Sociological Perspective on Identity Imagination

Introduction

The problem of identity imagination is one of the most important in modern sociology. It is impossible to analyze social processes, functioning and evolution of social systems without referring to the study of the nature of the individual as a subject of social behavior and social relations without studying the needs, interests, spiritual world of a person, not analyzing complex and diversified ties with the social micro and macro environment. Personality is studied by different sciences.

Philosophy interested in the personality as the subject of cognition and creativity. Psychology analyzes personality as a stable integrity of mental processes and properties. A sociologist examines the personality as element of social life, reveals the mechanism of its formation is influenced by social factors, the mechanism of feedback to the social world, its changes and development of public relations.

The Sociological Perspective

I believe that the path of becoming me a socialized individual or person has started from the moment of my birth. The personality is a long process of initiation of the individual to the social that is his sociological. This is the broadest concept, which characterizes the formation of personality. Socialization is defined as the process of assimilation by the individual throughout life, social norms, and cultural values of the society to which he/she belongs. Socialization covers all social processes, through which the individual learns certain knowledge, norms, and values allowing functioning as an equal member of society. A leading and guiding principle of socialization is purposeful action (training, education). However, socialization includes also natural, spontaneous processes affecting the formation of personality.

The socialization of my personality includes the language acquisition of my social community, appropriate ways of thinking characteristic to a given culture, the forms of rationality and sensibility, the adoption of norms, values, traditions, customs, patterns, techniques, and activities. The individuals socialize by joining to different social activities, developing their characteristic social roles. In this regard, the socialization of the individual can be considered as the ascent from the individual to the social. However, socialization provides individualization, because it is required for the ascent to the individual. A human masters the world of culture selectively, through the perspective of the own interests and worldview. Learning culture, people form their abilities, needs, and values. Thus, there is no socialization without individualization (Jovchelovitch 2015).

The cultural environment, in which we are born and reach maturity, affects our behavior to such extent that it may seem we are deprived of any right of personality or free choice. It may seem that we are just put in the pre-set forms which society has prepared for us. The fact that from birth to death we are involved in fellowship with others undoubtedly shapes our identity, the values that we share, and our behavior. Socialization also contributes to the formation of our individuality and freedom. In the process of socialization each of us develops a sense of identity and the ability to think and to act independently.

Identification is the processes related to the field of consciousness, of self-discovery: identification with others, view other people as a continuation of self, transfer self in the other. This idea can be easily illustrated on the example of language learning. In childhood none of us has invented a language. However, we are all constrained by the rules of linguistic use. At the same time, understanding language is one of the main factors that make possible our self-awareness and creativity. Without language we would not be creatures are aware of themselves, and would live mainly in the here-and-now.

Language proficiency is necessary for symbolic enrichment of human life, to realize our own individual characteristics and practical skills to adapt to the environment. My parents, especially my mother and grandmother, understood this and actively attracted me to the language and cultural values. In early childhood my mother used to sing me the lullabies, grandmother read interesting tales and told fascinating stories. Thus, the process of my socialization took place with the growing up a sense of beauty and sense of language inside of me.

Social Inequality

Social inequality for many means economical-financial capabilities. To break this simple approach, here I will describe social differences to what extent people allow themselves to express their personalities. Personality for its public nature is active, particularly on the interests. However, regarding the requirements of others, dealing with activity is much more complicated.

Under the influence of society, state, traditions, public opinion, authority of elders, social group or its leader, under direct or indirect pressure from other people a person may adjust the own activity and to direct it in the direction of the requirements of those entities or public institutions to adapt some of the interests to the ones of others, become flexible, pliant, and even submissive, that is to take a relatively passive interests of other stance (Plummer 2016).

This form of expression position of the individual, which is characterized by passivity, uncritical, compliance, and opportunism regarding the influence on one is called conformism – an active attitude of the individual. There are several varieties of conformity. Let’s allocate three of them. Conformism can express:

1. adjustable relation of personality to the demands of the other, of course, authoritative, influential personality (personal-authoritarian conformism);
2. the same requirements of large, medium or small social group to which one belongs (internally group conformism);
3. the same relation to the requirements of society, its institutions, the dominant social groups, government (public or social conformity).

The concept of conformism often matched with the concept of non-conformism – a passive position in life of the individual. As for my position in life, it was very active. It’s forming accounts for the years of my youth. At that time I was already quite developed person in mental and social terms. I read a lot of books mainly of psychological and philosophical nature, was fond of the classics, often debated with my mother on various topics.

In addition, adolescence is a period when there is a sense of uniqueness, of individuality, in a negative variant occurs the opposite – a diffuse “I”, role and personal uncertainty. Typical for this phase is also “playing a role” when a young man does not choose the roles completely, and like trying them on yourself.

Social Institutions, Marriage and the Family, Education and Religion

The first social institution which affects the socialization of any human being is the family. For me family was the outpost which hosted my focused and harmonious development. It laid the foundations on which were built the house of my personality. It gave me those standards and principles which I have implied to all the important steps in my life.

The family as an important factor of socialization is a complex social phenomenon. It is the oldest natural rising community of people bound by blood. However - this is a small contact group of people who interact, a particular form of interaction. Finally, it is a special social institution governing the reproduction of man with the help of a special system of roles, norms, and organizational forms.

In our society the marriage and therefore the family is associated with monogamy (culturally approved sexual relationship between one woman and one man). Many other cultures tolerate or encourage polygamy, in which an individual may be married with two or more partners at the same time. During the postwar period the models of family life has undergone great changes. A large proportion of women currently included in the scope of the paid workforce, the number of divorces is growing, and a significant proportion of the population lives either in single-parent families or families with a stepfather or stepmother.

