Without any of your memories who are you? You get left with this truth of losing yourself and there's no way back, there's no coming back, and this is what it's like for somebody that has dementia. The death that we are all afraid of is the death of the identity, the death of self.
If you imagine how many times you've heard a person ask what's his story we feel more at ease when we have a story which is why it's terrifying to start developing dementia I didn't know who my wife was for an extended period of time this was 12 months ago some kind of a story gives us this feeling that we know who we are it's understandable that if we struggle with identity, we face a lot of social consequences. If we struggle with identity, we will always face social consequences.
1:48. So we're going to talk about identity tonight and we'll also talk about how can we hack it in ourselves how can we hack it in other people then from a profiling perspective how am I going to identify someone else's identity who they really are deep down and you can do this in less than a minute and a half and you can identify identity in a deeper level than probably their therapist.
2:18. We have this guy named Henri Tajfel. He invented this thing called, Social Identity Theory. This theory breaks down how we categorize, identify, and compare ourselves to other people. So categorization means religion, title, degrees, certifications, awards, nationality, military service.
Then we have identification. Once we categorize the world into groups, then we identify ourselves within those groups and these groups from sexual orientation to religious beliefs, professions. We choose our cars, our clothing, our accessories to express our group membership.
And then we get into comparison comparison makes her identities more obvious this is where Us Versus Them tactics and US versus them mentality comes into place one experiment that doctor to give points on a test two people who they thought were in their group. This is how Hitler was able to commit crimes so that's the basic essence of social identity Theory those three elements there.
CORE IDENTITIES
Let's talk about these core identities.
The first one is the 1) HISTORICAL identities in our background or upbringing, our family heritage, life events, my journey, "I've been through this." It's how a person perceives the past and how it influences their entire life.
2) ROLE-BASED is the various roles that we play throughout our lives, like I'm the CEO, I'm a senior vice president, or I'm a parent, I'm a sibling. I'm a friend. So somebody's talking about a role in their life, we understand the moment that I hear "roles" what the expectations of that person are, that's what they're wanting to do, that's what they want to be seen as. If I can get them to agree that because of their identity [that] this decision is a good idea, I have agreement. The cognitive dissonance associated with that identity is so strong that they're not going to deviate from it. So if I know how to align a message with their identity, then I can build cognitive dissonance around almost any decision I want to.
3) MEMBERSHIP IDENTITY
This identity is how people see themselves as part of a group. It's a community thing. It's a culture thing, organizations, social groups. So this is the way that people think and behave based on shared values but anytime I'm guiding somebody down who has a "membership identity," I always want to build the walls of cognitive distance around the social expectations of the reputation or the behavior of that group. The reputation and behavior of that group is that person's identity.
Let's just go through a few sample scenarios. If I am in a business negotiation, for example, I'm going to engage somebody's role-based identity, role-based to establish a lot of respect and understanding. I don't want historical unless I really need to form a relationship with this person. If I'm a family therapist, I'm going to focus on historical identity so I can unravel the dynamics of the family. If I'm a leader at a business, I'm going to leverage member identity to foster some kind of cohesiveness in a little group of people.
How do we leverage that identity?
The formula is a 4-step formula that spells out the word I.D.E.A.
Step #1 is identify, the dominant identity. So I want to pinpoint which types, like historical role-based or membership that person is expressing most strongly. I want to listen I want for linguistic indicators. I want to observe emotional emphasis. Are they referencing their past? Are they talking about their role? Are they highlighting a group?
The D in I.D.E.A is deepen. We are going to affirm the importance of their identity. So we're reflecting their language a little bit, their tone, but we really want to let them know that we think their identity is very important. So we want to say something like, "You know, I think it's truly incredible how much pride you take in your heritage. I think that dedication is to __________ is really rare and super admirable. Then we align with that, so we're feeding that need, we're feeding that identity and making that identity important and validated.
The E in I.D.E.A. is empower. So we're highlighting how their past strength and experiences are relevant to right now. We might say something like, "You know, you've overcome so much in the past, and this challenge is just another opportunity to really prove your resilience." And if it's a "membership Identity" person, I might say something like, "This is a decision that I think is going to make a huge difference for the community, and I know how committed you are to their success." So I'm pulling out identity. I'm putting the identity up here, and I'm saying here, let's make this decision because look what you just agree to right here.
7:34. So the a of I.D.E.A is align. One way that I used to do this, I don't do it very often anymore, is I'll tell a story. If it's historical [identity], I'll say something like, "All these people have seen experiences like yours just lead to remarkable clarity in similar situations." If it's role-based [identity], I'll say, ". . . and I think everybody knows the best managers that people can work with always find that small decisive action always has the biggest impact." Membership-based identity, I'll say, "You know, groups like this tend to follow the quiet confidence of somebody who is truly invested in the future." I'm identifying this dominant identity. So historical, role-based, membership. I'm deepening that connection kind of bringing it more into the light and showing them that I know who you are and it's awesome. It's great. Then I'm empowering it, I'm framing their actions as a way to express that identity. So doing this with me is a perfect way to express that identity. It's a natural expression of who you are as a person. And then aligning. I'm aligning the request with their future vision of themselves or their group.
Henri Tajfel, Social Identity Theory.
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