Identification in psychology: concept, signs, characteristics

Identification is the likening of a person to another individual, group or fictional character. Identification is a defense mechanism of the psyche, which is contained in the unconscious identification with an object, which causes anxiety or fear. Identification is translated from Lat. in the language “identificare”, as identification, the root “iden” means something that does not change for a long time. Given this definition, we can formulate the concept of identification as the similarity or correspondence of something to an existing sample, taken as a basis, having designated stable parameters. The mental defense mechanism can be situational, unconscious, in which a person likens himself to a specific other significant person, as a model. The basis of this similarity is the emotional connection between people.

Concept

Identification is identifying oneself with another person, members of a group, or a character in a movie or book. In other words, the concept of identification in psychology can be considered as likening oneself to someone.

Identification is divided into two types: primary and secondary. The primary one can be attributed to the formation of the child’s personality, going through the process of identification. First, the baby identifies itself with its parents.

Secondary identification is identifying oneself with people who are not parents.

Content

• 1 Conceptual apparatus of the theory of forensic identification
• 2 Distinctive features of forensic identification
• 3 Scientific basis of forensic identification
• 4 Objects of forensic identification
• 5 Identification features 5.1 Classification of identification features

Types of identification

In psychology, personal identification is of the following types:

1. Situational. It appears from childhood. This is identification with parents, brothers and sisters. In general, with family members whom the child loves and strives to be like.
2. Group. Assimilation of community in the group. It manifests itself in the fact that a person recognizes the foundations and values ​​of the group as his own. Understands himself and accepts himself as a member of this group.
3. Social identification. In this case, the person identifies himself as an agent of the social circle.
4. Personal. This is a set of characteristic traits inherent in a particular person that allows him to be distinctive from others and become similar to himself. Personal identification in psychology understands constancy and unity. We are talking about life attitudes, goals, and motives of the individual. Thus, personal identification is not just any character trait, but the whole essence of a person, his “self,” manifested in actions and deeds, in reactions to these actions.

There is also political identification, but it is included in the personal section. This is a specific life position of an individual and identification of oneself with this position.

A. Identification as a basis and tool for mutual understanding

The term "identification" has several meanings in social psychology. In communication issues, identification is the mental process of assimilating oneself to a communication partner in order to cognize and understand his thoughts and ideas.

A person, as a rule, builds his perception and understanding of another on the basis of his own life experience, which is based on the mechanism of identification (from the Latin identificare - to identify), or equating, likening people to each other.

A person feels sympathy for another, sympathizes with him, if he is able to feel or imagine himself in his place, if the point of view and position of the person with whom he communicates is clear, close and acceptable to him.

In other words, the internal basis and prerequisite for people’s mutual understanding of each other is the mechanism of their psychological identification, or mutual assimilation.

Identification means identification, likening oneself to others. Identifying oneself with an interlocutor means: firstly, unifying oneself with him on the basis of an established emotional connection and including his accepted norms and values ​​into one’s own world; secondly, this is a representation, a person’s vision of his interlocutor, as a continuation of himself (projection), endowing him with his own characteristics - traits, feelings, desires; thirdly, putting oneself in the place of the interlocutor, which manifests itself in the form of immersion, transferring oneself into the field, space, circumstances of the partner and leads to the assimilation of his personal meanings.

There are two identification models:

1. identification begins with the assimilation of an object to the subject (another to oneself) and ends with the assimilation of the subject to an object (oneself to another).

2. identification begins with the initial assimilation of the subject to the object (oneself to another) to the subsequent reduction of the object to the subject (other to oneself).

However, regardless of the order and sequence of its implementation, identification allows people to achieve a relative understanding of other people, despite the lack of preliminary information about them, when the first impression is almost the only source of knowledge. It turns out to be the mirror that allows people to better understand both themselves and others.

But the identification mechanism also has certain limitations. Its effect is limited by the level of actual compliance or inconsistency of people with each other. It is effective only if the people communicating are relatively consistent. Beyond this correspondence, it becomes an instrument of reality distortion. Complete assimilation to one unique individuality is impossible.

In addition, identification is carried out, as a rule, at the level of ordinary consciousness and must inevitably take the form of a stereotype or a certain stereotyped idea of ​​another person. After all, the life experience of each person is quite limited in comparison with all the diversity of people he meets with their diverse inner world and character.

