• What is personal identity?
• Characteristics of personal identity
• How is personal identity built?
• Elements of personal identity
• Personal identity and social identity

We explain what personal identity is, its perspectives and its elements. In addition, its characteristics and what is social identity.

Belonging groups intervene in the formation of personal identity.

What is personal identity?

Generally, when we speak of personal identity we refer to something similar to self-image. It is the set of characteristics that define an individual and allow him to recognize himself as a distinct and differentiated entity from others.

Not exactly a synonym for personality, nor of character, nor of personal traits, but it is a concept that seems to encompass all these aspects, thus forming the "essence" of an individual.

However, from certain perspectives, such as philosophical, defining this concept becomes much more complicated. What is its nature? How do we distinguish it from other psychological, emotional, or intellectual traits of the human being? How can it be the same person and at the same time change in time? Where does identity end and context begin?

There are numerous approaches that seek to define personal identity. Some of them are:

• The psychologist. Which assigns an important role to memory and to the mental processes within the identity;
• The physiological-somatic. That looks for the answers in the human being's own body;
• The narrative. That raises personal identity as a story-of-oneself that is constantly being told (and therefore modified).

Finally, in more practical areas, such as the management, we usually speak of personal identity as the set of data and personal information with which we can have access to some type of account, application or profile of services. That is, personal identity is thought from the information that represents it. This is also known as a “fingerprint”.

Characteristics of personal identity

The concept of personal identity, understood from different points of view, usually has a series of stable characteristics, such as:

• Constancy. Identity is a set of constant features, that is, they can be appreciated in the same way throughout the weather, although it is possible at the same time to appreciate its long-term changes.
• Coherence. When we say that personal identity is coherent, we mean that we can predict some of its traits, that is, some of its reactions to certain conditions or stimuli.
• Adaptability. Although personal identity is constant at a given moment, it is also changing over time, as experience and life they are suppressing certain behaviors and implementing others.
• Socio-cultural character. This means that the identity is given in contrast to others, since it is defined based on the similarities or differences with respect to those who share with us a community and one culture.

How is personal identity built?

Building personal identity is a long and complex process. Its beginning dates back to the individual's childhood and passes along with his entire life, as his way of being adapts to what he has lived and integrates the different experiences, that is, he learns.

In it other forms of identification converge that are formed in different and successive stages, such as sexual identity, gender identity, social identity, etc.

This construction process is gradual. It involves a diverse range of experiences, especially those related to the erotic-affective, to social integration, to the cultural, to the religious, to the political, as well as to self-perception and perception. self esteem.

There is no specific moment in which identity is formed in a concrete way, although it is estimated that after the adolescence a more complex personal identity would have to begin to appear, compared to that exhibited in childhood.

Elements of personal identity

Personal identity is made up of the following elements:

• Belonging groups. It is about the groups humans to whom we subscribe, voluntarily or involuntarily, and with whom we share a series of values, as well as a common history. They can be the family, friends, religious groups, politicians, etc.
• Traditions Y traditions. Cultures and human groups share social, ritual and political practices from a historical context, knowledge or inherited foundations, or more or less explicit social agreements. All of this is part of the baggage that socially determines personal identity, either by going for or against him.
• Experience. Experience is the fundamental factor in the construction of identity, since it summarizes the personal history, with all the transcendent events that can be decisive in the personality, ideology or behavior. In other words, the experience is the singular and individual story of each one.
• Political orientation. Beyond political / party positioning, political elements intervene in identity formation, such as the presence of institutions, political militancy,

Personal identity and social identity

Although social identity is contained in personal identity, it is not about concepts that are the same. The difference between them is that social identity links the individual with the community of which he is a part, while personal identity singles him out as a unique individual.

This difference is important, since social identity plays a central role in the constitution of personal identity, either by inheriting it values the individual either by serving as a system to rebel against or to oppose.