Personal Essay: Factors That Shape My Identity

Factors Shape My Identity Identity shows who you are, and the way you think about yourself. It gives people different characterizations. I believe identities might get influenced by peer friends, mindsets and stereotypes. Firstly, identity can influenced by peer friends. According to the article “A Teen’s Friends Are a Powerful Influence”, the author Valerie Ulene states that a peer friend can bring either positive or negative influence. For example, my identity at home is a very responsible person, and I am a middle child in our family, so when my parents and elder sister are away from home, I understand how to take care of my younger sister. I’ll cook for her and watch her to do homework. In addition, I’ll take part of the housework. Actually I learn this good identity from my friends. In fact, most of my friends are really outstanding, but they are not pretentious. Otherwise they work really hard whatever at home or in society. After I see how their attitudes are mature at home, I think I should emulate them. I really appreciate that they know how to use their own ways to ease their parents’ burdens. It shows how peer friends have a powerful influence. Secondly, mindset is a really …show more content…
In the article “Facing Identity Conflicts, Black Students Fall Behind”, the author Nancy Solomon further discusses about how stereotypes will limit a person. As an illustration, my friend’s family members always glorify how smart he is. In the first hand, I think it can be a good factor, because he gets inspired from that. On the other hand, he gets a lot of pressure from people’s glorifications. He always thinks he has to be better than others, then, he feels really stressful. In this case, stereotype can be a bad factor. Based on this example, I realize stereotype can help him to get a good identity, which is hard-working, but also can limit his growth of an independent