Identity vs. Personality
This module explored the categories of identity, as contrasted with personality. These socially elaborated categories, such as the essentially universal notions of age, Cultural Expectations, race, ethnicity and nationality, are relevant in our daily interactions. While we often accept the expectations for behavior that go along with these categories as “natural”, the reality is that these naturalistic explanations obscure the social dimensions of these identities.
When dealing with people from different cultural backgrounds, you might find yourself confronting very different expectations relating to your own identity. It can be useful to understand your own taken-for-granted expectations about your identities, so that you can recognize when your expectations contrast with those of people around you.
Write three paragraphs addressing the following questions. Each response should be a complete paragraph.
1. Specify some of your own cultural expectations that go along with two of the universal identity categories discussed in this module that you inhabit (e.g., your gender and age).
2. Explain an instance in your life in which your behavior or someone else’s did not conform to social expectations regarding one of the identity categories you selected above. How did others respond to this “abnormal” behavior?
3. Discuss a situation from your own life involving role conflict related to one or more of the significant identity categories introduced in this module.
o • Which identity category seemed more important to you in resolving the role conflict?
o • Did this have something to do with the other people involved in the situation, or was it driven more
by your own interpretation of what was most important at that time?
o • Did the resolution seem wholly satisfactory to you
