COUNSELLING PSYCHOPLOGY SKILLS AND ASSESSMENT

Social Identity
Identities:
 These might be prescribed to you by birth order. For example - Female, Upper-
Middle class, Muslim, British - Asian, Bengali, Lesbian.
 Identities can be fluid and they might change depending on your social environment.  
You might be poor in one neighbourhood and when you move to the next you might
be the richest.  Or you might be part of a majority group when you live in your host
country - when you migrate to another foreign country - you become part of a
minority group.  
 So focus on your identity today - as you see it.  

Social Identity Wheel.

Social Identity categories and examples include but are not limited to:
 Race: White, Black, Hispanic, Asian, Biracial/Multiracial
 Ethnicity: Indian, American, Dutch, French, Indian-American, Asian- British - Arab
 Sexual Orientation: Heterosexual, Bisexual, Lesbian, Gay, Queer, Questioning
 Religion or Spiritual Affiliation: Christian, Hindu, Muslim, Christian, Sikh, B,
Agnostic, Atheist
 Socioeconomic Class: Upper class, upper-middle class, middle class, working class,
poor
 Gender:  Man, Woman, Transgender, Gender Queer
 Sex: Male, Female, Intersex
 National Origin: India, United States, Japan, Ireland, England, Palestinian/Moroccan
 Physical/psychological/mental/Learning ability: Able bodied, living with a disability,
living with chronic disease
 Age: Young adult, middle age adult, adolescent, child, senior/elder
 Others: Burbs, Town, Urban, Rural, caste etc.

After you have completed the wheel, please reflect and answer the questions below:
1) List the identities you think about most often. With the current situation in the whole world
I think mostly about Age…but passed on what is happing in the country of KSA, I often think
about the ethnicity
2) List the identities you think about the least often.
Sex, sexual orientation, gender

Social identities (definition):

Primarily group identities, aspects of ourselves where we belong to a particular group. Social
identities are shaped by common history, shared experiences, legal and historical decisions,
and day-to-day interactions.

Salient social identity: is one that you think about most often and that impacts how you view
the world.

Reflect back on the social identity wheel and the identities that you thought about most often
and that others shared as identities you thought of most often.

Please answer the questions below:

1. Why might you think more about some of your group identities than others?
2. What experiences lead you to think so often about the identities that are most salient for
you?