Self-identityA B C D E F G H IJKL M N O P R S T U VXYZWSymptoms and Defence Mechanisms. We are
not usually aware of the operation of these
processes. The Defence Mechanisms (for
example: Repression, Denial, identification,
Sublimation, projection) in particular can be
seen to have consequences for the study of social
interaction and for the analysis of responses to
mass media messages (see transactional
analysis).
Another perspective offered by Anthony
Giddens in Modernity and Self-Identity (Polity
Press, 1991) considers the impact of societal
infl uences upon the formation of self-identity.
Giddens defi nes self-identity in the conditions
of late modernity as ‘the self as reflexively
understood by the person in terms of his or
her biography’. Whilst self-identity is seen as
normally having a degree of continuity, it is ‘such
continuity as interpreted refl exively by the agent’.
Self-identity also involves cognitive awareness
of the self: ‘To be a “person” is not just to be a
refl exive actor, but to have a concept of a person.’
Self-identity is an integral element of the self-
concept.
Further, Giddens agues that ‘a person’s identity
is not to be found in behaviour, nor – important
though it is – in the reactions of others, but in
the capacity to keep a particular narrative going’;
a narrative that enables us to make sense of
ourselves. intrapersonal communication
clearly also plays a crucial role in this process as
we refl ect on our everyday encounters.
Giddens identifi es four infl uences evident in
the structure of post-traditional societies which
create the plurality of choices that make diffi cult
the struggle of maintaining a coherent self-
identity, and which make necessary a project
of self. Identities can only be achieved through
choice – ‘we have no choice but to choose’ –
given that much of the tradition which allowed
them to be ascribed or indicated has lost its hold.
Individuals inhabit a ‘pluralization of life-
worlds’ in which they have to present a number
of different identities as they move from one
social sphere to another, often negotiating diff er-
ing expectations of their behaviour as they do so.
What Giddens terms ‘methodological doubt’ is
yet another feature of late modernity; certainty
is seen as fragile as truth is seen as contextual
and authority and reason provisional. ‘Mediated
experience’ is seen to be at the heart of social life.
Th rough the mass media and travel, a vast range
of ‘lifeworlds’ are presented to audiences, thus
increasing the range of options available in the
construction of identities.
Further, such identities have to be adjustedday-to-day control and the appropriate employ-
ment of personae. In a similar vein, Eric M.
Eisenberg writes of ‘the “multiplicity of selves”
that each one of us may perform at any given
moment’ (‘Building a mystery: toward a new
theory of communication and identity’, Journal
of Communication, 534–52, 2001).
As Kath Woodward comments in Understand-
ing Identity (Arnold, 2002), ‘identity involves
the interrelationship between the personal and
the social; between what I feel inside and what
is known about me from the outside’. Psycho-
analytic theories such as those of Freud and
Jung focus more on internal processes and the
confl ict between inner desires and the demands
of others, of society. Th ese theories view much
of our behaviour as infl uenced by forces within
the unconscious. Self-knowledge is therefore
limited and self-identity partial, provisional and
vulnerable to fracture.
For Freud there is an inevitable conflict
between what he argued are the three compo-
nents of an individual’s personality: the id, the
ego and the superego. The id reacts to basic
biological instincts and operates on the Pleasure
Principle, in that it encourages behaviour that
seeks pleasure and avoids pain.
The ego, according to Richard D. Gross in
Psychology: Th e Science of Mind and Behaviour
(Hodder Arnold, 2005), can be ‘described as
the “executive” of the personality, the planning,
decision-making, rational and logical part of us’.
Th e ego operates on the Reality Principle. It is
concerned with the social consequences of our
behaviour and the resulting judgments others
would make. Th us it seeks to control infl uences
from the id that would, if acted on, result in
social criticism or rejection.
Th e superego contains our ideas about what is
morally right or wrong. It also seeks to control
infl uences from the id, through the ego, if they
are likely to result in behaviour of which our own
superego would disapprove. The ego may on
occasions counsel against behaviour in line with
the superego’s demands.
Richard Gross comments, ‘the ego, the person’s
conscious self, is caught in the middle of oppos-
ing sets of demands, it is the battleground on
which three opposing factions (reality, the id and
the superego) fi ght for supremacy’. Th e id lies in
the unconscious part of the mind, whilst parts of
the ego and superego are in the conscious and
parts in the unconscious mind.
Th e ego mediates between these factions to
obtain a compromise and, according to Freud,
is aided by three processes: Dreams, Neurotic