NURUL AISYAH BINTI MOHAMAD (1714632)

CHAPTER TWO

LITERATURE REVIEW

Identity can be classified as one of the vital components in portraying oneself due

to its relation to the possession of one person’s life morals and life values. It is well

noted that identity affects the way people behave in their daily lives around other

people and their choices to live their own lives. Numerous past studies about identity

have been conducted, but most of them solely focus on the formation of identity

among adolescents instead of the arising crises that most people, regardless of their

age face in forming their identity. Both of the studies can be regarded as

complementary to each other because both are into the same purposes, which is to

figure out one’s personal choices in their life. Ergo, the latter study is regarded as the

most crucial part in exploring how identity drives people’s beliefs and values. This is

because, the former study focuses on the developmental process of identity while the

latter covers all aspects that lead people to be who they are. Meaning to say that, the

latter study focuses on the environmental process of one’s identity formation, which is

the social contexts that are derived by the friendship, family, religion as well as

educational level.

Despite having numerous of scholarly works on identity and the crisis of identity,

it can be seen that most of the papers only talk about the historical and theoretical

aspects of identity with the least number of empirical aspect is being conducted

especially among the Muslim youths. Therefore, this chapter will be concentrating on

some related findings as well as highlighting the gap that this paper will fill.

Identity and Importance of Identity in Life

 Identity is described in various perspectives according to one’s field and

specialities. It is mentioned by Adam and Marshall (1996) that identity can be fully

understood by concentrating the concept of self-hood upbringing in society. They

regarded identity as a social-psychological formation based on imitation and

identification processes, and an active self-construction in finding and creating what is

essential to the self and others. Meaning to say that, Adam and Marshall (1996)

viewed social influence is one of the driving factors for identity formation.

According to Serafani (2002), identity can be divided into two meanings which

are active and passive. An active identity is related to one’s psychological state, which

denotes that one’s identity is derived from their internal construction through self-

exploration that one had experienced in life. Meanwhile, a passive identity is based on

recognition and emulation, which constitute by the foreclosed and diffused identity

statuses. Serafani (2002) then mentioned that passive identity is formed due to one’s

avoidance of identity decision making or conformity to the social standards. These

two definitions can be further understood by its nature where the former regard a

group of adolescents who are still in exploration and self-discovery in achieving the

values and beliefs that fit with them. Whereas, the latter is described as those who are

usually adopting the beliefs and values of their parents.

As it is mentioned earlier in this chapter, where Adam and Marshall (1996)

opined that identity is a social-psychological construct hence denoting that, identity

has its functional purposes. Adam and Marshall (1996) had listed down five commons

functions of identity, which gave an idea that identity serves as a provider to

individuals in life. Identity is described to be providing the structure for understanding

who one is, meaning and direction through commitments, values, and goals, a sense

of personal control and free will, consistency, coherence, and harmony between
values, beliefs, and commitments and the ability to recognize the potential in the form

of future possibilities and alternatives. All of these functions are meant to lower the

anxiety level of oneself. This is because, according to Adam and Ethier (1999), those

who developed anxiety are described to have less self-aware about their values and no

self-acceptance about who they are which eventually drive them to face a crisis.

Social and Personal Identity

In understanding the concept of identity, one need to firstly distinguish between

personal (or individual) and social (or group) identities. The differences between

social and personal identity might be regarded as uncomplicated distinction because

both possess different literal meaning hence making it clear and unmistakable

(Vignoles, 2017). However, according to Vignoles (2017) the more in-depth

exploration may lead the conceptual distinction between personal and social identity

becomes vague. This can be happening due to the absence of guidelines that can

answer what makes personal identity to be categorized as ‘personal’ and not ‘social’,

and in what sense is social identity is ‘social’ and not ‘personal’.

According to Tajfel and Turner (1979), social identity can be understood through

a hypothesis, that individuals possess their own identities according to social groups

that they surround themselves. According to Rattansi and Pheonix (2005), there is a

higher possibility for one to be confused with a distinction between personal and socia

l identity processes because both are closely associated. Therefore, they came out with

the view that explains social identity is ‘social’ not because of its content, but because

it is understood to be located in social and cultural interactions that occur between

people. While personal identity is formed solely based on individuals’ bodily and

psychological continuity.
 The differences between these two categories can be further understood based on

the view of Turner, Oakes, Haslam and McGarty (1994). They proposed the idea that

personal identity can be used to define the individual as a unique person that make

them different from other people within their social groups. Meanwhile, social

identity refers to social categorizations of oneself with others according to their shared

similarities in goals, life values or even political views. Due to the similarities that

they share, social identity is then being formed, and categorical social like ‘us’ and

‘them’ is derived. In other words, social identity will drive people to think of and

perceive themselves as "we" and ”us" as opposed to "I" and "me". In conclusion, the

social collective will later on turn individuals to possess their personal identity.