Stereotypes, their types

Each of us, under the influence of society, the people around us and interaction with them, forms more or less specific standards in our consciousness with the help of which we evaluate other people. The formation of these standards for ourselves most often occurs unnoticed, unconsciously, but one way or another, the formed standards will always act. Moreover, the less aware we are of these standards, or stereotypes as they are called, the more they can influence how we evaluate another person.

Stereotypes are habitual ideas about other groups of people about which we have scant information, the belief that all people of a certain group have some similar qualities.

In its extreme form, a stereotype is based on the belief that all members of a certain group are the same and no different from each other. For example, you met a man from Hamburg who speaks rudely and does not know how to communicate. A conclusion based on a stereotype would be: “All people in Hamburg are rude and ignorant.” But what do you know about other people who live in Hamburg? Are they all rude? Are they all ignorant? Maybe not. Some of them are quite possibly rude, and some of them are probably polite people.

The image of a person whom we see for the first time is always built on the basis of certain schemes. Different social groups interact with each other and develop certain stereotypes. All these standards-stereotypes always operate in cases where we are forced to judge a person by first impression, that is, in conditions of a lack of information about a person.

We encounter thinking stereotypes every day; they always, in one way or another, influence our perception of other people.

Anthropological stereotypes

Anthropological stereotypes are as follows: the way we evaluate a person’s internal, psychological qualities and personality depends on the assessment of his anthropological characteristics and physical appearance.

During experiments, psychologists established certain patterns. We attribute certain traits to people based on their external features. General characteristics are important here (face shape, eye location, mouth size, etc.). Moreover, these trends, as it turns out, manifest themselves regardless of the gender and age of those whom we evaluate. There are “patterns” here: good nature is associated in people’s ideas with a “large” appearance, obesity; confidence and intelligence with slimness; contact - with the absence of sharp features of movements. Currently, these discoveries are widely used in cinema, show business, advertising, etc. Who among us does not remember good-natured housewives smilingly praising bouillon cubes, or slender girls in a cloud of the aroma of an advertised deodorant.

Anthropological stereotypes have had a strong influence on people for a long time. For example, the literature of romanticism of the 19th century introduced a new image of a pensive and mysterious beauty. Such external qualities as slimness and pallor began to be associated with a mysterious inner world, with spiritual subtlety, reflecting a romantic perception of life. This change in the female image led to the fact that brightness, splendor and corpulence, which at one time were perceived as traits characteristic of ideal women, went out of fashion.

In the same way, stereotypes are changing today. Recently, photographers and fashion designers, taking impeccably beautiful tall and long-legged women away from catwalks and screens, are expanding the anthropological stereotype so that any person can be considered beautiful. It turns out that we are not changing at all - just as before (200 years ago), today people tend to focus on what mass culture offers them. Stereotypes have enormous impact.

Ethnonational stereotypes

Ethnonational stereotypes manifest themselves as follows: very often we psychologically evaluate a person depending on what nation or ethnic group he belongs to. To follow a stereotype is to generalize, and we generalize all the time. For example, Americans are aimed at achieving success, Jews are cunning, Germans are pedants, the southern person is a temperamental, “hot” nature. Stereotypes include the notorious politeness of the British, the frivolity of the French, and the mystery of the Russian soul.

It is believed that these judgments about a person who is new to us are largely determined by our own ideas about the national-ethnic groups to which we attribute the person. It has also been proven that ethnonational stereotypes most influence precisely those people who are little familiar with a given ethnic group and have not lived among the people of this nation. For example, we all know how clearly ethno-national stereotypes are manifested in folklore, in particular in jokes. Such “national” jokes are very extensive and are based on attributing a number of typical traits to representatives of any ethnic group.

Every nation has its own scapegoats. In England, popular characters are Scots and Irish, stereotyped as cunning, stingy, and fond of drinking; in America it is a narrow-minded and stupid Indian; in Russia - a simple-minded and spontaneous Chukchi. Unfortunately, all these ethnonational stereotypes are not at all so harmless, since very often they are the basis for discrimination of some people by others. Research has proven that the better the participants in various experiments on this topic knew the people to which they attributed the person being assessed, the less often they relied on simplified group stereotypes.

Social stereotypes

Almost every person who has experience in communication is able to quite accurately determine his characteristics based on a person’s appearance, his clothing, manner of speaking and behavior, but they almost always contain one or another percentage of errors, since the assessment of the interlocutor is carried out by using social stereotypes.

Social stereotypes are divided into:

• social status (depending on the status of the interlocutor, his superiority);

• expressive-aesthetic (depending on the perception of the partner’s appearance);

• verbal-behavioral (depending on the behavior and attitude of the interlocutor).

