an identity crisis, its causes, and the journey of self-discovery that often follows.

My Reflection of My Personal Creativity

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The Importance of Self-expression and Identity in "Shout" by Dagoberto Gff

Who am i: the importance of self-knowledge, self-identity and self-development, the role of family and culture in shaping my identity, my self-profile and organizational effectiveness, let us write you an essay from scratch.

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Quest for Self Identity in 'The Color of Water'

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Understanding The Notion of Personal Perception

Defining my identity and its components, social restrictions of the time in poetry of walt whitman and emily dickinson, a reflection on my personal identity, double identity by jeanne wakatsuki houston: a complex exploration, who am i and what is my true identity, how my family has defined my identity as a person, self expression with the help of t-shirts, a narrative of my strengths and weaknesses, a problem of self identity in joy luck club novel, topic of identity in how to date a browngirl, blackgirl, whitegirl, halfie by junot diaz, do we control who we are: the factors that influence me, a journey to self-acceptance in hannah kent’s burial rites, the issue of identity in looking for alibrandi and beneath clouds, online self vs. offline self: the issue of self-perception, analysis on the means of boosting personal perception, an attitude of elites towards new migrants in the novel how the other half lives, significant themes in my papa's waltz poem, a truly nature of american society, the impact of tattoos on a person’s identity.

Self-identity refers to a person’s self-conception, self-referent cognitions, or self-definition that people apply to themselves as a consequence of the structural role positions he or she occupies or a particular behavior he or she engages in regularly.

1. Berzonsky, M. D. (1994). Self-identity: The relationship between process and content. Journal of research in personality, 28(4), 453-460. (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0092656684710324) 2. Proshansky, H. M. (1978). The city and self-identity. Environment and behavior, 10(2), 147-169. (https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0013916578102002?journalCode=eaba) 3. Parfit, D. (1971). On" The Importance of Self-Identity". The Journal of Philosophy, 68(20), 683-690. (https://www.jstor.org/stable/2024939) 4. Thoits, P. A. (2013). Self, identity, stress, and mental health. Handbook of the sociology of mental health, 357-377. (https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-94-007-4276-5_18) 5. Sökefeld, M. (1999). Debating self, identity, and culture in anthropology. Current anthropology, 40(4), 417-448. (https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/200042) 6. Giddens, A. (2020). Modernity and self-identity: Self and society in the late modern age. In The new social theory reader (pp. 354-361). Routledge. (https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9781003060963-59/modernity-self-identity-self-society-late-modern-age-anthony-giddens) 7. Estroff, S. E. (1989). Self, identity, and subjective experiences of schizophrenia: In search of the subject. Schizophrenia bulletin, 15(2), 189-196. (https://academic.oup.com/schizophreniabulletin/article/15/2/189/1910881) 8. Down, S., & Warren, L. (2008). Constructing narratives of enterprise: Clichés and entrepreneurial self‐identity. International Journal of Entrepreneurial Behavior & Research. (https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/13552550810852802/full/html)

Relevant topics

• Discourse Community
• Social Justice
• Personal Identity
• American Identity
• Effects of Social Media
• Social Media
• Globalization

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