Ways of Shaping Identity - Essay Example

Apart from group perception, we do have the individual perception which directly influences our thoughts and outlook and does provide us an insight to understand a situation and to grasp the circumstances. Therefore, our identity is then defined by how we think we fit into the world around us, and how we feel we stand out (positively/negatively).

Our culture, beliefs, and the way our parents have provided us with upbringing shapes our thoughts and perception of the situation and hence the world around us. We are a part of the culture that is followed in a country to which we belong, the language we speak the religion we follow the beliefs we acquire through ancestry. This together culminates to civilization, our ethnicity, and no culture can influence it.

The way we are presented in society ascertain and formulate our identity. Our behavior, our communication skills become the tools that enable us to survive and prosper. Our customs and traditions which we follow define the integrity and values we have in our lives. They are the aids of social interaction and do provide an individual a distinctive identity. Therefore identity is personal, social, and ethnic and the personality that is shaped out of this is an amalgamation of all these convictions. Thus, establishing one's identity can be both a liberating and an oppressive occurrence as separation from any one of these parameters directly influences the identity and personality of the individual. E.g.,

1. Children who have been separated from their family or country of origin due to migration may become perplexed about their personal and social identities. They experience several moves, have been cared for by different people in different places, lost important contacts and relationships from their past, been separated from family, friends, and their ethnic and cultural networks.

2. Adopted child has a different personality, especially those who are from diverse cultural backgrounds or have some kind of disability. Feeling or being made to feel different is a major issue for children who have been adopted. For the adopted child, the stigma of not living with their birth family, living as a cultural or ethnic minority, and becoming accustomed to what it means to be adopted are lifelong adjustments.

3. Similar kind of stigma is felt by the children of the prisoners and those who commit the punishable offenses. The parent’s deed affects the individuality of the child and provides a social aloofness, this makes the child unique and shapes the personality of a child in a different perspective. The child may start hating the family/ society or parents or cultivate some kind of criminal psyche within the premature mind.

4. Children of broken marriages also face identity crises and are confused. They feel ashamed to talk about the disputes their parents have undergone resulting in an unsuccessful marriage.