Psychologists have discovered several typical schemes by which the image of another person is built and which are used to one degree or another by all people. Constructing an image of a partner according to these schemes leads to errors in stereotyping or errors in the social perception of the interlocutor.

These mistakes are caused by the following factors: the attractiveness of the interlocutor, his superiority in some specific parameters and his attitude towards us.

Influence of the superiority factor (status error)

People entering into communication are not equal. They differ from each other according to various characteristics: cultural level, social status, life experience, etc. In many cases, the assessment of a person’s personal qualities depends on his social status.

This was confirmed by many experiments, among which was this: a teacher came into the classroom with a man unfamiliar to them and reported that an experiment was being conducted to evaluate the eye. It was necessary to “eyeball” the height of this person and write down your assessment on a piece of paper. Since the rules of etiquette require the introduction of a stranger helping to conduct an experiment, he was introduced - Mr. England, a student from Cambridge. In another group, the experiment was repeated exactly, but the assistant was presented as Mr. England, a teacher from Cambridge. In the next group, the assistant became a professor from Cambridge. Of course, the purpose of the experiment was not to evaluate the eye. The results were amazing. The difference in the estimates of the first group, where the social status of “Mr. England” was the lowest (student), and the last group, where the status was the highest (professor), was 12 cm. The higher the social status, the taller the person physically seemed.

This fact, of course, leads to certain conclusions: if even the assessment of such a simple external characteristic as a person’s height depends on social stereotypes, then how strongly can these stereotypes influence the assessment of a person’s hidden personal properties, which are difficult to observe, and the assessment of his psychology? .

Errors of superiority (inequality) also manifest themselves in the fact that people tend to systematically overestimate the various psychological qualities of those people who are superior to them in some parameter that is significant to them.

When we meet a person who is superior to us in some quality that is important to us, we evaluate him more positively than would be the case if he were equal to us. If we are dealing with a person whom we are superior in some way, then we underestimate him. It is very important to remember that superiority is determined by one parameter, while overestimation or underestimation is determined by many parameters.

For example, if a person is weak and sickly, but dreams of becoming strong and healthy, then, having met a person bursting with health, he will overestimate him in all other respects - in his eyes he will be smart, handsome, and kind.

Research shows that to determine the parameter of superiority and assess the status of the interlocutor, we have two main sources of information at our disposal:

• a person’s clothing, image, his external “design”, including such attributes as insignia, glasses, hairstyle, awards, and in certain cases, a car, office furnishings, etc.;

• a person’s behavior (how he sits, walks, talks, where he looks, etc.).

Information about superiority is somehow “embedded” in clothing and behavior; they always contain elements that indicate a person’s belonging to a particular social group. Apart from these signs, we have no others. But these sources are really significant only because the information is contained in them in accordance with historically established stereotypes.

The phenomenon of fixing clothes is also reflected in folklore: “They meet you by their clothes, they see you off by their mind.” It is usually customary to focus attention only on the second part of the statement. Yes, it is more significant, but still they greet you “by their clothes”. Sometimes in everyday life, and in many types of professional activities, the first meeting, the first contact is of great importance. There is no need to overestimate them, but there is no need to underestimate them either. For example, the first contact plays an important role during interviews, which almost all organizations conduct nowadays when selecting new employees. In this case, we are assessed, first of all, “by our clothes,” and only then we take note of our professional skills, manners, and speech.

For example, in earlier times it was so important that certain clothes not only could, but also had to be worn by people of a certain status and social position. In the Middle Ages, when the church dictated fashion in clothing, down to the smallest detail, any resident of medieval Europe, just by looking at a person, immediately understood who was in front of him.

In China, until the 20th century, the most common clothing was a robe, and women's and men's robes differed only in details. Everyone wore dressing gowns, and the social status of the owner of the dressing gown was determined only by the style and color. Thus, only the emperor could wear a yellow robe, brown and white for elderly dignitaries, and red and blue for heroes. Students wore blue robes, peasants wore white, and poor people wore black. Even the clasp spoke about social status: the higher it was, the more complex the loops were made. Thus, the task of recognizing status was quite simple at that time.

Currently, the official role of clothing is changing. Now, for example, there are no prohibitions or rules, everyone can wear whatever they want. Research shows that many people can determine a person’s social status by clothing, as well as roughly indicate their occupation. Although there are no strict rules or restrictions, the role of clothing in coding superiority remains significant, and the association of clothing with social status remains quite strong.

