Definition of

Personal identity

Individuality

Personal identity is built from the bond that the subject establishes with himself.

Identity is a term that comes from Late Latin identĭtas , in turn derived from Latin idem . The concept can refer to the set of characteristics that are characteristic of a person or a group. The awareness that an individual has of himself is also called identity.

The idea of ​​staff , meanwhile, has several uses. In this case, we are interested in its meaning as that which is linked to a person or that belongs to them.

From these definitions, we can focus on the notion of personal identity . It can be said that it is an individual construction that arises from the bond that a subject establishes with himself , recognizing himself as an autonomous entity and relating to others according to this self-perception .

The question of personal identity

The concept of personal identity is often the subject of debate and even philosophical reflection. It is understood that personal identity is something that a human being maintains over time, beyond the changes they go through over the months, years or decades.

Many thinkers dedicated themselves to analyzing what conditions must be present to affirm that there is an invariable line inside the person. What is attempted is to determine what must be recognized in the psyche, conduct , behavior, etc., to maintain that an individual is the same at one time and another.

Within this framework, issues associated with both synchrony and diachrony are examined. There are characteristics that define the subject at a given moment but not at others, while various features are preserved without modifications.

Mirror

Personal identity is related to self-perception.

individuality

Personal identity is what makes individuality . In other words: it is what allows us to point out that a person is someone specific ( Juan Gómez , and not Mariano Pérez or Carlos Álvarez , to mention one possibility ).

Of course, this transcends the physical. It is clear that each human being has certain bodily characteristics, mostly given by biology but which are also linked to the environment. Personal identity does not have to do with the body or genetics, but with the person's self-perception and the meaning that they construct within themselves.

Adolescence and personal identity

It is usually indicated that personal identity establishes the plot that a subject “writes” inside, where values, experiences and other factors come into play. By positioning itself in a certain place, it delimits its membership in certain groups and develops socially according to its parameters .

Psychologists point out that adolescence is a key stage in the formation of personal identity. There, physical changes are combined with emotional and social transformations that, as the young person matures, shape their personality. In this way, when you reach adulthood, you already have your personal identity established. In this process, a search is carried out and experimentation is carried out until those traits are achieved that become characteristic of the being and are preserved even when modifications and evolution do not stop.