What is Self and Identity?

Do you really know your self and identity? I am glad you’re here because working out our self and identity can be a lifelong process as we develop and change over time.

In this blog, I just want to clarify what is the difference between self and identity.

For most of my life, these two concepts —self and identity— have captivated my interest. Clocking up thousands of hours in psychotherapy with clients to understand the self and identity of the person before me, I also had to be really clear about what ‘self and identity’ meant when I was completing my PhD thesis.

I think we all spend a significant time of our lives working out the questions, Who am I? What is my identity?

I read whatever I could on these two subjects. There are countless articles, books and even journals focusing on these topics. Self and Identity is a peer-reviewed journal wholly dedicated to covering the psychology of self, and the official journal of the International Society for Self and Identity.

So closely aligned are self and identity that they are used interchangeably and can be confused. How is self different from identity? To know this, we need to define each concept.

What is Self?

As a psychologist, I understand self as a psychological construct explaining our awareness of being ‘me’ or ‘I’. Two researchers have explained the construct well. Leary and Tangney in their 2003 Handbook of Self and Identity, explained self as “the psychological apparatus that allows organisms to think consciously about themselves”.

Any mention of self consciousness cannot omit William James, the father of American psychology’s famous chapter on “the Consciousness of Self” in The Principles of Psychology. It is the first detailed psychological treatise of self in which James argued that there are two aspects of consciousness: “I”—the knower (the self as subject of experience) and “Me”—the empirical self (the self as object of experience). “I” and “Me” are our conscious Self. For example, when I was growing up, I realised that no matter where I went, I could not escape from me. Therefore, I eventually came to accept myself and be friends with me.

What is Identity?

Contemporary researchers of self and identity, like Oyserman, Elmore and Smith in 2012, explained identities as the “traits and characteristics, social relations, and social group memberships that define who one is”.

Hence, we can see where self is one’s consciousness of who I am and what I am, identity is one’s social face. It is how one perceives how one is recognized by others. For example, I am Lidia and I identify as female, East-Timorese Chinese Australian, Christian, a mother and a mental health care professional.

There are different dimensions to identity in how we can be defined. For examples, we can be defined by: 

- Race, ethnicity, nationality

- Cultural identity

- Professional/occupational identity

- Religion and spirituality

- Gender and sexuality

- Ability or disability, to name some broad dimensions.

People’s difficulties with self and identity have manifested in all types of psychological difficulties and disorders, whether it be from relationship problems, to anxiety, depression and/or psychotic illnesses.

As a clinician, I have witnessed the surge of self and identity problems in recent times. There is more confusion today about “who and what am I?” than I have ever seen before. Children and adults are now sharing with me, Am I a he/she/they/them or thing? Nowadays, the ways we define ourselves seem also to be more focused on gender and sexuality, more so than on the other dimensions of identity.

Developing each of the dimensions and working on our self is important to becoming a healthier, wholesome person with a strong identity.

Knowing the difference between self and identity means we can begin to tackle the questions of ‘Who am I?’ and ‘What is my identity?’ This clarification is only a beginning. Be kind to yourself and know that we are all a work in progress.

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About the Author

Lidia Lae, Ph.D., is a writer, psychologist, and speaker, committed to empowering individuals and organisations to build healthier cultures for meaningful contribution.

REFERENCES

James, W. (1890). The Principles of Psychology, 2, 94. London: MacMillan and Co., Ltd.

Leary, M. R., & Tangney, J. P. (2003). The self as an organizing construct in the behavioural and social sciences. In M. R. Leary, & J. P. Tangney (Eds.), Handbook of self and identity (pp. 3-14). New York, NY, US: The Guilford Press

Oyserman, D. (2001). Self-concept and identity. In A. Tesser & N. Schwarz, The Blackwell Handbook of Social Psychology (pp. 499-517). Malden, MA: Blackwell.