What in clothing indicates superiority? First of all, the price, the higher it is, the higher the status. We “calculate” the price by seeing the quality of the clothing, which is directly related to the price. Knowing the frequency of occurrence of a given model (scarcity) and its relationship with fashion (fashionability), we can also judge the price of clothing.

In addition to price, the choice of clothing silhouette is closely related to social status. Many people call the clothing of people of high social status “strict, formal,” and most often these words refer to the silhouette. Research has shown that a “high status” silhouette is one that approaches an elongated rectangle with emphasized corners, and a “low status” silhouette is one that approaches a ball.

In business communication, to emphasize the role of high social status, an official style is adopted - a formal business suit.

In behavior, as in clothing, there are always elements that allow one to judge a person’s status. “What befits Jupiter does not befit a bull,” says an ancient proverb. That is why we can all determine our equality or inequality with another person by our behavior. A person of high social status behaves independently of others and the situation.

What is superiority in behavior? Most likely, it can be defined as independence in various situations and circumstances.

This includes, first of all, independence from the partner: a person shows that he is interested in the one with whom he communicates, his reaction, mood, state and what he is talking about. External independence can look like arrogance, impudence, self-confidence. Independence from the communication situation lies in the fact that a person does not seem to notice certain aspects in the conversation - the presence of witnesses, an unsuccessfully chosen moment, various obstacles, etc. Such behavior almost always indicates a certain superiority. A relaxed posture of a person (lounging in a chair) during an important conversation can mean superiority in the situation, power. It also happens that a person looks to the side, out the window, examines his nails - this is a clear demonstration of superiority (by the way, addicted people usually look carefully at their interlocutor, “look into his eyes”).

So, the effect of the superiority factor begins when a person detects the superiority of another over himself by signs in clothing and behavior. As a result of this, a person, on the one hand, builds his behavior at the moment, on the other hand, when assessing a partner’s personality, he can make the mistakes described earlier: exaggerating (or downplaying) certain qualities of a person.

Influence of the attractiveness factor (attractiveness error)

No less important are mistakes related to whether we like or dislike our communication partner in appearance. But if there are no particular difficulties with defining signs of superiority, then this cannot be said regarding signs of attractiveness. This is where big difficulties arise.

The complexity of this issue is due to the fact that everyone is accustomed to considering attractiveness only as an individual impression, and we internally resist any attempts to somehow generalize it. Meanwhile, few will discover the fact that at different times there were certain canons of beauty, that different peoples have their own canons of beauty that differ from each other. And, therefore, attractiveness is nothing more than the degree of approximation to the type of appearance that is maximally approved by the group or groups to which we belong.

Signs of attractiveness are the efforts a person expends to conform to a socially approved type of appearance. Such signs are fixed and trigger a scheme: a person is classified as attractive (and then all his invisible qualities are overestimated), or unattractive (and then the rest is underestimated).

External attractiveness refers to physical beauty, attractiveness in clothing, attractiveness in the manner of expressing emotions, movements, etc.

The attractiveness error lies in the dependence of personality assessment on a person’s external attractiveness (“beauty effect”). If a person seems attractive to us externally, then we unwittingly endow him with positive personality traits, that is, we project the external onto the internal. We tend to consider him smarter, better, more interesting, etc., thus overestimating many of his personal qualities. And, conversely, some human qualities may be underestimated by people.

To the direct question: “Do you judge a person’s inner attractiveness by his appearance?” - most people will most likely answer in the negative. However, the facts indicate otherwise.

History knows striking examples of linking human appearance with character. The story of the English king Richard III, the “black legend” of Britain, is indicative. Judging by historical data, the chronicles of Thomas More, which W. Shakespeare also used in his play, the king, who rose to the throne “over the corpses of his relatives and opponents,” including two young princes, was a notorious villain, and even a hunchbacked, lame freak . But more recently, historians have established that after Richard’s death, a clan hostile to him falsified not only part of the historical information, where the king was portrayed as an ugly villain, but also forced court artists to rewrite Richard’s portrait, “disfiguring” his face and figure with a brush and paint (this was established special examination). As we see, the connection between appearance and a person’s internal qualities is indestructible for many. The king's enemies, wanting to denigrate him in the eyes of his descendants, did not limit themselves to slandering his deeds, since for them there was no doubt that the evil man was ugly. Thanks to Shakespeare's tragedy, the stereotype "an ugly man is evil" has become firmly established in our minds. Modernity only confirms this.

Research by psychologists shows that there is a strong, albeit unjustified, relationship between assessing a person’s appearance based on attractiveness and assessing his psychological qualities.

