Identity is how we perceive and make sense of ourselves. Our identities are constructed thorough our ascribed roles such as sex, race, and ethnicity; achieved roles such as occupation and social class; emotions, feelings, desires, attitudes, cognition, perception, agreements, and disagreements. We can say that the past, present, and future also affect and shape the identity construction. Firstly, our past reveals our background information about ascribed roles, social environment, and life conditions. It tells us how we were when we were born, such as what our race and religion were, in which culture we were raised, and what our socioeconomic status was. Second, our present reveals how we are now. It demonstrates our current social ties and interactions such as networks, family, friends, and acquaints; social roles such as parents, partners, club members and so on; and occupation such as doctor, professor, merchant, etc. Lastly, our future reveals how we want to be. It tells about our interests, needs, desires, dreams, and the like. It tells what we want to get/be, and for what we struggle now. In other words, the past, present, and future represent our old, actual, and ideal selves, respectively. These three selves of us shape our identity in time.
It is inevitable to mention the concept of ‘social identity’ while talking about identity inasmuch as we are all living in social communities; and thus, we affect and get affected by our social environment. Therefore, identity can be divided into personal identity and social identity. These two types of identities distinguish from each other in some terms. Personal identity is more about the self of “I” whereas social identity is mostly concerned with the person “You”. That is to say, when we talk about personal identity, we mean who and how we think we are. On the other hand, when we talk about social identity, we talk about as whom and how we are seen and recognised by others, i.e. the society.
A factor that affects identity formation in social terms is the marketplace. Some people believe that all their belongings, what they purchase, and their activities determine how they are perceived by others. Therefore, they tend to dress and shop from certain brands, and they selectively attend to particular clubs and organizations so that others see them as how they want to be seen.
Another way for people to define their identities is to ‘identify against’. This concept suggests that we see ‘what we are not’ more easily than ‘what we are’. Therefore, individuals compare themselves to others in order to define their own identities with respect to in what ways they are not like others. Based on this concept’s suggestion, it can be claimed that others do affect the identities of individuals. An illustration to better comprehend this concept may be the way we solve multiple choice tests: We first tend to eliminate the wrong answers, and then we think of which one is the best choice among the rest. Similarly, in that sense, individuals first observe others and decide what they are not. Later, they focus on themselves and deduce what they are.
