WHO DO WE THINK WE ARE?

People are always searching for answers especially to the question of who we are. As a Psych Major, I’ve read and studied of different perspectives in how a person thinks of himself. How a person searches for his identity. How a person also lose his identity or even his sanity in looking for his identity. There would be many answers to the question in coming up with identifying identity, but I would try to base my answers on the facts about psychology that I have studied.
When I hear identity, the first thing that would come to my mind would be the personality of a person. But there are other way of defining identity, there is gender identity, social identity and identity politics. In gender identity, a person’s identity is based on his gender. For example, if you are born to be a female, certain traits that characterized as feminine should be expected from you. In social identity, a person’s way of defining his identity is based on how social aspects have shaped it such as class, race, religion and ethnicity. Identity politics is somewhat related to social identity because both deal with the society. Identity politics is inspired by the interests of, and intended to benefit, a particular group with a shared identity (Wibben, 2009). All of the identities mentioned, as you can observe deals with a person belonging to a group like a group of women or men, a person’s race, ethnicity, religion or people with similar ideas. Human beings are classified as social beings, we like being in group, we want to be identified with others. So it may seem that we also define our identity based on a group that we are in. In the world of globalization, it is important to be aware of our identity to help us mark our own sense of belonging and be able to identify with other people. It also prevents us from being confused of ideas that could be the cause of development as a person. We become more stable and productive if we have a sense of identity in this big world.
But we must also keep in mind that our identity is not solely based on a group. It doesn’t mean that belonging to a group is the only way to have an identity, other factors like our own conception of ourselves is also important. Sometimes belonging in a group can also limit us in further exploring our potentials. I think it is okay to be in a group but sometimes it is better to figure out ourselves first.
But I also think that being in a group nowadays is given importance because of globalization. Everyone is linked in some way for a purpose. For example, in Facebook there will be fan pages about certain topics and in this fan page, you will see different people becoming a fan of this fan page because of same ideas. Just by looking at the fan pages people have joined you can come up with conclusions of the kind of personality the person has. In the modern world, it is now easy to voice out your own ideas and belongs to a group in just one click. That’s why some people would base their identity on a certain group because it may be one of the easiest ways in identifying your self.
People have different ways of finding their identities and figuring out their lives. But at the end, people will still find their identity and figure out how they should live their lives. We just have to remember to never lose track of who we really are and not what others or the society dictates us to be.