This can also be seen very clearly in the example of such a component of appearance as physique. Quite a long time ago, numerous researchers showed that a person’s body type is associated with some of his psychological traits. It is customary to distinguish three main body types:

- endomorphic (picnic) - people prone to obesity;

- mesomorphic (athletic) - slim, strong, muscular;

- ectomorphic (asthenic) - tall, thin, fragile.

Thus, picnics are usually more sociable, prone to comfort, and changeable in mood. Athletes are characterized by high vitality and a love of adventure, while asthenics are usually more restrained, silent, and calm. In our minds, these connections are fixed quite firmly. We cannot imagine Chekhov’s “man in a case” as a fat man, Shakespeare’s merry fellow Sir John Falstaff as thin, we cannot change the image of the asthenic physique of Don Quixote to the picnic Sancho Panza. This one seemingly simple replacement will cause the entire narrative to lose its credibility.

However, at first glance, these “constructive” elements do not have much meaning. The main thing is what body type is socially approved and what is not. For example, in a study conducted by American psychologist Braudeli, subjects were presented with five male silhouettes of different body types. It was necessary to give a description of the possible psychological properties of people with the proposed silhouettes. The responses received were as follows. The muscular, athletic type received consistent positive ratings in the descriptions. A short, fat man (endomorphic type) was characterized negatively in most cases. Silhouettes of the ectomorphic type (tall and thin) occupied an intermediate position in the assessment, did not cause such a favorable reaction as the sports type, but were not criticized like fat people.

Also, during one of the experiments, psychologists prepared in advance photographs of three groups of people, whose faces were rated by a group of experts as beautiful, ordinary and ugly. Then the experiment participants (men and women aged 18 to 24 years) were asked: “What can you say about the inner world of each of the people depicted in the photograph?” Both men and women described “beautiful” people as more confident, happy, sincere, balanced, energetic, kind, resourceful, and more spiritually rich than “ugly” people and even than those in the average category. In addition, the male subjects rated beautiful women as more caring and attentive. Thus, the attractiveness factor comes into play here too.

The attractiveness bias, as it turns out, affects not only the assessment of a person’s personal characteristics, but also the assessment of the results of his activities. The action of this mechanism is described by the writer V. Doroshevich, a contemporary of Chekhov, in the tragicomic story “The Writer”.

An elderly, ugly writer, Maurina, notices that her works are by no means mediocre! - not a single editor stubbornly accepts it. She comes up with the idea of ​​persuading her friend, a young and beautiful governess who is left without a job, to go to the editorial offices with the same manuscripts, posing as Maurina. And a miracle happens. Previously unkind editors, who did not bother to read a story or story for weeks, now not only read, but also publish these works. They are influenced by the girl’s beauty and youth: “It’s interesting to know what such a beautiful head thinks... And how do you know all this?... Such a young woman with looks full of pessimism...”.

When a girl refuses “cooperation” and the writer has to again seek publication herself, the wave of refusals, inattention and neglect is repeated. It is quite obvious that the factor of attractiveness played a role here: the inner world of an elderly and ugly woman was of no interest to anyone, but the experiences and thoughts of a young beauty attracted attention.

The influence of the factor of attitude towards us (attitude error)

The factor of attitude towards us works as follows: people who treat us well seem much better to us and are rated by us higher than those who treat us poorly.

The closer someone else's opinion turns out to be to our own, the higher our assessment of the person who expressed this opinion. This rule also has a retroactive effect: the higher someone was rated, the more similar his views were to his own.

American psychologists R. Nisbet and T. Wilson conducted the following experiment. The students communicated for half an hour with a new teacher, who behaved friendly with some subjects and distant with others, emphasizing social distance. After this, students were asked to rate a number of characteristics of the teacher. The results were quite convincing. The ratings of students with whom the teacher behaved kindly turned out to be significantly higher than the ratings of the teacher, but in the role of “distant”. From this we can conclude that a positive attitude towards us gives rise to a strong tendency to attribute positive properties and discard negative ones, and, conversely, a negative attitude causes a tendency not to notice the positive aspects of a partner and highlight the negative ones. This is the effect of the factor under consideration.

As evidenced by all the experiments described above, certain stereotypes do not always provide any reliable information about the inner world and character of a person. Therefore, although the stereotype serves as the main means of identification in the process of perceiving another person, it also acts as a psychological barrier to the comprehension and understanding of the uniqueness of the partner.