Knowledge and Identity

According to Tajfel (1978) knowledge and identity is positively related with each

other because knowledge has a central place in the cognitive structure of an

individual’s professional identity. The knowledge which can be owned by an

individual and by their group influences the social and personal identity formation. In

other words, identity is not permanent where it can be reconstructed within time and

knowledge that we gained throughout our lives. It is mentioned by Demerath (2006),

the shifting of one’s identity happened due to epistemological reasons. Some might

keep changing their identity to figure out about themselves and the world they live.

From this, the relationship between themselves and the world they lived in will be

connected which causes them to establish a sense of meaningfulness.

According to Kamal Hasan (1981), the knowledge gained through religious

preaching as well as propagation causes Muslims to face a crisis. This because, the

platform in instilling Islamic values and education among the youths is perceived to

be radical due to the preachers behaviour. Meaning to say, the way the knowledge is
being spread is not in line with the youths’ interest because most of the preachers tend

to force the youths to believe with their views harshly. Muhammad Kamal Hasan

(1981) proposed that, one of the Westerns epistemologies, which is the pursuit of

individual’s freedom, had affected the majority of Muslim’s mind. As an evidence, a

study made by him shows that most of the Muslim youths have lost their sense of

purpose by aimlessly loitering around the mall to entertain themselves, indulging in

meaningless discussions as well being confused with differentiating between what is

permissible and prohibited according to Islam.

Identity Crisis 

Identity crisis is derived initially from the development psychologist, Erikson in

1968 where this concept is coined to define those who fail to achieve their ego

identity. Besides, Erikson (1968) also proposed that the idea of identity crisis is meant

to describe the illness experienced by veterans army due to World War 2. Erikson

(1968) then connect this idea to the identity development among youths where he

believed that identity confusion among youths is developed due to the war that

happened within themselves to fit in with society standard. Therefore, Erikson (1968)

believed that the veterans’ difficulties in identifying their identity due to changes from

soldier to an ordinary civilian is interrelated with the youths’ problem in figuring out

their identity after several transitions in their life (e.g: adolescent to adult).

Particularly, Erikson (1968) opined that both of the situations hold the same

psychological problem with different situations that may be a help to further explain

the concept of identity crisis.

In explaining this concept, Marcia and Kroger (2011) come out with four identity

statuses to define individuals’ identity crisis. They are foreclosure, diffusion,

moratorium, and identity achieved. From these 4, only the foreclosure status are

defined to have zero relation with identity crisis. This is because, it mainly concerns

the youths with a concrete ideological which was determined by their parents. The

next one is viewed to be less advanced identity status which known as diffusion. It

mentioned by Marcia and Kroger (2011), there are two types of diffusion in identity

crisis where firstly, the crisis developed before the formation of identity. Meaning to

say, this always happens among those who did not find a need to define themselves.

Meanwhile, the second type is known as the post-diffusion where it occur among

those who suddenly stop the journey of self-exploration due to abundance of

knowledge that they gained. Both of these types shows that those who experienced

diffusion tend to have no clear goals in their life yet.

Another two identity statuses that regarded as the most related statuses with

identity crisis concept are identity achievement and moratorium. Marcia and Kroger

(2011) defined identity achievement to be the status of those who have a crisis due to

a decision-making period that they experienced before achieving their ideological

goals and views. On the other hand, the moratorium is those who are struggling in

unresolved crisis where they are still actively finding the views that fit with

themselves. It is then proposed by Marcia and Kroger (2011) that the moratoriums

status are usually faced by university students.

Identity Crisis among Muslim

According to Osman Bakar (2012), identity crisis among Muslim can be

explained by emerging three definitions of crisis which are ‘the turning point of a

disease for better or worse.’, ‘the turning point in the course of anything: decisive or

crucial time, stage or event.’ and ‘a time of great danger or trouble, often one which
threatens to result in unpleasant consequences.’ This is because, all of these

definitions may guide us to determine whether Muslims are in the state of crisis or

not. Osman Bakar (2012) specifically mentioned that Muslims are currently facing the

crisis since the last four decade to maintain their Tawhidic beliefs due to the various

knowledge that they have gained which some might be based on Western

epistemologies.

Syed Muhammad Naquib Al-Attas (1978) opposed the term of ‘knowledge crisis’

but instead he used the term ‘challenge of knowledge’. Despite the differences of

these two terms, the nature of both conform to the criteria of identity crisis among

Muslims. He also believed that Western epistemologies cause Muslim to face

challenges in upholding their identity. This is because, most of the Western

epistemologies are secular and suitable to be followed in modern civilization. In other

words, Western epistemologies are described to be opposed with Tawhidic views due

to the absence of real purpose of knowledge, destructive tools in achieving truths as

well as the idea that all knowledge bring benefits, therefore, all of them need to be

accepted and applied in life without having to consider its drawback to spirituality.
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Adams, G. R., & Marshall, S. (1996). A developmental social psychology of identity:

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