How is Identity Expressed? Identity can be expressed in an array of different ways. A person who is married might express their marital status by wearing a wedding ring. Someone who belongs to a particular ethnic group might wear culturally specific forms of clothing or decorate their skin with unique markings.

But spoken language comprises the bulk of human interaction and is a crucial part of socializing, relationship building and self expression. Most people have the ability to speak, but using spoken language effectively is undeniably a skill.

(See oralism.) Teachers give particular emphasis on spoken language with children who speak a different primary language outside of the school. For the child it is considered important, socially and educationally, to have the opportunity to understand multiple languages.

As a means of communicating values, beliefs and customs, it has an important social function and fosters feelings of group identity and solidarity. It is the means by which culture and its traditions and shared values may be conveyed and preserved. Language is fundamental to cultural identity.

Language is such a power concept because it has the ability to completely shape one’s personal Identity. The usage of words and phrases significantly impacts individuals’ thoughts and character/personal identity. One of the major elements of language that initiates the development of self-identity would be the dialect.

Identity is a core and unavoidable part of all our lives. Our actions shape our identity, and in turn, our identity shapes our actions. Trying to pretend that identity doesn’t matter may make you feel better about yourself, but it won’t affect how others see you, and how their perceptions shape their actions.

A person’s identity is thus continuous over time, in the sense that the different moments that constitute this person’s life are sufficiently connected in order to attribute them to one and the same person (or “self”) even though the person is changing.

How to Change Your Identity

1. Do it consciously.
2. Think about who you want to be.
3. Intentionally start doing the actions.
4. BE the new version of you.
5. Reinforce it by appreciating yourself.
6. When you falter, think about what this new version of you would do.

Life Experiences Our positive life experiences also shape our identities. Overcoming difficult times through adolescence or adulthood can help us build resiliency in our sense of selves. Even positive emotional support we receive as children can have a positive effect on our relationships decades later.

As people age, specifically men, they begin to struggle with their own identity. When their identity as a provider, protector, worker changes, their positionality within the world changes with it. They are forced to deal with changing identities: physical, financial, professional.

Subjective evaluations of age are an important aspect of the self with implications for well-being (Westerhof & Barrett, 2005). The age-based identities generated within a social context powerfully shape people’s well-being.

At any point in time, we can make changes that reshape our identity. Realizing our personal power is a liberating process, but certainly not one that’s free of anxiety. When we challenge our negative sense of identity, we can expect a degree of backlash and resistance.

As a social identity category, age identity includes the relative sense of feeling “young” or “old,” which does not necessarily coincide with chronological age. Age identity is always, in part, culturally constructed (Beauvoir).

Role identity is defined as the role (or character) people play when holding specific social positions in groups. It is relational, since people interact with each other via their own role identities.

Ability: This identity is about the diverse array of differences in physical, mental, cognitive, developmental, learning, and/or emotional make-up. It also includes mental health and the impact of social experiences such as trauma and surviving abuse.

Class identity has long served as a key analytical concept for sociologists, going back to founders of the discipline including Karl Marx and Max Weber. The concept holds that individuals’ interests, tastes, attitudes, and dispositions are linked to their socioeconomic class position.

Class as a political definition is defined by ownership and power; class as a social identity is defined by a wide array of social markers, including such things as accent, footwear, and number of books owned.

Socioeconomic Status and Social Class Social class as a social identity relates to the importance/significance and affect/emotions associated with an individual’s membership/self-categorization within a social class group (e.g., working class).

The affluent students regarded social class as significantly more important to identity than did the lower income students, were more aware of structural factors contributing to their success, and had higher occupational aspirations.

Social identity can be defined as an individual’s knowledge of belonging to certain social groups, together with some emotional and valuational significance of that group membership.

Social identity is a person’s sense of who they are based on their group membership(s). The central hypothesis of social identity theory is that group members of an in-group will seek to find negative aspects of an out-group, thus enhancing their self-image.

The difference between Identity and Personality. When used as nouns, identity means sameness, identicalness, whereas personality means a set of qualities that make a person (or thing) distinct from another. Identity as a noun: Sameness, identicalness; the quality or fact of (several specified things) being the same.

Identity has two important features: continuity and contrast. Continuity means that people can count on you to be the same person tomorrow as you are today. Obviously, people change but many important aspects of social identity remain relatively stable such as gender, surname, language and ethnicity.

Research with 12- to 24-year-olds consistently reveals that the vast majority of 12- to 18-year-olds are identity diffuse or foreclosed, and not until age 21 and older had the majority of participants reached the moratorium status (crisis) or achieved stable identities in any life domain.