IDENTITY AS CENTRAL TO BEHAVIOR

We Act On Who We Think We Are

It first occurred to me in context of sexuality that people’s thinking (particularly ideological and paradigmatic conceptions) is based on identity, not facts or evidence or logic or science or even just belief. This was back in the late 1980s and early 1990s when I was thinking about a lot of identity-centered concepts, not just sexuality, but also so-called race and ethnicity. More recently I am somewhat gratified to find my conclusions confirmed by others scientifically, and more broadly in connection with values, decisions of all kinds, and visceral responses.

Quite obviously, identity is who we believe we are across the board. Are we the kind of people who do this or that? Does this attitude align with who I am and what I want others to think about me? Does my identity look phat in this outfit?

What struck me back in the 20th century, however, was the vehemence with which some people insisted something is or isn’t genetic without really looking at or seeking evidence. Likewise, I could not wrap my mind around why persons without a dog in a fight so to speak felt so strongly about what others were doing, how they were living. If someone wants to wear certain clothes or practice rituals and such, what did it matter to others who were not raised or inclined to do so?

Back then, it dawned on me others’ behavior is often seen as a challenge, as a measure or critique of our own. This is, of course, self-imposed. We can turn it off. Growing up, we find ourselves often measuring ourselves against others, trying to figure out our place in the family and in the world generally: This is our identity. At some point, however, it strikes me as natural to let go of that. Part of “growing up,” in the sense of maturing developmentally, is coming to terms with ourselves and seeing relationships more rationally, right? Oh, but it is not so!

I pause here to say I am surprised in putting this together for myself as part of my own process, my own negotiation with my self-understanding, that the awareness isn’t more widespread and, as common knowledge, more commonly acted upon in our thinking about matters and in our discussions.

What I mean specifically is that seldom during a conversation or even when considering a matter by ourselves does someone say or even reflect, “This is who I am, what I am saying, but is it really who I ought to be?” I pause to reflect on the fact that I myself, having thought about this in some contexts, have failed in others to change my behavior and my responses consistently. Now, having reviewed a fair amount of the latest research, I know this is just how we, as humans, work.

More on that, when I have had a chance to consider it thoroughly, in light of a new identity I am test driving and buying into here.

More broadly, identity is also the reason why change generally causes opposition. Continuing to use stupid phones and wearing peculiar fashions from an earlier misguided era can evoke emotional responses. Nostalgia can be ugly. But no one wants to feel lost or displaced, alienated in one’s own skin, and that is precisely what happens when our familiar references get lost through change.

Also, part of comfort is feeling equal if not superior. We need to explore that more in depth, too, at another time. For now, it may be sufficient to remark that it goes beyond expectations of minimal respect for our boundaries. The same as we measure ourselves against each other, react to the differences and accept some and reject others, all for reasons leading back to who we think we are, we also slip into orientations of behavior to others, holding them in esteem or contempt, the simplest range consisting of positive response, negative response, or neutral, no response at all.

Another way of understanding one’s mindset towards others and how one feels in the world is what the default reaction is to something that occurs outside expectations.

To elaborate, an analogy I use in many different contexts, and it occurs to me now how apt it is: When we misplace our keys, glasses, cell phone, spouse, we slip into the possibility someone else has stolen the thing. There are malevolent actors out there ready to take our things. Yes, no, it is not just that we have forgotten where we left them, not our own carelessness.

I have used this to explain the ineptitude of large organizations, such as my bank or phone companies, any human institution, when the processes seem to impede the purpose. These organizations and the persons caught up in the process are not doing anything intentionally malicious most of the time. They are simply inept or careless. Their processes are not intentionally byzantine. The people who designed them simply lacked the ability to foresee the boondoggles and confusions, like in the kids’ game telephone or the way religions twist textual interpretation so creatively.

The tendency to believe someone took the thing you misplaced smacks of paranoia. I myself have slipped into this: A Mont Blanc pen in Hawaii, later found in another pocket. Housekeeping did not take it after all. Another instance, keys in South Pasadena when I was also in a troubled relationship, found in a likely place after much ado. Emotional states can often shed light on the mind’s tendencies. However, in the moment, we seldom give proper weight to the psychology of our circumstances. We just go with the emotional flow.

Believing someone is out to get us or take from us is part and parcel with the kind of reasoning errors ideological identity thinkers make. “These others with their different behaviors and attitudes intend to replace me and my kind. After all, they are always ready to steal the things I misplace in my frenzied state of mind, are they not?”

After all, we are never the kind of people who misplace things or worry chronically about trivial differences. These differences must be an “existential” threat. It is easy for demagogues and grifters to step right up and fan the hysteria which is always there in a changing world, but all the more so when basic needs such as health care and even subsistence are not guaranteed by the community we are trying to belong to. Our laws enable exploitation not infrequently and the powerful are constantly taking advantage of the disadvantaged majority.

What has occurred to me over the years is how all these common mistakes of reasoning happen: In certain situations, such as misplacing an item and attributing malicious agency rather than far more probably our own carelessness; and also in serious matters involving politics and why our lives turn out the way they do.

Both have to do with identity. I am, for instance, not the guy who misplaced the importance of purchasing precious coffee and bought a rope instead. Or am I?

I must work on this more. We all ought to consider who we are, and who we ought to become, and how change actually happens.