How Identity is Formed

            Our identity basically means how we present ourselves to other people and how other people perceive us as an individual. Our attitudes, personality and actions are related in the formation of our identity. Each and every one of us has different identities because people view every single individual differently. For example, when we were born, our parents determined our identity by naming us. This example shows one formation of our initial identity in our lives. Different parents from different cultural background are definitely going to name their child differently. It also proves that our society and environment play a huge role in determining our identity. In this world filled with thousands of different societies and cultures, identity can change from time to time and it is greatly influenced by our surroundings. Thus, identity is formed due to our society and the surroundings we live in.

            The first and foremost important factor that gives us our initial identity is our parents. As I have said earlier in the first paragraph, our parents named us when we were born. The name that we have right now is a proof of our identity. Without our parents, we would have born without any name, we would not know our backgrounds and we would be lost in the society. However, that is not most likely going to happen.

            In everyone’s lives, there will always be a time when we were still young little children and we were in the process of growing up from children to more socialized human beings. In that process, as a child, the child is becoming more exposed to his surroundings. From the child’s surroundings, significant others such as the child’s parents come into play in determining the way the child’s growth. Significant others impact the way children think and behave in the child’s society. Berger and Luckmann describes that children, at a young age, “takes on the significant others’ roles and attitudes, that is internalizes them and makes them his own” (Berger and Luckmann 34). When significant others are doing actions that the child has never known before, the child will imitate what significant others do. At the same time, the child also internalizes this action and by doing so, the child acquires the most basic idea of his behavioral patterns. This process is called primary socialization. This, in turn, will help the child in obtaining his identity by reflecting the attitudes taken by the significant others and the child becomes a known member of the society.

            As we encounter more and more social groups in our lives and experience different things, our idea about society changes from time to time. This encounter can sometimes be overwhelming for some people and they need something to stabilize it. C. Wright Mills came out with the idea of the “sociological imagination.” One fruitful effect of the sociological imagination is that “the individual can understand her own experience and gauge her own fate only by locating herself within her period, that she can know her own chances in life only by becoming aware of those of all individuals in her circumstances”. It enables us to explore more diverse societies as we come to an understanding of our sense of being. We can be aware of the situation that arises in this period of time. With us coping the situations that we facing right now, every action or move will alter our identity even to the slightest possibility. The reason being is because our actions contribute to the shaping of the society and that there is no end to this shaping process. As our society norms and ideology changes, our identity also changes because we are connected to the society and society affects our personality and behaviors.

            Identity is also based on the concept of the self. Since our identity is defined as other people’s impression towards us, we need our “self” to keep their impressions positive towards us. In the article “Mind Self and Society”, George Herbert Mead emphasizes that the self “arises in the process of social experience and activity, that is, develops in the given individual as a result of his relations to that process as a whole and to other individuals within that process”. This suggests that identity is formed by public interaction and communication with others. By interacting with other people, we form our foundation of understanding norms, customs and ideologies of society. Mead also believes that “we carry on a whole series of different relationships to different people. We are one thing to one man and another thing to another”. Communication with other people is as important as to build our credibility with other people. When a person is talking to another person, this person is communicating in a way that he is not only talking to this other person in real life, but also he is responding to himself. This kind of “communication” makes the person an object to himself in order to prevent any speech that other people do not want to hear. This complex way of thinking helps us to build a strong relationship in the society. This relationship will gradually builds up your identity in the society.

            Identity may come and go or change over time. However, identity cannot be destroyed completely. Parents are the main initiator in giving our first identity. We can alter our identity as we grow up and discover new things in life. There is no end in finding our identity and there is no definite identity. Our society affects the way we think and the behavior that we have.