Personal Identity and Social Organization

Abstract

Many anthropologists have used some version of identity theory in studying social relationships. Along the way several of these writers, including Goodenough (1963, 1965), Keesing (1970, 1975), Wallace and Fogelson (1965), Spradley and Mann (1975), and Robbins (1973) have developed perspectives which are of potential importance for an understanding of personality. In this paper I would like to explore one aspect of this identity approach, the connections between "personal identity" and "social identity." I will argue that these connections are important in the analysis of the meaning of personality terms and also for the investigation of how personality appraisals affect social interaction. I will draw mainly on fieldwork on Truk but I will also consider patterns characteristic of contemporary American society. Identity approaches to social organization depend upon the discovery and description of the systems of classification with which the people of a particular society sort themselves out into kinds of