Week 1 // Identity: What is It?

I, like many other people, enjoy finding out more about my so-called self through the act of taking quizzes. There's something oddly comforting in the act of taking a Buzzfeed quiz, even if it reveals some of the most artificial, generalized, and possibly outrageous aspects of a person. I also feel as if this applies to the widely-popular Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, although much more methodical (and somewhat more accurate) in nature.

I'm no stranger to the MBTI, having taken it at least 3-5 times over the past couple of years for a number of reasons. Each time I've taken it my results have come back as ENTP, or what 16Personalities designates as the "Debater." Extroverted? Check. Intuitive? Sounds about right. Thinking? Yes! Perceiving (prospective)? Totally. For the most part, I'd like to think that these tests have been pretty accurate in assessing my personality type. Why would I argue against them after they told me that I was among the ranks of the lovable Jim Halpert and Tom Hanks, the cerebral minds of Thomas Edison and Mythbuster's Adam Savage, and the wacky yet witty Captain Jack Sparrow?

Once again, how can I argue with this?

That being said, I believe that these tests, along with other types of zodiac/astrology quizzes, play into people's need for belonging. In this case, people's need to belong to some concrete form of personal or social identity. However, as British philosopher Julian Baggini said in his presentation, our identities are "a process...fluid, [and] forever changing." The idea that our definition of "self" is stagnant and easily definable from just a set of limiting, scientifically-inconsistent questions is simply, in my opinion, short-sighted. Our personalities (and resulting identities) are ultimately abstract in essence. Therefore, we are all unique in ways that a primarily-binary assessment system can't necessarily categorize in its broad, generalized structure.

I think that a better model for the understanding of how our identities are shaped is not the nature vs. nurture debate, but instead a compromise: the emerging study of behavioral epigenetics.

As an identical twin myself, I have firsthand experience with the possibility of epigenetics influencing the social and emotional development of my sister and me. My younger brothers are also identical twins, essentially giving me two separate experiences to share and reflect on (yes, two sets of twins in one family...what are the odds?). Given that both sets of us are identical, you'd expect that each set of twins have similar personalities and interests considering that we were born with the same DNA as each other, right? Well, not exactly.

Although neither set of us ended up like the case of Lucky Lyle and Troubled Tim, each of us developed our own identity. My sister is a much more introverted person with interests in mechanics and computer systems, while I ended up being more extroverted with interests in biology and music, among other things. In regard to my brothers, one of them ended up being introverted with more typically-masculine interests such as playing baseball and joining the military, while the other became more extroverted with an interest in the arts. Seeing that we all grew up in the same household, I'm concluding that our identities were formed by factors outside of the home, such as respective groups of friends, extracurriculars, and other social pressures.

This leads me to the idea that there is no "real me," or at least a version of me that is set in stone. If this were the case, my sister and I would have grown up to be the same person. Instead, I believe that my "self" is an ever-changing collection resulting from everything I've been exposed to in my eighteen years of life, along with my own personal motives and morals. Using Baginni's words, I believe that we can "shape, channel, and change" ourselves, depending on the things and people we choose to associate with.