In my research I have a more comprehensive understanding of personalities and identity. Personalities and identities are complex. My research started from basic understanding of a term to more in-depth research on certain theories. There is a blind spot of knowing who I think I am and who I really am because, living in the society as social animals, who people think we are is actually important in understanding our personalities and identities, understanding the roles we play in society —- from home, school, workplace, to society, and the country, but who people think we are is may not be the same as what we think we are and what we actually are. So people need to coordinate them.

To understand ourselves better, we need to be mindful of our behaviors. It is always quite different when people are among other people from when people are alone. To understand my identity, it comes to the exploration of self, which led me to what Freud proposed of Id, ego, and super-ego. And the interaction of Id, ego, and superego is like a guideline of our behaviors that indicate who we are. I realized that we cannot just simply be ourselves because what we think people think of us determine the personas that we choose to show, which may not who we really are. Who I think they think who I am? In my interview with my friends, I found that every friend has similar answers, and some of their answers are very close to my answers, which means the personas I choose to show my friends is almost the same, but not the same because different friends have slightly different understanding of me, some of my friends know more about me in some aspects of my life, some know more about other aspects of my life. But overall what they thought about me is basically the same person I thought I am, but for me, I am more. Their answers show that I am less fulfilled and more lonely than I appear to be. But all people I interviewed are my close friends, who they think who I am could be really different from who other people think who I am. And some of their answers really help me know more about the self I didn’t really pay much attention to. Also, my friends’ answers can prove that who I appear to be is more about the contradiction of self that the superego, where as who I think I am is more of a contradiction between Id and self. Overall, the Id and superego are fighting each other too hard and the self is too tired and it’s time to improve ourselves and coordinate the relationship of the three.

System, as a society or a community, endows people with different identities. It is important to know our identities to fit in a community, to serve a purpose, to coordinate our Id with our superego to be the best version of self.  In my research I find that people tend to focus more on their relationship with others rather than the relationship with their selves, but if people are not mindful of their relationship with themselves, if they don’t have a clear self-identity, people would easily get lost, and not realize their worth in a community. And then realize I have an identity crisis and I have to figure out where do I fit in a community.  Also, when people get to understand themselves better, they understand others better, and then they understand the system better, and they can improve themselves to be better. Knowing who others think I am and knowing who I think I am help me know who I actually are so that I can position myself better.