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Social Influences On Identity

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Social influences on Identity
Often, people confuse identity with personality. While personality describes your personal qualities such as being shy or outgoing, identity involves a combination of various aspects. Sharing personality traits is effortless, but identity requires an active engagement. Culture, language, family, friends, and society are a few of the aspects that help shape a person 's identity. For a person to feel identified, they must share similarities or differences with others. These similarities or differences help create groups in which people can become a part of, forming identities. Identity also involves a combination of how you see yourself and how others see you. How others see you is influenced by economic, social, and physical constraints. These constraints cause a tension between how much control you have in constructing your own identity and how much control is exercised over you. How we see ourselves and how others see us differ in many ways, but is a key factor of our identity. “A Lesson Before Dying”, “Fences”, “This is What It Means To Say Phoenix, Arizona”, and “Everyday Use” are all works of literature where there is a tension between how the characters see themselves and how others see them. In “A Lesson Before Dying”, Grant’s self-view collides with how he is seen by others in his community. Grant has gone to a University and is now a teacher in the quarter where he grew up and is constantly being admired for it. Most of the

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