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Multiple identities and the integration of personality
1Harvard University, Department of Health and Social Behavior, Harvard School of Public Health, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA.
Journal of Personality
|September 1, 1995
Summary
People manage multiple, contradictory identities using a grammar-like system of self-symbols and metaphors. This model explains how a deep structure generates diverse identity patterns, integrating personality through organized contradiction.
Area of Science:
- Psychology
- Linguistics
- Anthropology
- Cognitive Science
Background:
- Individuals often present multiple, contradictory self-representations in life-history interviews.
- Existing models struggle to explain the integration of these diverse identities.
Purpose of the Study:
- To outline a generative model for understanding how multiple identities are simultaneously defined and integrated.
- To propose a grammar-like system of self-symbols and metaphors as the basis for identity formation.
Main Methods:
- Drawing on generative theories from linguistics, anthropology, and music.
- Utilizing study-of-lives interviews from urban America and rural Morocco.
- Analyzing the role of multistable symbols in reversible self-representations.
Main Results:
- A unitary deep structure, configurable into multiple surface structures, accounts for identity diversity.
- Identity is conceptualized as a dialogic or fugue-like structure of opposed voices.
- Multistable symbols anchor reversible self-representations, integrating personality as organized contradiction.
Conclusions:
- The proposed model provides a framework for understanding personality as a system of organized contradiction.
- The musical analogy highlights connections to cognitive science and state integration theories of personality development.
- This approach offers insights into the dynamic and integrated nature of self-representation.