Key points
- Identity experimentation and consolidation is an important part of adolescence and young adulthood.
- A narrative identity is a personal story that reveals our values and offers a sense of continuity.
- Young people are exposed to a wide array of possible identity labels online.
- A label can be a starting point for wrestling with identity.
When I arrived at college as a freshman in 1984, I met Chloe. She had long curly hair, trailed patchouli wherever she went, and seemed to have an endless selection of flowy, Indian print skirts. She listened to the Grateful Dead, fretted about getting tickets to their upcoming shows, and hung out with the kids playing hacky sack on the green during the warm, golden autumn we had that year. Chloe was a Dead Head
Then I met someone who had gone to high school with Chloe. According to this person, a few short months before coming to college, Chloe owned no Indian print skirts and never smelled of patchouli. She didn’t listen to the Grateful Dead in any conspicuous way. Instead, she was a rather nondescript, somewhat nerdy kid whose socks sometimes didn’t match. It seemed clear what had happened. Given the opportunity for a fresh start in a new place, Chloe had adopted a new identity, one that came with a fully formed set of tastes and behaviors and offered a sense of belonging.
The American psychoanalyst Erik Erickson was one of the first to discuss explicitly the importance of identity exploration and consolidation in adolescence. According to Erikson, identity has two main functions, one intrapsychic, and one interpersonal – it helps create a coherent sense of self, and it connects us with a group with whom we share an essential characteristic. In other words, one’s personal identity answers the question “who am I?” and “how do I fit into the world around me?” Jung noted that, with the declining influence of the dominant cultural stories offered by religions and with increasing cultural fragmentation, the task of creating a stable identity from which one can negotiate the world becomes a task for each individual, often at the cusp of adulthood.
American psychologist Dan McAdams has pointed out that a full identity is a story – a narrative identity. The stories we tell ourselves provide us with a sense of continuity, identity, and meaning. A narrative identity is a kind of personal myth that elucidates key values. “The personal myth…” writes McAdams, “is a sacred story that embodies personal truth.”1 This personal myth-making largely happens unconsciously, but as the story of Chloe illustrates, there are times when we consciously adopt an identity for ourselves.
In our atomized, demythologized modern world, the work of identity consolidation is more confusing than it used to be, and demands more of us individually. Without collectively sanctioned grand narratives to offer us central organizing values, we must each choose from a chaotic welter of available stories to make sense of our lives. Chloe adopted an identity that was readily available in the collective in 1984. The knowledge of what a Dead Head was and how to be one was widely disseminated. Once Chloe picked that for herself, she had a script to follow.
Today, young people are finding a plethora of identity labels online. Whether they choose to define themselves according to typology (Introvert/extrovert), lifestyle and aesthetics (Goblincore, Goth, etc.), or even according to fictional types (Trekkie, Ravenclaw, Jedi), the internet is replete with a rich vocabulary of potential identity labels
Labels can offer us structure while we explore who we are and what matters to us. Through them, we can find meaning, solidarity, and belonging with like-minded others. However, adopting a label should be the beginning of identity exploration, not the end. Labels differ from narrative identity in a fundamental way. McAdams stresses that the development of a personal narrative is effortful, hard-won, and individual. According to McAdams, a personal myth “evolves slowly over time.”2 In contrast, identities on offer online tend to be ready-made and algorithmically suggested.
A label is reductive and general, while a story that has been wrestled into being through repeated efforts is dynamic, layered, and wholly personal. A label can be a starting point in one’s search for a sustaining personal myth, but if we don’t find a way to live the identity and make it fully our own, it can become limiting and constricting. What does it mean to be a be a certain type of person in the different areas of our lives? Does our identity help us to navigate difficult decisions or moments of crisis? How does an identity serve us – or not – in the realm of our most intimate relationships? There is always a risk that if we cling too tightly to a rigid identity, we will find our sense of self impoverished and foreclosed. This can happen when a label is used not just for self-understanding and solidarity, but as a means of escaping unpleasant developmental milestones or retreating from life and relationships.
Chloe continued to love the Grateful Dead’s music and dress the part. However, over the course of our first year, I noticed a subtle change in her. She got excited by her neuroscience classes and spent more time talking about those than ostentatiously scheming about how to get Dead tickets. She gradually seemed a bit more relaxed and put less effort into making sure everyone knew she was a Dead Head. She even wore less patchouli. Though she and I didn’t stay in touch past our freshman year, I imagine that her newly adopted identity helped her adjust to college, find a ready-made friend group, and access a scaffold from which she could grow. But it didn’t ultimately define or limit her.
McAdams, Dan P. (1993). The Stories We Live By. New York, NY: Guilford Press. p. 34
Ibid. p. 20
