GNED 500

Identity and Social Contexts

Artwork by Elena Escalada Barroso is licensed under a
CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 International License.

In my simple biography above, I identify different categories linked to who I am. Some of these categories fit into the understanding of identity proposed by . Others fit into the view of identity. We learned these concepts in Identity 1.

In the Identity 2 module, we will consider how identity is the product of and culture. In my biography, I started my description with things I enjoy: hiking, reading, and gymnastics. I was not born with these enjoyments. Rather, the culture and social structures around me exposed me to these activities and influenced my choice of them. When I realized I enjoyed them and started to practise them regularly, they became a part of my identity.

In my biography, I also describe myself as a woman and give my height and the location of my birth. Some may say these are examples of identity markers that cannot change. But is this true? Let’s take a closer look at my gender identity.

To begin, we must separate the concepts of sex and gender. is a term “used to describe the biological and anatomical differences between females and males” (Murray et al., 2014, p. 336). , on the other hand, refers to the “attitudes, feelings, and behaviors that a given culture associates with a person’s biological sex” (APA, 2012). For example, being a woman comes with a set of behavioural expectations. These expectations help determine how I perform my gender in social contexts. When we don’t perform gender roles as expected, we may experience negative consequences, like not getting a job or being left out of a group.

Go Deeper

This presentation uses a multimedia project about modern Brazilian identity to examine how we form identities and what drives us. (Source: TEDx Talks, 2016)

This video looks at how our personality is affected by the culture in which we grow up. It examines how manners are not universal but cultural. By being aware that our personality/identity has foundations in the locations and cultures in which we were raised, we can see how our personal views are heavily influenced by social contexts. (Source: Practical Psychology, 2019)

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