Who Do You Think You Are? How Labels Influence Identity

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Are you a nerd? Maybe you're an athlete or an extrovert. Or perhaps you're a, dare I say it, vegan. When you read all of those words some conception of what those things are popped into your head. You probably have some kind of idea what a "nerd" or an "extrovert" does and tendencies they have. A nerd is someone who is really into a certain type of thing, an extrovert is someone who is very outgoing, and a vegan behaves in a way that lets everyone know they are what they say they are (just kidding they don’t eat animals). These types of labels are actually pretty intrinsic to our brain structure, as it is an efficient way for us to categorize complex information. How though do these labels affect who we are as people and inform the way we act and portray ourselves to the rest of the world?

According to Link and Phelan, in their chapter of the 2013 book A Handbook for the Study of Mental Health: Social Contexts, Theories, and Systems, "the act of labeling was strongly influenced by the social characteristics of the labelers, the person being labeled, and the social situation in which their interactions occurred". Now when you first read this you may be thinking, "Um duh of course labels are social constructs that are made by people in society, why would you need a book with fancy words to tell me that?" Well gather your horses and hold onto them for a second, let's break down what exactly this means and why it's significant.

Yes, obviously labels are socially constructed. They're literally something society constructs and places onto a person or group of people. But the interesting thing here is the actual behavior of labeling someone, is strongly influenced by the attributes of the people doing the labeling, the people who are the object of the labeling, as well as the situation in which the labeling takes place to begin with. The person who is being labeled is portraying attributes that are what drives others to place them in this category. If I play football a lot and am super in-shape I may be considered by others an athlete. People would look at me and think "this person is what I think an athlete is, therefore this is the category they are being stored in my brain as" (usually not consciously of course, this all mostly happens in a matter of milliseconds).

If this continues and people constantly tell me that I'm an athlete, I'm going to start believing it myself, and thus start changing my behavior to match the mold of that label. If other people tell me I am something on a consistent basis, regardless of whether or not I believe it myself, I'm significantly more likely to incorporate that into my identity. When we are labeled, people have certain expectations of us. We often conform to those expectations in order to fit the mold the people have set for us. Our conceptions of ourselves are based almost entirely on what others think of us. 

We have prototypes in our mind of what certain things are. Prototypes are ideal versions of something that we use as a quick reference in order to make processing information easier. For example when you think of a bird, the first thing that may immediately come to mind is a pigeon, or a finch – generally something that flies, has a beak, and chirps loudly in the morning when you're trying to get those precious last few minutes of sleep. The reason these sorts of things come to mind so quickly is usually you're exposed to that kind of the thing the most frequently, so it's easier for you to call upon the finch than say a condor. This is how our situation influences labels so easily. If I’m in a situation where I see pelicans every second of the day, “bird” might immediately call to mind a pelican, because that’s what I’m constantly being exposed to.

The example that Link and Phelan give is labeling that has to do with mental illness. When someone does something we consider "abnormal" in terms of thoughts or behavior, we label this person as mentally ill. This can be useful for diagnoses and ensuring proper treatment occurs to this person. However, the problem occurs when we add all of these other biases and stigmas that surround mental illness. The main prototype in society for a person who is mentally ill unfortunately is someone who talks to themselves, maybe acts in an absurd and incomprehensible way, and is inherently violent. This is very much an extreme example of someone who has mental illness, but too often the outliers for us can represent the whole population. Mental illness is something that covers a vast population of people all who have their own unique experience with mental illness. Some may have depression, some may have anxiety, and some may even have schizophrenia and exhibit those absurd behaviors and talk to themselves. However we only think of the most extreme examples, which inform what we think about all people who have mental illness.

The other problem with labeling is that it creates a static notion of identity for us. According to Art Markman, Doctor and professor of psychology and marketing at the University of Texas, in a 2014 article entitled The Danger of Labeling Others (or Yourself), if you label others, you are substantially less likely to think they can change their behavior easily. If I label someone as annoying, they may do an annoying thing, or have been annoying at one point, but in my mind their label now prevents them from being anything else. And every action they do, whether or not it actually is a nuisance, is filtered through the framework of "this is an annoying person".  

Keeping with the annoying example, let's say I'm meeting someone for the first time through a mutual friend. This friend tells me that this person is really annoying. This label now influences the way I will think when I interact with this person. So I meet this person and I see them eating an orange, now they're no longer just eating an orange, they're annoyingly eating an orange. Not only that, but it takes a lot to change this notion that I now have in mind, because their identity has become an annoying person, not someone who has done annoying things in the past. 

A strikingly similar thing happens when we label ourselves. Because we will inevitably construct our identities based on what other people say about us, we are more likely to think this is inherently who we are. For example, if other people know me as the fat, funny guy in the group, I will start to behave in ways, and put myself in situations that fit that mold, because this is who I have come to know myself as. This creates a self-fulfilling prophecy – which is where because we expect something to happen or be true, we unknowingly make it come true – making me reinforce the idea that I am this type of person that is unchanging, when in fact who I am (including my physical appearance in this case), can and absolutely does change. 

Labels are largely a pretty useful brain process, as it makes identifying complex people and categories of things efficient. The problem comes when we rely on these labels to inform every aspect about a person, and incorporate them into our psyche as unchanging. Other people inform who we think we are and how we behave every day. The important thing is recognizing that people are not static beings based on the labels we give them, but constantly changing with everything we do.