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What Is Ethnic Identity In Psychology

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Identity is a fundamental part of all humans. Whether one’s identity consumes their personality or lies in the shadow of their persona, all humans share this personality trait. Identity is defined as the distinctive characteristic belonging to any given individual or shared by all members of a particular social category or group. In cognitive psychology, the techicange definition of the term "identity" refers to the capacity for self-reflection and the awareness of self.(Leary & Tangney 2003, p. 3)The Weinreich definition directs attention to the totality of one 's identity at a given phase in time, with its given components such as one 's gender identity, ethnic identity, occupational identity as well as many more.. The definition is …show more content…

Moreover, in an article published by the Journal of Research on Adolescence in 2006, the relationship between ethnic identity and psychology is discussed. The journal reached the effect of racial discrimination on the psychological functioning of African Americans. Part of their findings explored how exposure to the world outside of their “immediate familial environment, many encounter societal institutions that often covertly and overtly discriminate against them because of phenotypical characteristics such as race”. The risk for experiencing racial discrimination is especially acute for African American adolescents compared with adolescents of another race or ethnicity (Fisher, Wallace, & Fenton, 2000; Romero & Roberts, 1998). The formation of racial identity is also formed in a similar way to Erik Erikson 's model. Furthermore, the system of formation is broken down into a simple three step process by Jean Phinney. Phinney’s theory focuses on the circumstances that multicultural children are faced with and how they cope or adapt to fit into their community. The identify that children develop is either through self examination or absorption of feelings of another through the process of socialization, Phinney describes. Children are required to digest both their positive and negative messages about their ethnicity and make which makes socialization such crucial experience for ethnic identity development. The first step of the progression is the unexamined ethnic identity. This stage looks at race and ethnicity for face value, physical differences and external opinions mostly from the early opinions on one’s ethnic self-identity. Secondly is the ethnic identity search.This stage is where the adolescent inquires about the accepted views of the ethnicity and attempts to gain an abstract view of the ethnicities values and doings. The last stage is the Ethnic Identity Achievement. This stage is experienced for the sole purpose of clarifying one’s ethnic identity.

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