identity

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All people have a particular idea of themselves. The idea of who they are and who they are not. The way people lead an everyday life within an environment and interactions with other human beings make them feel closer connected to some groups of people and different from others. How feeling similarity and difference in society affects ability to attain a positive sense of self and meaning are an important questions within psychology. Theory of social identity constructed by Tajfel and psychosocial theory of identity created by Erik Erikson are two of theories which give answer to this question.
Tajfel and Erikson(ref) defined identity as two dimensional, containing personal and social part. Both believed that to evolve identity people need to understand how they differ from others and how they are similar. Tajfel foccused on social part and Erikson on personal part.
Tajfel’s (ref) theory of social identity statues that being member of social groups is a major request for identity achievement.
Tajfel (1979) believed that people go through 3 stages while achieving their social identity. He thought Firstly people stereotype world into the specific social groups and categories of people according to similarities. Members of each group have certain features in common (for example race, preference in music, occupation etc) and are diverse from other group members. In next step people familiarize themselves with the norms of groups they think they belong to. This process leads to inner assurance of membership and adopting of social identity of the group. Self-esteem becomes attached to group status. In this stage people recognize group they are members of as improtnant and different and divide world into in group (us) and out group (...

... middle of paper ...

...ge and making commitments.
He focused on adolescence stage where he believed identity is achieved.Using semistructured interview he found out that there are 4 different results of identity developmental crisis in adolescence.
People who feel too different from everyone and cant commit to particular social roles don’t achieve identity.
People who commit social roles they know (for example being doctor as father) without trying to explore other roles.
People who try several identities and choose the one they feel closest to. And usually this status will lead to successful identity evolving
Feeling similar to some make us feel sense of belonging to society, feeling difeerent make us feel unique. To know your identity, you must understand both how you differ from others and how you are similar.All this have strong impact on our self vision of ourselves,our identity.

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