Recently, on my personal blog, I wrote about the Declaration of Arbroath. Although 700 years old, it still fires up thoughts of Scottish independence, and is linked closely to our national identity. Don’t worry, this is not a post about independence, but the Declaration of Arbroath did get me thinking about identity. Today we’re going to understand identity more and why it can be complicated, even leading to conflict.
What is Identity
It was thinking about my own identity that brought me to the realisation that this is complicated. Its not just my nationality (Scottish in case you hadn’t guessed) or the town or city I call home (I don’t actually identify with anywhere but that’s a story for my personal blog). Its much more complicated than that.
Identity encompasses the memories, experiences, relationships, and values that create one’s sense of self
Psychology Today, 2023
Our identity is a mix of a range of internal and external factors all shaping who we become. Its dynamic, changing over time, based on our experiences and the influence of others.
At its core, our identity comprises our ethical beliefs and values, religion, national identity, political views. That’s a lot of different influences, but its further complicated by the impact and possible pressures from outside sources. These can be family and friends, role models and society all of which can and do have an impact. These internal and external cues that shape our identity can sometimes be in conflict rather than harmony.
We take on different roles in life and these can shape our identity too, such as teacher, blogger, wife. We will look at how these roles shape our identity now.
How do our roles define us?
The more I’ve explored identity for this post, I’ve come to the conclusion that its mult-faceted and complex. Adding in our roles, and being aware of how these shape who we are, I see them as a collection of mini-identities. I’ve not dug too deeply into psychology or philosophy, but maybe there’s a term for this already? I’ll let our fellow bloggers with greater expertise to jump in with that one.
If you think about the different roles you play daily, you’re probably like me and realise that you’re not always the same. The identity of a teacher is different from that of a blogger. The blogger me is more relaxed and has more fun. In the classroom, while I may still have fun, I need to be more professional. That said, there can be overlap and I’m conscious not to say anything that might be detrimental to my professional role when blogging. I would imagine the roles of parent and spouse/partner will have differences too?
How do external influences shape identity?
When we think about the roles that we adopt in life, there are a range of infuences shaping them. For example, if we think about “teacher”, we probably all have an idea in our head of what that looks like. I’ve written about that recently, but we expect them to be professional, well educated, knowledgeable, fair, organised and patient. Have you ever wondered where our concept of the teacher – or our other roles – comes from?
Anyone in a professional role has a professional body setting standards for their members. I am a member of two professional bodies; one which outlines what a teacher is like. the other, the HR practitioner. Despite being a college lecturer (in HR), it is the HR profession I associate with most strongly. However, its not just my own values or those set by my professional body that determine what the role is. Its also shaped by society which has their own sets of values. Their code of ethical behaviour and laws in place which are enforced if someone doesn’t comply.
Influences of family and friends
We grow up in homes with families who mould us into the people we become. This includes instilling in us their values and beliefs which are important to them and probably to wider society too. Examples of this would be what is right and wrong, how to interact with others and possibly their aspirations for us. I’ve seen students come through my classroom who are at college because their parents want them to study business or similar. I guess, as a teacher, I influence others too, maybe shaping ideas of the identity of an educator. I would like to think that I’m also helping them to reflect on their values, forming their own identity.
An identity crisis?
With so many different influences contributing to shape who we are, its inevitable that sometimes there will be conflict. We are trying to balance our values which shape how we identify personally based on our internal characteristics with those imposed on us by society, family etc. An example could be someone struggling with their gender identity – how they feel and perceive themselves may be at conflict with the images their family hold. This struggle can lead to an identity crisis. This is simply one example, but crises such as this can occur in a lot of different areas. Many of these conflicts occur in our teenage and early adult years, as we start to explore our identity, testing out hypotheses.
An example of a values conflict
As a teenager, I found myself in conflict with my maternal grandmother. She had very strong religious views. To me she was an intolerant and bigoted West of Scotland Protestant. She was so extreme that she would never wear green which just seemed silly to me. My conflict trigger point, however, came when my brother, who was dating a Catholic girl, was made to keep her on the doorstep. My grandmother refused to let Catholics into the house. I was disgusted – that’s not the way to treat anyone!
The family were members of the Orange Lodge and would have participated in the marches. They were proud of their heritage and any protestant who speaks out against them is considered as blasphemy and a betrayal of your identity and heritage. This caused me some conflict as I didn’t want to disagree but I had no choice. I couldn’t condone such hostile and aggressive behaviour towards a group of people who are different because of their religion . If that’s my heritage, I’m ashamed and don’t want to have any part of it. We should be embarassed by such behaviour. We should be tolerant of and embrace difference. I guess that’s one of my core values, so I had to challenge the religious and cultural identity of my family.
Be Authentic
The thought I wish to leave you with is the best way to comfortable with your identity and resolve any conflicts you may encounter is to be authentic. Know what your core values are and use them to guide you in life.
I hope you have found this post thought-provoking and would love to hear of any conflicts you’ve encountered and resolved.
You can read more about my own Scottish identity and how I struggle to find a sense of belonging on my personal blog.