Family and Social Influences on Identity Conflict



Family and Social Influences on Identity Conflict

Introduction

Identity is one's self image and one's self conception. Identity is defined as a distinctive characteristic that belongs to an individual or shared by all the members, for that matter, for a very particular group or a social category. Identity is distinguished from identification. Identity is a label and identification pertains to the classification of the act. Identity is said to be contrasted best, when it is contextual and relational, whereas identification is viewed as inherent. The formation of one's identity takes place the identification of oneself with the significant others, mainly with the parents and other people, during the experiences that one undergoes with the various groups. These significant others may aspire one to their characteristics, beliefs and values. A psychological identity pertains to the self image, individuality and self-esteem of an individual. Consequently, an individual's identity is the sum of one's self-construal, according to which how one is able to construe oneself at the time being, expresses the continuity between how individual construes himself as he was in his past and how he construes himself as the one he aspires to be in the future. This means that an individual's ethnic identity is defined as a part of the sum of one's self-construal, which is made up of those elements that stress upon the continuity between one's ancestral past and future aspirations regarding ethnicity.

In the paper, the discussion focuses on the influences that cause identity conflicts. The influences that are discussed in the paper are family influences; that shape up the self esteem and ego of an individual at the early stages of his life, and the social influences that shape up the individual's beliefs in the later stage of his life. The paper looks into the roles played by power and credibility in influencing the identity of an individual and the identity crises that result into an individual being lost and not able to make the right decisions in life, and end of doing wrong. All in all, the discussions highlight the importance an identity has in the life of a person, and the influences that make the ego of a person, and how social and family influence can help an individual away from identity crises.

Discussion

Social Influence

Social influence takes place when an individual's behavior, emotions and opinions are prone to be affected by the significant others. These significant others play an important role in shaping up various important aspects of a decision that is made by an individual. An individual's actions and behaviors are largely influenced by those who have great significance in one's life. This social influence can take many shapes, and can be largely seen in socialization, conformity, obedience, sales, persuasion, marketing, obedience and leadership, (Cialdini, 1998).

According to Herbert Kelman, there are three wide categories of social influence, which are; Compliance, Identification and Internalization. Compliance is when the individuals seem to agree with others around them; however they keep their ...