Identity

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I'm wondering about identity. Something someone else here posted added to the thought, which was that they didn't identify with their nationality or similar influencing factors which would, ordinarily, influence most people's perception of their identity.
I can relate to that. Though I don't believe external factors - experiences, people, the external environment - are in any way irrelevant to influencing a person's identity, I'm curious as to how we define our own.
One of the reasons people find it difficult to maintain friendships with me (I've been told) is that every time they see me, I'm a different person. I have an unusually fluid personality, apparently. I change - a lot. I change jobs, towns, names, styles, genders, appearance, interests, to some degree even sexualities. Everything I can. I have very little that is stationary, that defines my identity, of who I am. Everything seems open to transient fluidity. Where most people seem to hinge their identity on those very things - (for the sake of example) male, American, work in finance, live in this city or state, heterosexual, are interested in specific things and dress in a certain way. There are subjective ties to these things that rarely change for the majority (or so my critics tell me).
So what is this identity? How do you define such a thing? Is it a social construction, such as gender, which may account for why I don't really understand it? Opinions?

Looking back over my life, I was (and I still am, at least a bit) a "chameleon" (changing colors within a given environment) or a "role player", as such, and I did that (and I still sometimes do) in order to try to "fit in" somewhere as well as to simply be found acceptable to others. However, that is not about just letting other people "define me" or make me into something of their own choosing. Rather, it was (and sometimes still is) much more like just trying different shoes to see which pair might be best in any given situation ...

... and yes, like you have shared, "people find it difficult to maintain friendships" when even they cannot figure us out!

Some aspects of identity might be social constructs, but others I think are rooted in reality. Where I work, where I live, what I study in school; these are not social constructs, they are facts. The reason these facts are part of "my identity" is because they give information about me.

I think this thread is about this;

Every person on this forum has a specific personality type, set of social schema, political affiliation, gender persuasion, cultural background, ethnicity, nationalism, sports club, socio-demographics, education level, IQ, food preferences, spiritual belief, religious philosophy or stance.

Q1. Is a person's autistic spectrum disorder more important than the sum total of what a person is....their profile/identity...? OR
Q2. Does a person's autistic spectrum disorder dictate their identity?

Are we the newest "race" an evolved state of mind, the next stage in human evolution! (apologies if I appear to be cashing in on my new found self DX but it was inevitable).

The Kinks are my identity. They were before I got sick with Depression and Psychosis and they are, once again that I'm healed.

Yeah, I forgot music taste!

I am Surfman.

Externally I change very little, so I think I have a strong identity.

As I incorporate new understandings from learnings, my world view and inner landscape are constantly in flux

The question of Identity is a very interesting one, and something that academics and philosophers have argued about for hundreds of years. Many theories have been expounded over the centuries, like Freud's Ego and Id. But, it is my opinion that a rather simple way of understanding Identity was proposed by Rom Harre in the 1980s.

Harre suggests that an individual can be seen from two different perspectives simultaneously, that of the 'self', and that of the 'person'. The self, he says, is your private notion of your own unity as an individual, so the way that you see yourself is based upon all the history of your thoughts, emotions, drives and desires as learned from your interaction with other individuals within the contexts of your cultural situations. The person, however, is how you appear to others in public, and it is realised by certain attributes and characteristics that are established by your culture or social group. Often these characteristics are idealised in stereotypical Roles, (Mother, Son, Manager, House-wife...) People like to set up these categories, as it gives them a sense of security and predictability, and when something can be predicted it can be controlled. The problem with this categorization though, is it is restrictive of personal freedoms, and so a balance must be found between how an individual sees themself and how others see them.

So, in answer to your questions, yes, Identity is socially constructed, but it it has a component that is constructed by you, even without you realising it.

