Identity as a Subject of Psychological Research

Abstract

The concept of identity, despite its frequent use in contemporary humanitarian discourse, is characterized by ambiguity and variety of approaches to its interpretation. The article deals with the peculiarities of understanding the phenomenon of identity in the context of social psychology, gender sociology, psychoanalysis, existential humanistic psychology. It also contains an analysis of the interrelation between the notion of identity and the content-related notion of self-consciousness of the individual. Identity is viewed as a sense of a person’s own uniqueness, uniqueness of their life experience, their own integrity and identity in time. Identity is a relatively stable inner awareness of one’s own continuity and self-identity, which performs adaptive unctions. Due to self-identity, a person has the opportunity to see their life in terms of its length, organic interweaving of the past, the present and the future.