Grant 1

Abby Grant

Ms. Jackson

ENG3U

10 June 2019

Identity:

An Annotated Bibliography

CrashCourse. “Personal Identity: Crash Course Philosophy #19.” ​YouTube​, YouTube, 27 June

2016, ​www.youtube.com/watch?v=trqDnLNRuSc

This Crash Course episode explores self identity and the possible theories and

explanations to what defines one’s personal identity. The ideas this video went over were

the

body theory, which suggests that one’s personal identity is the same over time because a

person stays in the same body for their whole life, and the memory theory, which suggests

personal identity is the same over time because one retains memories at different points

which all connect to the previous memories. It’s unsure which theory is true and depends on

personal opinion and how one thinks they should live their life. This source is informative

and helps the audience learn about what identity is, and helps them develop their own

theories and beliefs. This video made me think about how I define self identity and what

theory I believe in, and changed my view on what determines one’s identity through the

thought experiment created by ​Bernard Williams​. This experiment taught me that I associate

beliefs, memories and personality with identity rather than the physical body.

Joyce. “Finding Identity.” ​Finding Identity « Joyce | This I Believe​, 22 Mar. 2011,

www.thisibelieve.org/essay/96303/
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Finding Identity​ tells the story of Joyce, a teenager trying to figure out her identity.

She explains her childhood and the loneliness she felt as she labeled her identity as “a loner

with no backbone, desperately trying to fit in.” (Joyce, 2) Once she moved in middle school

she tried desperately to change her identity and become loud and popular, which seemed to

work but she was still lonely. Joyce came to the conclusion that her identity is both of these

versions of herself, and it’s still developing today as she gets older and continues to

comprehend who she is. This essay was a good example of how identity changes in real life

situations, which particularly appeals to me, as a teen. The idea of changing identity to fit in,

or to be who you want others to like is a big problem in teens, which is highlighted in this

essay. The fact that someone can change into a whole different person if they want to

displays that identity can be changed, but parts of one’s previous identity will always follow.

Mike Williams. “The Why Factor: Identity.” Bbc.co.uk, 1 Apr. 2016,

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03nzsw2

The episode of The Why Factor podcast, Identity, goes into detail about how

people make assumptions based on identity, and how everyone changes their identity

depending on the situation they’re in. A woman being interviewed explained how she

changes her identity based on who’s around her, and later the idea of everyone having an

actor inside of them is introduced. This means that nobody is exactly themselves at all

times, humans are different from how they wake up in the morning to how they present

themselves to others depending on who they need to be in certain circumstances.

Something that opened my eyes was the fact that people tend to introduce themselves with

their name and their job rather than who they really are (beliefs, experiences, memories).

This shows that people identify themselves with something their parents gave them, their

name, and something they chose, their career.

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Shields, Carol. “Dressing Up for the Carnival.” ​The New York Times​, The New York Times,

archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/first/s/shields-carnival.html

Dressing Up for the Carnival ​is a book containing short stories, the chapter titles

“Dressing Up for the Carnival” describes the characters and their identities or what people

see of them. The characters go from being bold and confident, to characters who hide who

they are and only present their true identity in the presence of themselves. This source,

although a fictional story, is very accurate to our society. A lot of people hide their true

identities because they’re afraid of what people may think, but there’s also individuals who

share all of their personality to the world. The diversity of identity and how different types of

people handle and understand it is demonstrated in this short story. This shaped my way of

thinking about identity by making me wonder what part of myself I don’t show, and changes

how I view other people. If some people don’t show their true identity, will they ever be truly

understood?

Castro, Jason. “Where Does Identity Come From?” Scientific American, 28 May 2013,

www.scientificamerican.com/article/where-does-identity-come-from/

This article features an experiment done by Julia Freund and her colleagues

trying to figure out where identity comes from. Researchers used 40 genetically identical

mice and monitored their behavior for 30 days. They measured the mice’s “roaming entropy”

which essentially is how much one gets out. While some mice had a low roaming entropy,

meaning they didn’t do much, there were some mice who had a higher roaming entropy.

This proved that this is a trait that develops over time, therefore one’s identity changes over

time. Although all these mice were technically identical at the beginning, through time some

mice advanced to be more ​exploratory. This source shows that everyone’s lives develop

differently, and one’s identity changes depending on the decisions they make.
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