Development of Identity

Identity consists of both the social and the individual elements of an individual. The body has an impact on the identity through how a person feels, how other people treat us and lastly what we are capable of doing. This paper will mainly focus on how identity has developed and also changed its nature by the different views that have been brought to light by the different scholars. The assignment will focus on the theory of Erickson, the statuses of identity by Marcia and the different methods that he used and lastly the identity concept by Tajfel. These scholars have brought to light the different views of how identity has developed over time. The stages focus on the identity of an individual from the infant stage to old age.

The last stage is where an individual reaches old age and is trying hard to look for integrity against despair risk which is caused by the death prospect and the body functioning problems. The stages are as follows, the first stage which is between births to one year. Here the crises that occur are the mistrust and trust and the outcome being the mistrust and trust of people. The second stage is the age between 1 and 3 years. The ego identity is a personal feeling of what and who a person is. Adolescence is a stage of life where one has to make different decisions in life has to be made such as relationships, independence, employment, and marriage. Erikson described adolescence as a period in which the young people work out different identities without knowing which is good for them before getting the one that fits them.

The several outcomes that may arise in adolescence about identity and these outcomes include people who push ahead making of choices that are social while they focus on their identity. The other outcome that may arise is that young people will take a lot of time to tackle responsibilities that come with adulthood because they have a problem to cope with and adapt to being adults. This happens when young people don't explore many different options when committing to the identities. These people in this group are authoritarian an at times self-satisfied and know what is right and are considered as coherent. Many people in this stage may choose a career not because they want it so badly but because someone close to them is in the career.

Marcia sees this as a stage of people which is less developed like the other two stages. The third stage is the Moratorium stage whereby the exploration is high and the commitment is low. Self-categorization helps individuals to set good behaviors and attitudes that will help in guiding their actions. When the social identity of an individual is important to us, we have to show the identity in our behaviors and attitudes via an acting and self-stereotyping process that is in line with the stereotype. The experimental method is the method that Tajfel used to examine the different consequences of the self-categorization. He later conducted studies using the laboratory of the minimal groups which are artificially conducted to help in addressing the question of if being a member of any group is not enough to help in the promotion of identity with hostility and in-group considering the outgroup.