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Identity and Behaviour- Who am I and what am I

Topic: Identity
by Saffron, 2019 Cohort

Identity is an umbrella term encompassing personal identity and social identity. A person’s personal and social identity are both affected by and affect their behaviour. As such, identity can be a useful predictor for behaviour, and identity and behaviour can act as a feedback loop.

Personal identity, or self-concept, is the psychological framework of how a person perceives themselves at a base level. It is made up of self image, self ideal, and self esteem.

Self-image is the set of traits and labels you use to describe yourself at a given time. This can be incongruent with reality- for example, someone with an executive dysfunction disorder (like ADHD) may think of themselves as lazy, while in reality to reach the same level of functioning as someone without that disorder they’d have to work much harder. Self-image is affected by both the individual who has that self image and their

Self-ideal is what a person wants to be. Incongruence between the ideal self and self image can be the cause of emotional distress and negative behaviours, or can be a catalyst for positive change, depending on self esteem.

Self-esteem is the emotions someone has towards themselves. Someone with high self esteem, who feels good about who they are, is generally more confident and able to take risks. Personal identity can be used to predict individual behaviour- to an extent. Not everyone is able to act in accordance with the way they would like to, and not everyone behaves in a way that is congruent with their identity. However, as a general rule, knowing someone’s self-perception is a good step towards being able to predict their

Social identity, or group identity, is the sociological definition of identity. Essentially, it is the groups a person associates with and how strongly they associate with those groups, as well as how they modify their behaviour to fit in better. It’s possible for people to see their group identities as more important than their personal identity, and to self-stereotype to fit in better with (their perception of) the group (depersonalisation). This was shown in a 1987 study: When an individual man categorises himself as a man, in contrast to being a woman, he accentuates the similarities between himself and other men, and the differences between himself and women. This is also an example of an identity feedback loop- “I am this, therefore I do this” and “I do this, therefore I am this” feed into each other

In areas such as policy making for the purpose of changing behaviours, it can be useful to think about the identities of who the policy affects and what behaviours you want to change. For example, to reduce drinking (and harm from drinking), price increases have been shown to be ineffective, partly because drinking is part of the Australian social identity, and to many individual Australians, drinking is an essential part of their personal identity. To change behaviours, the root causes of those behaviours must be addressed.

Explore this topic further#

• Wikipedia’s disambiguation page on Identity{.link-ext target=”_blank” }
• (Marketing) Americus Reed II and Lisa E. Bolton’s article on The Complexity of Identity{.link-ext target=”_blank” }
• (Social in-groups) Roccas and Brewer’s Social Identity Complexity{.link-ext target=”_blank” }

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This content has been contributed by a student as part of a learning activity.
If there are inaccuracies, or opportunities for significant improvement on this topic, feedback is welcome on how to improve the resource.
You can improve articles on this topic as a student in "Unravelling Complexity", or by including the amendments in an email to: Chris.Browne@anu.edu.au

Identity is an umbrella term encompassing personal identity and social identity. A person’s personal and social identity are both affected by and affect their behaviour. As such, identity can be a useful predictor for behaviour, and identity and behaviour can act as a feedback loop.

Personal identity, or self-concept, is the psychological framework of how a person perceives themselves at a base level. It is made up of self image, self ideal, and self esteem.

Self-image is the set of traits and labels you use to describe yourself at a given time. This can be incongruent with reality- for example, someone with an executive dysfunction disorder (like ADHD) may think of themselves as lazy, while in reality to reach the same level of functioning as someone without that disorder they’d have to work much harder. Self-image is affected by both the individual who has that self image and their

Self-ideal is what a person wants to be. Incongruence between the ideal self and self image can be the cause of emotional distress and negative behaviours, or can be a catalyst for positive change, depending on self esteem.

Self-esteem is the emotions someone has towards themselves. Someone with high self esteem, who feels good about who they are, is generally more confident and able to take risks. Personal identity can be used to predict individual behaviour- to an extent. Not everyone is able to act in accordance with the way they would like to, and not everyone behaves in a way that is congruent with their identity. However, as a general rule, knowing someone’s self-perception is a good step towards being able to predict their

Social identity, or group identity, is the sociological definition of identity. Essentially, it is the groups a person associates with and how strongly they associate with those groups, as well as how they modify their behaviour to fit in better. It’s possible for people to see their group identities as more important than their personal identity, and to self-stereotype to fit in better with (their perception of) the group (depersonalisation). This was shown in a 1987 study: When an individual man categorises himself as a man, in contrast to being a woman, he accentuates the similarities between himself and other men, and the differences between himself and women. This is also an example of an identity feedback loop- “I am this, therefore I do this” and “I do this, therefore I am this” feed into each other

In areas such as policy making for the purpose of changing behaviours, it can be useful to think about the identities of who the policy affects and what behaviours you want to change. For example, to reduce drinking (and harm from drinking), price increases have been shown to be ineffective, partly because drinking is part of the Australian social identity, and to many individual Australians, drinking is an essential part of their personal identity. To change behaviours, the root causes of those behaviours must be addressed.