Cohabitation (when two people live together in extramarital sexual communication) is becoming a widespread phenomenon in many countries. Marriage has ceased to be the basis of the economic activities and condition of regular sexual relations. It is obvious that various forms of social and sexual relations will exist in the future. Marriage and family remain sustainable well-established institutions, although they have to withstand large stresses and strains. The character of the family clan structure is determined in the end of the socio-historical conditions.

The inequality of women in society entails inequality in the family. On the other hand, the development of democracy, rights, and freedoms of women lead to promotion of gender equality in the family. Family power may be based on traditional views on the economic experience or moral authority. Methods of providing a family of power are multi-faceted.

One of these methods is upbringing – the training of people to ensure that they can perform the necessary, useful activity. Sometimes contemporary works of processes of training and upbringing differentiate and even contradict each other. Upbringing is seen as a negative process of indoctrination education. In fact, these are two closely related sides of a single process of identity formation. In this respect it is useful to refer to the long history of education. Upbringing has always been considered almost the main mission of education: in the era of Antiquity, and in the age of Enlightenment, and in Modern times.

To continue, a specific and yet very important form of education is self-education of personality. Here the subject and object of education is one and the same person. In this case, the person is consciously trying to develop a certain human, in particular moral, volitional and physical qualities. Self-education usually carried out in parallel with such processes as self-examination, introspection, and self-education. In one word – it is together with the process of self-identity.

When society plays the role of the subject of educational activities, then this form of education is called the public. Public education is an indispensable tool in self-preservation and development of humanity, its civilization, material and spiritual culture. Therefore, each society creates and improves its education system.

The upbringing system includes its purpose (Abbott & Wilson 2015). The most common, that is to say, the integrative purpose of the educational activities of the society is to transmit a social and spiritual experience to a new generation of people, to prepare the new generation to a productive labour and other social activities. In relation to personality, the goal is to have socially important traits. Such shaping is carried out by hereditary of assimilation by the person of past experiences, the following active and conscious education of certain public functions in diverse areas of production, culture, and communication. If education aims to foster positive, socially important personality traits, then it is humanistic, progressive oriented. Humanistic education seeks to shape such a person, which would be highly developed in a spiritual, cultural and physical relationship.

In addition to the general objectives of education, there are other, more narrow, specific goals, set by society in general, and by social groups and individuals in particular. All of these goals interact in one way or another. However, educational processes may shape in the personality both positive and negative qualities. It depends in particular on the content and direction of those and other educational processes, their interactions, the specific conditions under which the personality lives and acts, from the worldview, the nature of beliefs, critical or non-critical attitude toward what she/he is told, from the totality of the interests.

In my family to the upbringing was given a great, and I would even say, a professional value. My mother, as an educator, was well aware that formed in childhood traits most often remain dominant throughout life. So she combined all-round development of the child with the upbringing in me a sense of responsibility for the actions. Indeed, a sense of autonomy and personal self-worth or shame is developed in early childhood.

The growth of an independent child at this stage sets in the future such qualities as the sense of responsibility, respect, discipline and order. Although now, from the standpoint of already nearly formed personality, I realize that I, as the first child in the family, has had much more freedom than responsibility, and this contributed to the formation of selfishness. I understand this and my parents, so when I was five years old, I had a brother. I still remember that feeling of passion when I, still a child, first picked him up. Since that time in my life appeared a man whom I should care.

I have new responsibilities, I often heard, sometimes not very pleasant words “you're the older sibling”. This contributed to the suppression of the ego, and the formation of a sense of responsibility for the fate of the other. f course at first I was jealous, because I did not like that the attention that once belonged to only me, now divided into two, and more often it goes to a little brother. However, now I already performed a different social role – the role of older sibling, and I all the more realized.

When I was three, I was sent to kindergarten. It was a totally different, new, social environment, and I had to find ways to adapt it. Since I was a very introverted kid, it was for me quite a challenge. As well as here to the process of my education were added people quite foreign to me, the leaders, and it was quite difficult to understand that now I have to obey not only mum. So first I went to kindergarten with displeasure. Since that time, I can talk about the formation of my social imagination.

The sociality of man is its relationship with the social community. Human sociality can be explained only through the study of the social relations of the individual with a variety of groups (classes, professional, settlement, demographic). Finally, the society oversees the implementation of man assumed the role in strict compliance with the defined role norms because it is through the concept of social role becomes clear the mechanism of occurrence of the individual in social life, or the mechanisms of socialization.

Thus, education as a social institution develops under conditions of constant contradictions of social needs and the state of education, and social needs of social groups in relation to education. Hence is the inconsistency of the institution, the gap between the elements, discrepancy of level of development of individual features, and the inconsistency of their implementation. As for religion, I would not tell too much, just make a remark that it is the central in my life and Jesus Christ is my Savior and my life guider. This influenced my sociological nature greatly. Everyone I socialize with remains with no doubt what is the most important part what occupied my heart and shaped my identity mostly.

Conclusions

Sociological imagination of a personality is comprised of quite many factors. Our status, a new social group - all contribute to the new changes in my consciousness, my further development as a person, imposes the new obligations and puts other, more complex, tasks. What are the ways of their solution depends only on us personally, from the necessary features formed in our character and features that are missing. After all, it is like the words of Protagoras: “Know thyself and thou shalt know the world”.