People need labels. Not in the same way we label packages or objects.
We tend to label ourselves so that we can make sense of the vast array of thoughts floating around in our own minds. Labels help us to make sense of ourselves.
We also tend to label others in ways that make sense to our own worldview. It makes sense to put certain people in categories or definitions.
When introductions are made, we ask about who a person is and use that information to try and place people in categories.
At a work party, people will often identify themselves by what part of the company they work in.
In other settings like a wedding or other family based event, people will identify themselves by how they are related to the bride or groom or where they fall in the family tree.
Self-imposed labels are often context specific.
If a woman in a neutral setting introduces herself as a Doctor, Mother, and a Catholic it is a fair supposition (even if inaccurate) to think that her priorities will also fall in that order.
In other words, she sees herself as a Doctor first, a Mother second, and a Catholic third.
Regardless of accuracy, that is the message being sent.
Take some time to think about how you think about yourself and the message you send every time someone asks you who you are.
Who are you really? What is most important to you? Are your priorities in line with how you introduce yourself?
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December 19, 2011 at 9:15 am
mistah charley, ph.d.
David, I hope you are willing to entertain a contrasting thought about your example. I agree completely that, at different kinds of settings, people using different descriptors to identify themselves – at a wedding, their relationship to the happy couple (the last wedding I attended, I was the husband of a work colleague of the bride), for example. However, I disagree with your example of the descriptors someone might use about themselves at a “neutral setting”.
1) What is a “neutral setting”? Could a setting be “neutral” for someone present, and non-neutral for someone else present? An example that comes to my mind right away – a gathering in which everyone present, other than yourself, is a different race than you are. For them, it may be neutral – for you, it possibly may not be neutral, even if you are completely comfortable. Or it is a “neutral” setting – except that everyone present, other than you, has known each other for twenty years, and you are a complete stranger.
2) Since whether or not a setting is “neutral” can be shown to be person-specific, the order in which someone names three self-descriptors might a)reflect their own personal interpretation of the situation b)reflect their own understanding of what matters to the other people present, c)might conceivably be ordered in some other way than “sorted by importance, most important first.” For example, the woman who is a “Doctor, Mother, and Catholic” might be sorting these three attributes as “most recent first” – she’s been a Catholic all her life, let’s suppose, she became a mother at some point, and after that she became a doctor – I know someone like that, actually.