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Key points
- The popular understanding of identity has taken on political meanings that obscure its psychological function.
- All aspects of identity are important. Hyperfocus on one or two aspects devalues the others.
- Constricted perceptions of identity create tragic suffering, ameliorated only by expanding your identity.
- When feeling anxious or resentful, identify with your basic humanity, your capacity for compassion, kindness.
The popular understanding of identity has taken on social and political meanings that obscure its psychological and cognitive functions.
Identity helps organize conscious thoughts, feelings, and behavior choices. It’s built upon (and generates) beliefs and attitudes, maintained by confirmation bias—cherry-picking evidence that supports the beliefs or attitudes, while overlooking or dismissing disconfirming evidence.
A wild card that can easily confuse us in regard to identity is a property of mental focus. Focus amplifies and magnifies importance; whatever we focus on becomes more important than everything else.
Most people with angst experience an identity that does not result from content—what we identify with. Rather, emotional distress results from misinterpreting the functional properties of identity as an organizer of conscious thoughts, while oblivious to the amplified importance of mental focus. Understanding the functions of identity and mental focus allows us to choose what to focus on, in accordance with what is truly most important about us. Better still, it affords a broader, richer, and more resilient sense of self.
The Heartache of Narrow Identity
All aspects of identity are important. A narrow range of identity devalues its other aspects. In my long clinical experience, clients with narrow or constricted identities suffer anxiety, rigidity, depression, and, in extreme cases, a fragmented sense of self.
It’s important not to take anything away from your identity and just as important to give it a solid foundation. I’ve found it clinically useful to help clients picture their identity as a pyramid, with foundational bottom rungs. (Please imagine the following in the shape of a pyramid.)
Race/Ethnicity
Group affiliation
Experiences
Talents/Skills
Ideology/Beliefs/Faith
Character
Basic Humanity
The Foundation: Basic Humanity and Character
Basic humanity is a sense of connection with all humans. It increases respect, appreciation, compassion, and kindness. Identifying with basic humanity alleviates the feelings of isolation that are integral to most psychological distress. It humanizes perceptions of others and culls the negative judgments of self and others that produce so much anxiety and resentment. When in touch with basic humanity, we automatically like ourselves better and treat others humanely.
Character consists of mental and moral qualities (examples: honesty, flexibility, humility, resilience, generosity, accountability), in addition to personality and temperament. In short, it’s how we tend to think, feel, and behave.
Identifying with any of the upper rungs of the pyramid, at the expense of the foundation, causes prolonged stress or dysphoria. Most of the ideological and cultural strife in the world (not to mention hate) stems from hyperfocus on any of the upper rungs while violating the foundation.
The same culture wars that have devolved public discourse into name-calling and pejorative adjectives can destabilize individual identity by making it reactive and narrow. They make us behave uncharacteristically and violate our basic humanity.
The Way Out
Whenever you feel anxious, depressed, or resentful invoke your basic humanity and exercise your capacity for compassion, kindness, and appreciation. You will automatically become more tolerant and respectful of others. Most importantly, you’ll enjoy an enhanced sense of self, invulnerable to harsh self-judgments and any disrespectful regard by others.
