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Identity: personal AND social

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posted on 2023-06-09, 06:17 authored by Vivian VignolesVivian Vignoles
Identity refers to how people answer the question, “Who are you?” This question may be posed explicitly or implicitly, at a personal or a collective level, to others or to oneself. Schools of thought within the identity literature tend to emphasize either personal or social contents and either personal or social processes. However, I argue here that identities are inescapably both personal and social, in their content and in the processes by which they are formed, maintained, and changed over time. The personal and social nature of identity gives the construct its greatest theoretical potential—namely to provide insight into the relationship between the individual and society. However, doing justice to this potential requires integrating perspectives on identity and self-processes from social and personality psychology, developmental psychology, cultural, critical and discursive psychology, and beyond. In this chapter, I outline some key parameters for such an integrative understanding of identity. I examine the extensive and interconnected nature of identity content, and then consider the confluence of sociocultural, relational and individual processes by which identities are formed, maintained, and change over time.

History

Publication status

  • Published

File Version

  • Accepted version

Publisher

Oxford University Press

Pages

972.0

Book title

The Oxford Handbook of Personality and Social Psychology (2nd edn)

Place of publication

New York, NY

ISBN

9780190224837

Department affiliated with

  • Psychology Publications

Full text available

  • No

Peer reviewed?

  • Yes

Editors

Mark Snyder, Kay Deaux

Legacy Posted Date

2017-05-15

First Compliant Deposit (FCD) Date

2017-05-15

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