What makes Identity?

An identity is not innate. An individual is not biologically
born with an identity, this is not a gene. An identity has to be formed through
the individual’s consciousness of his/her interactions with others. A social
process is required in which primary socialization is needed to develop a sense
of social self and self consciousness, thus creating an identity.

In Mind, Self, and Society: The Self and the Organism, by George
Herbert Mead, he states that the social process of creating a complete self
includes communication and understanding of others. “The self, as that which can
be an object to itself, is essentially a social structure, and it arises in
social experience”, (Mead). Social experience refers to the interaction between
the individual and others. This social experience is also acquired through
primary socialization. This is the socialization “an individual undergoes in
childhood through which he becomes a member of society”, according to Berger and
Luckmann in The Internalization of Society.

Once primary socialization is acquired, comes secondary
socialization. In this process “already socialized individual is inducted into
new sectors of the world of his society”, (Berger and Luckmann). Although
sometimes within this world of the individual’s society he/she becomes to feel
trapped. This feeling calls for the need of sociological imagination. “To be
aware of the idea of social structure and to use it with sensibility is to be
capable of tracing such linkages among a variety of milleux… to possess
sociological imagination”, as C. Wright Mills describes it in The Sociological
Imagination. Let’s elaborate, sociological imagination allows the individual to
have the capacity to shift from one perspective to another. In this way,
individual can feel he/she has options, not just context or stage they find
themselves in.

By placing individuals in new sectors the opportunity for more
interaction, communication and understanding among others is possible. These
three aspects of socializing are very important since it is through interaction,
communication and understanding of others that an identity starts to be shaped
and formed and consequently “finalized”. Different people and different stages
in the life of an individual help the formation of his/her identity.

As humans we all go through stages. These stages help us create
a sense of “social self and self consciousness”, as Giddens and Duneier describe
in Essentials of Sociology. “The ‘I’ is the unsocialized infant a bundle of
spontaneous wants and desires. The ‘Me’ as Mead is used the term, is the social
self”, (Giddens and Duneier). Note that there is a transition in language from
‘I’ to ‘Me’, suggesting transition through stages of childhood and then to
maturity. This transition hints to the culmination of an identity/self. The
individual gains concept of self consciousness.

The amalgamations of different factors (family, school,
relationships, and work) contribute to the creation of an identity, according to
the authors previously mentioned. These factors just noted may also be called
agents of socialization. “Agents of socialization are groups or social contexts
in which significant processes of socialization occur”, (Giddens and Duneier).
The agents of socialization are part of the social process such as; primary
socialization and the complete achievement of self consciousness. This is to say
individuals create and “finalize” their identity by becoming as others see them.