Something that may help you to identify for yourself how you think about yourself, is to grab a piece of paper and write at the top, "Who am I?" Then as quickly as you can, list all the different answers to that question. Try to think of at least 10, but stop at 20 if you can think of that many. When you have done that, go throught the list and prioritize the answers, (ignoring qualitative words like good, bad, happy...) The result should give you some indication of how you view yourself in relation to other people.
(Note, this is a private exercise that you may choose to attatch as much or as little value to as you please. It is intended only to help you crystalize your thoughts about yourself.)

Gra

Acknowledgements:
S.W.Littlejohn - Theories of Human Communication 1999, Wadsworth Publishing Company.

This is pretty much me. I don't see to appropriate such things into my identity.



How can you not be influenced by external factors? Even if I don't incorporate these particular things into my identity, everything I understand about my identity has come from interacting with the world around me. I just developed my sense of self from a different set of influences.

edit: fixed quotes. Is that aspie of me?

Last edited by wavefreak58 on 09 May 2011, 12:33 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I think that external factors like one's nationality, job, position in society as a parent, wife, husband, or even religion or lack thereof, are relatively superficial indicators of identity. For me personally, they don't carry a lot of meaning., They are sort of like the flag you wave to others so that they can identify you as someone who belongs with a particular subset of society, and I don't feel that I belong in any predetermined category, in part because I have always moved a lot, among various countries, so I learned that these factors are actually very fluid.

Having said that, I think I have a strong internal identity. I know myself and I don't change according to circumstances or external pressures. In fact I don't think I am able to change. I would like to be a more outgoing, livelier person, who is more relaxed and less cerebral, but the lot I was given, whether it was inborn or shaped by my experience, is that I am quiet and fretful. AS is part of who I am but it is not part of my identity, because the way I experience it is as part of the sum total of the parts that make up who I am.

Identity is important in a small town as far as i can see, in a city it's more of a starting point for someone to work with you, so it's fluid.

I have been in bars all over the world, people sit down at the bar and ask 'so what do you do' or 'what brings you here'. I have for the fun of it given different identities and some funny ones and asked them what they think. I have done this around 300 times.. Identity is fluid and small towns seem to take it as the true you, but cities take it as a starting point of a conversation.

I was flying out of my country into another one, the entry card had a place for you to enter your religion. I had to ask someone on the plane what was my religion? So I considered religion was only a product of where a person was born in the world, therefore not part of my identity.

I am convinced now that a single identity is not always good. I think an identity can be very limiting. People can judge a person by their identity and it effects relationships and jobs. I'm not saying to falsify identities, I just recommend a fluid one.

I have always viewed people as their abilities & skills, I think it's more up to date and real. I used to advertise my skills a lot as it was something I was proud of my identity, but this makes some people competitive therefore causes me social issues. I find it hard not to talk about things I plan doing & like.

My future will be a fluid identity, some friends names, some hobbies & some plans I will keep private. It is a social construction as well as a personal one. I have taken my details & pic off FB, very minimal identity.

I don't identify with many factors that identify me as a person - I know, of course that I'm, for example, Polish, female etc. but those don't mean much for me. When for example one criticizes the groups I belong to, I don't care, after all, it's not myself who is being criticized.

I've used a lot of somewhat external things as aspects of my identity, but I don't really feel all that attached to many of them. Most of what I do identify with has to do with stuff that is actually relevant to me directly.

I feel like I have a stable sense of self, but I am not sure precisely who I am. I think I have a better idea than, say, in January or February, but it's still kind of vague.

This is exactly what I feel. I know without a doubt that I have a stable core. But I find it near impossible to grasp what that is and also to know what kind of person others see me as.

I identify somewhat with what is being said here. (pun intended) So I will try to give some examples of how I identify myself, and what I hope others can see in me.

I am somebody.
I am significant.
I am a mind.
I am a body.
I am real.
I am needs and desires.
I may be slow, but I am capable.
I am fiercely loyal.
I am honourable.
I am gentle.
I am strong.
I am patient.

I have not put these in any particular order, but I hope they can give you some kind of guide as to how one might see themself.

What do you mean "I am significant"?