How small identity markers reveal who we are
There are little clues we carry about us, that tell the world who we are and the groups we belong to. They might be things we wear or carry, cultural reference points we use, objects we adorn our homes with - the list goes on. Most of the time, small identity markers that communicate identity quickly through osmosis.
A brilliant example of this can be found in the JUMP BOOK, first published in the 1950s by one of the world’s then, most famous portrait photographers - Phillipe Halsman. After each shoot, he asked his very famous subjects to … well jump. Believing it would capture ‘something about them we hadn’t seen before.’
Have a look at the picture on Magnum website to see how symbolic they are.
This activity was both a study of art and psychology. Some people preferred not to jump - for fear it would reveal too much of them. While others like Salvador Dali went to the other extreme, approaching it as a creative endeavour adding cats and props to the task. Communicating so much about who each person is.
Who would you think was the extrovert? Who would you think had power? Who do you think enjoyed life the most? Who would you rather sit next to at a dinner party? That last one will also tell us a lot about who you are.
Music
Music is another social marker we use as a reference point to know who is in our social group and who is not. In fact, dating websites have shown it to be one of the most likely indicators of a match. Let’s explore this a bit more. Take, for instance, songs about jumping. If we were to say “might as well jump” there are some of you reading this who filled in the rest of that line with “go ahead and jump”. We can then assume you listen to enough rock or have gone to enough weddings to recognise Van Halen.
Or if you know what Criss Cross will make you do, then I can guess you’re around 40 years old and remember winding cassette tapes up with a pencil.
Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.
But there will be others reading this article who are wondering right now what all of these songs sound like. These are not your cultural reference points and you have a different set of identity markers, placing you into a different social group.
Possessions
We all carry a whole spectrum of identity markers and these are another set of useful identity clues. Imagine you’ve been invited to someone’s house for dinner. The first thing you will do when you enter the house is to check out their belongings. Looking at the bookshelf, making a quick judgment on whether or not they are your type of person.
Biscuits?
It even happens with food as we can illustrate with a little game. If you look at the biscuits below, can you work out who is coming for tea?
The answer is going to be the queen … or if not then probably a grandparent. Lemon curd biscuits, for eating with Earl Grey tea. They come in an ornate tin from Fortnum and Mason so the buyer is either set to impress or wants to keep the rather fancy tin. And the biscuits probably won’t be dunked.
You can play a similar game next time you are queueing in the supermarket. Have a look at what the person in front of you has placed on the conveyor belt and see what assumption you make from the food they are buying.
So you see we can even infer a lot just from a packet of biscuits. Which incidentally, is why politicians struggle to answer a simple question about biscuits on a popular parenting website. They know that the answer they give will say so much more about them than the media-trained responses they provide about their policies.
It’s the things we don’t think about
Our social markers feed our preconceptions of people. Much like those subjects who are jumping in the Halsman’s photos, it’s the things we don’t think about, such as what we get rid of, that tells people so much more about us than what we say.
At Making Change Happen we have an offering that uses the latest research in Social Identity theory (that’s a lot of what you read above) to look at groups and how their social norms shape behaviour. To find out more drop me an email and we can schedule a virtual coffee chat.
