Week 11 Blog Post

Social Identity Theory

How we identify ourselves

A perspective on identity that considers the influence of internal and external factors in coming to an understanding of the self. In short, this theory suggests that our identity is composed of the various group memberships of which we claim to be a part.

(Bowman, 2021)

Reflecting on Social Identity Theory I must agree that I do attribute my identity to the groups that I belong. The most important group I identify with is my faith. I am a Christian. My identity is first in Christ. It is the most important identification I can make. Other groups that identify with are important and I will talk about them more in this post, but as a Christian we are warned not to place too much importance on interests, hobbies, and the like. If we do they can become idols or gods (little g) to us, pushing God (big G) to the side.

Other groups I identify are the tribe I call media lovers. What I mean is people who get very involved different media genres. For example, I am a fan of anime, Nintendo gaming franchises, and especially classic children’s programming like the Smurfs and Care Bears. I highly admire older children’s programming like old school Sesame Street, Mr. Rogers, and more recent programming like Blue’s Clues and Teletubies. I spend a lot of my free time hanging out on Discord chatting with fellow media maniacs like myself chatting about our favorite shows, writers, creators, and episodes. I also love attending Comicon’s that are featuring special guests who were either voice actors or creators of my favorite shows. Believe it or not, When I was in France last spring for a skating competition, we made a side trip to Belgium where I cold called on Peyo, the company that owns the Smurfs brand, and pitched them on an idea for a new reboot of the original classic series (true story!)

The last group I identify is my ice theatre team, Virginia Ice Theatre. VIT has had an adaptive team that has done really well. My first year skating with the team we won Bronze at the national championship event. Every year after that we have won Gold -yep, 4 gold medals. I enjoy the companionship of my teammates, coaches and mentor skaters. The last two years I was the team captain. Being on the team has also really challenged me. There are times when I disagree with the coaches and I have had to learn how to be coachable.