Identity Paper

I and I Survive A person’s identity is a combination of experiences and influences that will determine how one perceives themself and how others perceive that person. The mind is a fertile ground for concepts and opinions. Outside influences can have an affect on an individual’s thoughts and ideas. Mahatma Gandhi had an idea about individual’s identities. He once said, “A man is but the products of his thoughts, what he thinks, he becomes” (Gandhi 1). What a child is taught by her/his family early in life is reinforced throughout the development of her/his identity and can be seen to be truth. The family teaches a child language, moral values, and how to survive the surrounding environment. Also, a child can be influenced sub-consciously through media and advertisements seen on televisions and in magazines. Furthermore, when the child is old enough to attend school, education will be another large influence on the identity of the individual. Social institutions can have a great deal of influence over the development of an individual’s identity.
Humans are social beings with the need to belong with groups to exercise the mind. An individual’s opinions, moral values, and even how an individual interacts with others come from some type of influence. With social institutions having a mass appeal on many people, an individual’s identity can be influenced through the family, religion, and education. With humans having a need to belong, individuals will adjust to social institutions to fulfill this belonging. Social institutions, such as the ones mentioned above, have set ideas, concepts, opinions, and roles affect on how an individual perceives the world. Although, it is crucially important to realize that social institutions have an influence on an individual identity because by obtaining awareness of how social institutions influence an identity, one can have more control of her or his own identity. Being unaware of one’s influences can keep an individual in an endless cycle of social trends and ultimately give power to the process of mass reproduction of identity. An individual will merely become a victim of “mindless” conformity. To understand where an identity comes from, an individual will have to go deep into the roots of ones identity.
Family is the very first social structure a child identifies with. How a child is raised will determine the child’s outlook on life. The different combinations of traditions, moral values, and religion of the family, if any, play a big role in how an individual is raised. Philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau describes, in the “Origins of Civil Society”, that “the oldest form of society-and the only natural one-is the family” (59). When a child is born a name is attached, which, she or he will identify with for possibly the rest of their life. How a child is raised will affect the growth and development of an identity. A Professor of Social Work and Education at the University of Georgia believes that positive parenting is vital to a child’s social adjustment and sense of one self. “The research indicates that a consistent adult model of sharing, helping, comforting, and responsiveness is critical to the young child’s development of empathy, moral standards and self esteem. Thus, we would expect children who have been abused or neglected to display difficulties in socioemotional arenas” (5). Whether a child is raised in a positive environment or not has an affect on identity and what they may believe to be true. When a child comes to age where other outside influences are introduced the identity of that child will expand to school, where a child will use what they learned in home with others.
School will open a child’s mind up to new ideas and concepts that also influence her or his identity. School also plays a huge role in the development of an identity. Young people in western societies spend an average of 180 days a year in school. That is almost half of each year that is spent in school, exposing children on a daily basis of idea and concepts. How to interact with others will be watched by school employees to see if behavior is within the school’s standards. Children learn what is popular through peer groups. Moreover, what is being taught in the family can also be reinforced in schools. Parents will purposefully seek out schools that have the same ideals as they to reinforce certain conformity of family beliefs. An article from American Researcher Lisa S. Garbrecht reports,
“From students' views on their schools, it was clear that the schools' values were internalized by many students. However, the habitus of the school extends beyond its boundaries. It is probable that these rules of the game are also reiterated in familial, peer, and social interactions. Parents are more likely to send their children to schools with values and power structures similar to their own beliefs and community. Similarly, peers at school are more likely to reinforce the values and power structures of their schools and families in their interactions with each other. The school habitus is a compilation of the larger social context,” (42). What a child learns from their family and with the reinforcement of school will strengthen a child’s beliefs of what is seen to be truth. In Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave,” the prisoners that were shackled all their life and only saw shadows on the wall and believed the shadows were real. This was the prisoner’s truth. In reality the shadows were merely just shadows (447-459). What a child is exposed to from family and school can become to be seen as their truth. Religions have a major influence on the world and how individuals perceive the world. Religion can give a sense of why humans are here on earth. Identities can be built based upon religious beliefs and have a strong influence on the culture of a community. Rules and societal norms have been influenced by religious moralities. For example, Jewish communities will live by the standards from the Torah, the Jewish bible, as to the Muslim communities will live by the standards that are in the Qur’an, the Muslim bible, Buddhist communities believe in enlightenment without a certain bible to guide their daily lives. All have concepts and ideas of how one should live life. Depending on where one lives, these religious influences will be large in some areas around the world and less influential in other areas. Here in America, there is religious symbolism in movies to exploit Christianity beliefs. Hence, the movies “The Matrix”, Neo is a figure of Jesus Christ, he was resurrected to save the people of Zion. People that live their lives around what they see on t.v. and in the media may become their reality, their truth.
