The Concept Of Social Identity And Personal Identity

It is amazing how different we all can be. It is a process in becoming who we truly are. Sometimes the question of who we are comes up. Do we change across time? Are we any different from others that we meet? These questions can be answered once we get an understanding of social self and look closely to see the variety of ways in which people have experiences. Many social psychologists have said that a great concept to assist in understanding social self is to do three of the following: the first is to identify in the sense of a person’s location in their social lives, and what the location most closely means. This can be distinguished by situated identity, personal identity, and social identity. The second of the factors is self-image in which …show more content…
Social identity refers to the sense of self that is built over time as one participates in social life and starts to identify with others. This is the understanding that it is not the immediate situation and its role, but rather a community that sets of real or imaginary others with whom the person feels a sense of similarity. For one to have a social identity is to identify with a group of those with which the person would feel their ideas and beliefs are similar. Both social identity and personal identity can be found in one who is living a contemporary life. There are many who emphasize the pursuit of social identity, and some others with personal identity. Some are balanced between the two. Self-Image is also an important factor in which refers to qualities and attributes. We see this today that self-image is becoming more important to others. People are rapidly beginning to want to feel as though their self-image is perfect. The images that people form of themselves are important in a sociological account of the person. This is because of the fact that people develop images of themselves and of one another in relation to those qualities and attributes. These are important to their social roles and their sense both of identification from one another. Self-Esteem is also prevalent in today’s day in age. Self-esteem is very closely linked to self-image. I would …show more content…
In Young’s article, he finds that young people fail to find institutionalized medium which expresses their concerns and responses. Clothing is one of the four main important information media over which a young person has control and this is the age group I based my observations on. The analysis for clothing is located in a larger process by which a social reality takes place. In my observations, I noticed many different factors. At my place of work, there is not really a professional dress code and I have seen many different representations of which people are by the way that they dress. It is eye opening to see the many different identities and how they all have different factors. Another factor in my observation I noticed while on campus, is the similarity in race and age. Many of the same race and age were dressed particularly the same. Another fact that I noticed is the idea of a popular brand and how important it is to wear popular brands. We do not notice it day by day but there are many brands that we all as humans just gravitate towards. Young also discussed in his article about symbolic systems and the process in which we as individuals may identify in mass institutions. Young also made a great point about the structure of mass society and how it is comprised of organizations that are controlled by few persons that try to control activity of large numbers of people which is what we see day