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Alejandro Gomez

Professor Jennifer Rodrick

English 115 Fr. 2:00-3:45

24 October 2017

Identity & Nurture

From the moment when a baby takes its first breath in this world, everything in their life

will be affected by their surrounding environment. This influence can affect the person with a

positive or negative outcome; regardless, the outcome will then go on into shaping their identity.

The act of being influenced by the surrounding environment contributes to shaping one's person-

ality, or in other words, forming their identity. Furthermore, a person's upbringing can also con-

tribute to shaping them as an individual dramatically. This "space" is important, because if one

has a bad upbringing it may not be beneficial into shaping their identity. Many people's identities

come from their living situation all the way to adapting to society "Bandwagon". The "space"

around a person varies from place to place, every place has their own hobbies or religion, result-

ing in shaping them into who they are, this including parental upbringing, as well as teens being

pressured to fit in, which can be the ultimate factor in shaping one's identity.

The general question is "Who am I?" But first, one must be aware of their surroundings,

hence, being able to answer the question: "Where am I from?" - every place in the world "geog-

raphy" plays a roll in a persons' identity, thus relating back to the environment, and its roll in

shaping people into who they are. For instance, this website source states that "All religions in-

cluding their rituals, scriptures, and sacred days and gathering places, each religion gives its fol-
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lowers instructions for how human beings should act toward one another" (Religion and Iden-

tity). This quote states that every place has its own religion; nevertheless every religion has their

own beliefs that have their followers imitate. Since every religion is different in all parts of the

world it can distinguish that religion plays a major role in creating someone's identity. If one is

not satisfied by who they are due to their religion they can easily change their practice or form a

new religion. This helps prove that identity can be influenced based on religion by the area you

live in geographically.

Besides different parts of the world having different religions, hobbies you take in help

shape who you are as a person. An excerpt from the article How Sports Help in Growing your

Personality? claims that, "Sports do not build character. They reveal it". Relating to the topic this

quote helps elaborate on how hobbies such as sports can play a significant role in shaping your

personality. Someone's personality is a huge player in their identity. Sports can teach you things

other influential subjects can not. This hobby opens ups new portals for your identity to grasp for

some characteristics to help shape it. Playing sports helps you see things in another perspective

of being under pressure. It shows your identity leadership and teamwork. It does this by helping

you build character for your identity when one takes control of themselves and their team to be

successful on the field. In the long run, this identity skills can help a person be successful. This

ability to play sports is another major role player in shaping someone's identity.

Significantly important as hobbies, being under the act of adapting to society or getting

on the bandwagon leads to form one's identity. For example, identity-shaping can be seen in the

teenager stage of someone's life. The teenage years are the most important and confusing years

for one's identity. During the teenage years, they face factors such as peer pressure, the media,

and the urge to fit in. Child Psychologist Allen Kanner, Ph.D., says, "Teens want to identify with
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their peer group and in a certain sense, that is a vulnerability," Kanner is implying that teens are

liable for their peers' approval, thus changing themselves to fit in. Teenage years are years of in-

security in which it makes them want to imitate one another to be considered cool. Following the

crowd leads teens to either making the right decisions for associating with the good kinds of peo-

ple, or them going the other direction that influences them to make wrong decisions. Being a

teenager reflects on situations from wanting to join the bandwagon to fit in as well as the house-

hold they are being raised in.

Moreover, peoples' identity starts from once they are young and are greatly impacted

when they are growing up. In many cases like the website eschooltoday.com shows, "Bad up-

bringing at home can make people insensitive to other people's feelings and emotions. They are

happy to see their classmate depressed, sad and hurt". This helps prove that the upbringing of

someone can greatly impact their identity. Namely, this can be seen in cases in which when a

child is growing up in a household that is full of negativity. Growing up in a bad upbringing can

really shape a person to being disturbed and the only cure for them is to be a menace to others.

Another example of how an upbringing has a great impacted on identity is showed in the video

of Liliesarelike. This video says that "They feel so bad that they want other people to feel bad

too". This praise from the video states that upbringing effects one's identity. In this example, the

upbringing is coming from a bad household which means that bully or a kid that comes from a

home where they are possibly mistreated tends to make the bully or kid mistreat other in relief

for their grieving at home. Therefore, these examples help illustrate that the raising of someone

can dramatically influence their identity into some bad if they are coming from a bad household.
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In conclusion, the space around a person varies from location to location, every place has

their own hobbies or religion, resulting in shaping them into who they are, this including parental

upbringing as teens and them being pressured to fit in, which can be the ultimate factor in shap-

ing one's identity. Being induced by the religion you practice based on the region you live in

plays a major role, because it shows how you live your life of the belief of the religion. As well

as how to the religion shapes your identity into you having a way of treating others out of the re-

spect of your practice. Significantly as important, hobbies as well play a major role. These hob-

bies can consist of sports. Sports help teach our identity things other influential subjects cannot

or at least nothing compared to sports. Sports open up another portal to someone's identity is a

way that can be shaped. Also, the Teenage years of an adolescent is a critical time for everyone

because that the time in which they are confused on who they are and they are trying so hard to

fit in with the crowd. Being as critical as the teenage years but parental upbringing is also an-

other major factor in how one shapes their identity. Identity starts at home on how the way you

are raised. Being raised in a good manner leads you to become a good person. However, if one

grows up with a bad upbringing them they are likely to have a negative attitude towards life to

please their distress. Overall, these are major role players in peoples everyday lives that "space'

had taken to create an identity for each and every person. This starts form uniqueness due to ones

ability to have hobbies or similarities based on religion and trying fitting in.

Work Cited

"Driving teen ego - - and buying - - through branding'." American Psychological Association,
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Vol 35, No. 6, June 2004, pp. 60, http://www.apa.org/monitor/jun04/driving.aspx

Gopinath, Govind. "How Sports Help in Growing your Personality?." BeAnInspirer, 22 Mar.

2017, https://www.beaninspirer.com/how-sports-help-in-growing-your-personality/

"Religion and Identity." Facing History and Ourselves,

https://www.facinghistory.org/holocaust-and-human-behavior/chapter-1/religion-and-

identity

"Why do people Bully?." Liliesarelike, 16 Nov. 2014, Youtube,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dz2Itp29PMI