People use media and television to be informed of current events, to explore new ideas and to even escape the world. However, media and television can create an ideal image of what a beautiful man and woman are, what success is and what is socially acceptable. With television and media being a huge influence on the perception of the world, people can start to believe what is told by media representatives whether it has truth to it or not. Millions of dollars are put into advertisements, entertainment, and media magazines to influence certain concepts and ideas. People are exposed to media and what they see on television on a daily basis. Thus, people can start to adopt certain ideas and concepts without having an awareness of it. For an example, reality t.v., show like Big Brother, The Bachelor, and Flava of Love all portray this illusion of reality, but the shows are actually scripted and dialog can be cut and pieced together. According to cultivation theory by George Gerbner, a professor of Communication, people who watch a great deal of television will come to perceive the real world as being consistent with what they see on the screen (Wilson 1 Gerbner 49). A person’s reality will be based on what is seen on television and in magazines. This can cause a false reality that can never be completely satisfying. Recognizing how social institutions have an affect on an individual’s identity is important in shaping his or her own identity.
With recognition of how social institutions have an influence on an individual’s identity a person can obtain more control with molding his or her own identity. With Awareness an individual will be able to recognize who she or he is and have more control of how to change things about one self that is undesirable. With realization may not come easy but like W.E.B. Du Bois said, “ If however, the vistas disclosed as yet no goal, no leisure for reflection and self-examination; it changed the child of Emancipation to the youth with dawning self-consciousness, self-realization, self-respect” (295). Realizing one’s self identity and having control over it can come with challenges but with those challenges comes self-consciousness and self respect. Family, school, religion and media can have their own set of concepts and ideas of how in individual should look and behave. These ideals may not be what a certain individual wants. Therefore it is crucially important to be aware of the impact that social institution have on an individual. Not recognizing the affects that social institutions can have on an identity can fall victim to “mindless” conformity.
Some might argue that realization of how social institutions influence an individual’s identity is not necessary. But, if one believes it is not necessary for realization than that individual gives up control over their own identity to only have the masses make up who that person is with will ultimately make that person not an individual but a tool used in spreading certain concepts and ideas. The thoughts and ideas of an individual that has bee influenced by family, religion and media to the extent where the individual is no longer be an individual but only a product of these influences. This will cause acceptance with the popular ideas which can become a problem when these ideas can have a negative affect on others. For example, the Nazi’s and the propaganda they used to persuade the masses to believe that the Aryan race was superior. An individual will merely follow with the trends of society becoming a tool for industries and institutions to mold and form as they see fit.
The families, religion, and education all have large affects on an identity. It is up to the individual to realize how these social institutions have an affect on them. With awareness of where an individual identity comes from, she or he will have more control in molding her or his own identity and how they perceive the world around them. With “mindless” conformity one will only follow in the trends of society and give power to control her or his identity.

Works cited

Du Bois, W.E. B. “Of Our Spiritual Strivings” A World Of Ideas Jacobus (2010) 287-299 print
Garbrecht. Lisa S. “Schools' Influence on Identity Formation in a Time of Change”
Educational Researcher. Washington: Dec 2006. 35,. 9; 42, 6 Proquest. Web
Kurtz, P. David “Maltreatment and the School-Age Child, Developmental Outcomes and System Issues” 5 The Hawthorn Press, 1994 print
Plato “Allegory Of the Cave” A World of Ideas Jacobus (2010) 447-459 print
Rousseau, Jean-Jacques “Origins of Civil Society” A World of Ideas Jacobus (2010) 55- 75 print
Sarvodaya Ashram, Nagpur, “Welcome to the complete site of Mahatma Gandhi” Web
Wilson, Barbara J. The Future of Children, 18, 1, Spring 2008, pp. 87-118 (Article) George Gerbner and others, “Growing Up with Television: Cultivation Processes,” in Media Effects:Advances in Theory and Research, edited by Jennings Bryant and Dolf Zillmann (Mahwah, N.J.:Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2002). Project Muse. Web