Comparing Two Identities

Work creates an identity for a person also. Whether its promotions to a higher position or being unsatisfied and distraught with their job. People who enjoy their job and work environment will create more of a confident identity compared to someone who does not will have an un-motivated identity. School has an impact as well when it comes to identity. It is where a children, adolescents, and adults are influenced by acquiring knowledge and constantly being surrounded by peers. Through school, memberships in friendship groups, cliques, or "crews" helps build an identity apart from their relationship to parents. However, over-identification with a clannish group that rejects anyone who looks or acts different can limit personal growth.

One of the theorists to investigate the development of identity would be Erik Erikson. According to Erikson (1968), throughout an individual’s life-span, they experience conflicts. These conflicts arise at certain points in life and need to be successfully resolved for the progression in to the next of Erikson’s eight stages (Sigelman & Rider, 2015). The specific stage relevant to the development of identity formation in adolescence would be the ‘identity versus role confusion’ stage. Identity development involves exploring options and making commitments to obtain a relatively stable self-perception (DeHaan & MacDermid, 1996). In contrast, role confusion occurs when individuals are not able to commit specific life choices (DeHaan & MacDermid,

Who I am? Personally, I believe that a person’s identity can take only one of two routes. One, a person’s identity can change within that person’s life. Who I am now, is not necessarily who I was when I was younger. Experience can and will likely modify our identities. Therefore, experience can solidify our personal identification or it can weaken our personal identification. And as such, individuals and their perspectives are always evolving, or at the very least, they should evolve over time. Although there are some identities that evolve throughout one’s lifetime; there are some identities that remain consistent. Two, some identities cannot and will not change. So identities are socially and/or politically forces upon you, some identities are genetically assigned to you, and some you choose to keep. No matter the reason or reasons, these identities have been and will be consist within your lifespan. But, how you deal with them is up to you as an individual.

I, myself, have a variety of identities that intersect in many different ways. I identify most strongly with my identities in respect to my age, race, class, and gender. These four identities are the identities that have contributed the most into making me the person I am today. These intersecting identities have been both advantageous and disadvantageous to me in my life. Understanding how these four identities intersect, has helped recognize my positionality and how my experiences are shaped by

Intellectual. Spirited. Collegiate. Daughter. Son. Identities are everywhere and in todays society we can truly create our own identity; be who we want to be. Identity is the condition or character as to who a person or what a thing is; the qualities or beliefs that distinguish or identify a person or thing. Identity is created from our hearts and who we are, but also who we want to be because we create our own identity. Maya Angelou writes about the ability to change identities beautifully in “Graduation”, while Bob Greene gets the true stories on the subject in “Cut” and lastly Mark Twain shows the horrid truth on the identity that man has chosen before in “The Lowest Animal”. Our identities can change when we change who we become.

Identity and the concept of one's self certainly changes at the emergence of college; best explained through Goffman's DRAMATURGICAL THEORY (Conley 135). Essentially the role one plays significantly changes; one is expected to put on a sort of performance in terms of their actions; we as students dress alike in similar casual attire and sit in oftentimes very crowded and sometimes uncomfortable lecture halls, take notes, and, for the most part, give attention to the lecturer at hand. These actions allow for us as college students to maintain a good FACE VALUE (137), which is the opinion and esteem which other students and professors then deem high when one follows the social norm to an acceptable degree, and, essentially, becomes likable due

There are many factors that shape my identity: my work, hobbies, life experiences, as well as my social and demographic attributes. I'm building links combining my education and my social life as well as uniting my work with my interests and passions. I connect aspects from different parts of my identity by not restricting each part to itself; consequently, I can transition parts fluidly and I'm able to access my full skill set in any situation. As a result, my identity is becoming well-rounded. I believe the ability to integrate all parts of my identity is critical in achieving my goal to be an enthusiastic and trailblazing

Over the past twenty-four hours, I kept a log of how many different Identities I carried out. Surprisingly, there are quite a few including a student at El Paso Community College, a parent of two kids, niece, cousin, work associate and customer. Each identity comes with expectations and responsibilities essential to my life.

Studies in social sciences offer other important insights about identities. Lemke (2008) presents five interesting perspectives on identities that can help us understand their relationship to beliefs and emotions. First, identities are multiple. It means that we behave differently in different situations (formal and informal) and settings (professional and intimate) and with different people (children or peers). Second, identities are multi-faceted and dynamic, they develop and change as who we are is constructed within the limitations of our interactions in different settings in our lives with different people. Third, identities are hybrid. Thus, sometimes we should act in more normalized ways than we would like to since there are some contradictions

Adolescence is defined as the developmental stage between childhood and adulthood typically beginning at age twelve and ending at age twenty. This stage for most adolescents is a complex time in which physical, cognitive and social development is at its peak. The balance between life as a child and the quest to transition into the independence of young adulthood presents many challenges within the demands of everyday life. Physical maturation, the pressure of temptation, the search of self, spirituality, academic success and evolving relationships are some of the many determents of adolescent identity development. The question of “who am I” in the process of discovering a sense of self is a vital part of adolescent identity formation.

In her study, Josselson found that Identity Achievers break psychological ties to childhood and form separate, distinct identities (Evans, Forney, Patton, Renn, Guido, & Quaye, 2016, p. 294). They take pride in themselves and rely on their own accomplishments for their self-esteem rather than on the approval of parents which often causing deliberate distancing from them. They seek internal affirmation as opposed to external approval. The major theme in this group is independence. As I reflect on who I am today, I connect with Josselson's description of an identity achiever.

All throughout our lives, we wrestle with the question of who am I and what do I want in life? However, it is usually during the adolescent years that this issue really comes to a head and we begin a more earnest search into finding ourselves and deciding the direction we want to take with our lives. One of the theorists who studied this idea of identity formation was James Marcia. Marcia proposed that there were four different stages or statuses in the development of identity which he labeled Identity Diffusion, Identity Foreclosure, Identity Moratorium, and Identity Achievement. In this essay, we will briefly summarize his four different stages and then apply his theory to my own identity development during the adolescent years.

With me being 18 years old, I am placed into the Identity vs. Role Confusion stage. According to David (2014), “An adolescent must struggle to discover and find his or her own identity, while negotiating and struggling with social interactions and “fitting in", and developing a sense of morality and right from wrong.” (para. 7). I believe there is a close fit between these

The next identity that has contributed to defining me majorly as a person is gender. I identify as a female, which is the same gender I was assigned at birth. This identity aspect has presented me with a lot of challenges and negative stereotypes to manage. Regardless, I am happy with my femininity and proud of the great leaps when have and are making. Gender is an identity that is communicated and has different dimensions (body, identity, and expression). We communicate our gender identity, but at the same time popular culture defines what it means for us to be a man or a woman. I remember when I was a manager at Cold Stone an older male customer asked to speak with the manager and when I told him I was the manager, he refused to speak to me and referred to my male co-worker instead. I was confident in my position, but because I communicated by gender identity as female the older male customer placed his own perception of what it means to be female on me. That was the first time I ever felt truly limited by my gender.

As I look back on my journal from the first week of this class I notice how different yet the same my answers to the question “who are you” are. In the first week, I still talked about how I identify as a hard-working college student that strives to meet her goals. I think, still do this day I identify as that. However, now I like to go in-depth with that question. Not only am I hard working but I am hard working because I strive to get my homework done on time, ask questions when I am confused, and participate in class discussions when I have something to input instead of sitting quietly like I typically would. I think that after studying identity for a whole semester I can grasp and identify who I think I