The Social Identity Theory - Essay Example

Today our modern society is so full of complex interactions and processes that we, although being immediately involved into that intricate social network, nevertheless can get easily confused about our real place in it. At the same time, as human beings are social by their very nature social interaction constitutes the most important part of a sound development of human personality, and as such is the principal factor that influences the formation of identity of an individual (Cote and Levine 2002, p. 12). Thus, due to the fact that any society consists of individuals, it is very important to understand how people undergo the process of formation of their identities within the complex network of social interactions. As a basic ground for our effort to clarify this issue we may take the following definition of identity: ". . . identity is about belonging, about what you have in common with some people and what differentiates you from others. At most basic, it gives you sense of personal location, the stable core to your individuality. it is also about your social relationships, your complex involvement with others" (Weeks 1996, p.24). What seems to be the most characteristic of this definition is that it reconciles two apparently distinct spheres - personal and social. With this definition and available social scientific material in mind, I will try to relate relevant examples of my own experience to the quote, and in the process to better understand which factors have contributed to the formation of my identity. First of all, as we have mentioned the complexity of the social structure of modern societies, it is necessary to emphasise which social factors actually create such a complexity. For this purpose we can employ several relevant sociological concepts. One of them is the notion of social diversity, based on the recognition of the fact that needs and priorities of people are equally shaped by our internal motivations and by our inevitable relation to other people. The recognition of the consequences of social diversity significantly widens the potential scope of concerns of individuals, because it suggests that, as statuses of social groups shift, relationships between them change as well. In this way, the inclusion of social diversity into the picture of social reality helps us see how interaction between individuals and larger social formations may constantly generate potential for changes, which in their turn greatly increase the number of life options available for us (Sullivan 2000). Now, in the definition of identity that we provided it is said that identity differentiates one from others, and at the same time reflects our social relationships. In this regard, I believe that the concept of social diversity helps us understand how multiple unique identities can arise within the same social environment - this is because we all adopt our unique ways to balance our roles as individuals and as participants of social groups, and to find our personal location within the multitude of options that life offers. Personally, I feel that this process was very important for the formation of my identity. For example, during the period of my study I have always faced different possibilities of social involvement - in form of prospects of participation in sports clubs, public funds, numerous hobby groups, etc. In this situation, each time such appealing options were available I had to relate them to my personal feelings to find out whether I really wanted to join. What is important is that such a potential for expansion of social involvement of students enables young people not only to find out what interests them in life, but to experience how their choices lead to changes in social status, as for instance it is common that successful members of sports clubs usually may enjoy a wider popularity among mates then members of a chorus (Hooks 2000, p. 146). All this serves as a very important mechanism of identity formation, and I attest to its power. Another group of sociological concepts which should help us analyse the chosen definition of identity can be borrowed from the social identity theory, which states that aside from our personal self we develop additional selves that reflect our growing involvement into social network. As examples of such additional selves may serve our family self, professional self, or national self (Tajfel and Turner 1985, pp. 111-119). Moreover, in addition to such multiple levels of self we adopt different social identities, which denote our self-conceptions based on our actual or imaginary membership in social groups (Hogg and Vaughan 2004, pp. 72-84). In fact, the existence of such a cleavage of our identity is a very important observation which validates the attempt of Weeks to conciliate personal and social in his definition of identity. This is because the social identity theory manages to show how our individual perception combines with internalisation of our group belonging to introduce the term “us” into our perception of the world, and at the same time leaves intact our personal self-identity related to our knowledge of our unique personal qualities. I believe that this aspect of the identity formation is perhaps the most crucial one, as its result should be the formation of a developed person who is comfortable in both social and personal spheres. At this point personal identity of people is only reinforced and enriched by existing social circumstances, and in its turn such a person becomes that force which introduces positive social changes and new possibilities, thus serving as a self-perpetuating impetus for social progress. In my case the formation of this important aspect of my identity was initiated by education as such. By this I mean that during my study I had learned, and actually continue to learn, a lot of new things which opened up new horizons for me and uncovered a lot of new perspectives and ways to look at life. All this helped me structure my worldview and make it more corresponding to the reality that surrounds us. Gradually I grew to realise that social relationships were not merely reduced to our superficial interaction with people, but rather that in each instance of communication we expose and share parts of our selves. Indeed, as the influential theoretical perspective of symbolic interactionism suggests attention to the subjective aspects of social relationships is necessary in order to understand that people are pragmatic players who have to continuously correlate their actions with behaviour of other people, but that such adjustment is done through assignation to our actions, actions of other people, and even to ourselves of symbolic meaning. In this way, any human social interaction transcends simple communicative function and enables us to become active and meaningful creators of our social world (Pontell 1998, p.51-94). On the contrary, the ignorance of this social responsibility may cause the exclusion of a person from the ever-changing social context so that he or she becomes an outsider, and undergoes the process of marginalisation, or othering (Ang 2001). In this light, for me the value of education is that it was a powerful tool that contributed to the formation of the harmonious social component of my identity in such a way that I learned to effectively use both social circumstances and my personal qualities for my self-realisation. Sources Weeks, J. (1996), xxxxx, in Bradley, X., xxxxx, xxxxxx Tajfel, H., and Turner, J. C. (1985), The social identity theory of inter-group behavior, in Worchel, S., Psychology of Intergroup Relations, Burnham Inc Pub Ang, I. (2001), I`m a feminist but . . . `other` women and postnational feminism, in Bhavnani, K., (Ed.), Feminism & Race, pp. 394-409, Oxford University Press Hogg, M. A., and Vaughan, G. M. (2004), Social Psychology, Financial Times/Prentice Hall Pontell, H., (Ed.) (1998), Social Deviance: Readings in Theory and Research, Prentice Hall Hooks, B., (2000), Where We Stand: Class Matters, Routledge Cote, J. E., and Levine, C. G. (2002), Identity Formation, Agency, and Culture: A Social Psychological Synthesis, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Sullivan, T. J., (2000), Sociology: Concepts and Applications in a Diverse World, Allyn & Bacon Read More