People, as a rule, only seriously think about the characteristics and individuality of another person when he begins to go beyond stereotypical perception, i.e. when his actions are not consistent with the scheme to which he has already been likened in advance by analogy with the perception and understanding of other people similar to him in external signs of behavior.

Identification, or assimilation, presupposes the ability of communicating people to imagine themselves in the place of another, to enter into his position: to experience his inner state, to look at himself through his eyes. The very mechanism of making people similar to each other contains some difficulties and contradictions. First of all, you cannot imagine yourself in the place of another person without being in “his shoes.” The most effective way to remove this contradiction would obviously be to alternately take each other’s roles in practice, but in real life this is impossible.

Identification has a double impact on personality development: on the one hand, it forms the ability to establish positive relationships with people and leads to the development of socially significant qualities. On the other hand, “it can lead to the dissolution of the individual in another person, the emasculation of the individual.”

There is a theory that explains the process of people’s perception and understanding of each other through the mechanism of identification. It is called-

The implicit theory of personality is a rather complex socio-psychological phenomenon that relates to the internal, mostly unconscious, psychological world of a person.

Formally, an implicit theory of personality can be defined as follows: it is a stable idea stored in a person’s long-term memory of how a person’s appearance, behavior and psychology are connected, how these three aspects of personality in typical cases of life are combined or consistent with each other in the same person. person.

The implicit theory of personality is an education that is formed under the influence of the individual experience of communication of a given person with different people. The mechanism of formation of a person’s implicit theory of personality can be imagined as follows. Having met a person new to us, having entered into communication with him, we first of all pay attention to his appearance. Then, already in the process of communicating with him, we continue to observe his behavior. At the same time, we begin to build hypotheses about his psychology and test them in the process of communication. Ultimately, when we part with a person, a triple trace remains in our memory from communication with him, which includes information about the appearance of this person, knowledge about his behavior and an idea of ​​\u200b\u200bhis psychology. All this is connected and associated with each other in our consciousness and memory.

Further, we meet many other people and, as a result of communicating with them, we receive similar impressions, which include the same three components: external data, behavior and psychological properties. Impressions from different people accumulate in our memory, and what is the same in these impressions (meaning the indicated components of the image and the connections between them) is fixed and imprinted in memory. The rest, that is, random components and connections, is forgotten. As a result, a generalized image of a person is formed, which includes typical appearance features, typical forms of behavior and typical psychological properties in their interrelation. This generalized image represents the implicit theory of personality. Once formed in a given person, his implicit theory of personality significantly influences how he perceives and evaluates people.

It is estimated that an implicit theory of personality is formed on the basis of a generalization of many individual images of people, the number of which is approximately equal to the number of years of a person multiplied by 10. So, for example, if a person is 17 years old, then his implicit theory of personality was formed on the basis of approximately 170 private images of people; If a person is 25 years old, then his implicit theory of personality has developed on the basis of approximately 250 private images.

Implicit personality theory has a significant impact on people's perceptions and understanding of each other. For example, the primary image of a stranger, which develops during the initial period of communication with him, depends on it. The mechanism of influence of the implicit theory of personality on the image can be described as follows. When we meet a new person, we involuntarily pay attention to his appearance and compare this person with those people with whom we have previously communicated. Having discovered the external resemblance of a stranger to one of the people we know well, we transfer to this person the image of our old acquaintance, extracted from the implicit theory of personality, that is, we attribute to him psychological properties that were included in the implicit theory of personality, and expect from him the same behavior that is already imprinted in our implicit theory of personality.

If the implicit personality theory characteristic of a given person is correct, then he has the ability not only to correctly perceive and evaluate people, but also to quickly build correct images of these people, long before complete information is received about them. Such

that is, the possibility of constructing correct images of people when there is a lack of information about them occurs if a person has rich life experience in communicating with different people in different life situations. If a given person's implicit theory of personality is incorrect, then he can make serious mistakes in perceiving and understanding people, attributing to them psychological properties that are not what they actually have, and expecting from them completely different actions than one would expect. This often happens in cases where a person has very limited, one-sided experience of communicating with people.

Let's give a definition. Mechanisms

This is the definition: identification in psychology is a person’s need to establish coincidences and similarities with the object of his veneration. Note that this is an internal unconscious need.

We are talking about identification. What's behind this? What is the mechanism of identification in psychology?

S. Freud also spoke about this. He was the first to develop this mechanism. According to Freud, a person who perceives the world as a system of riddles and mysterious things is unable to independently realize the true purpose of the world around him and the meaning of existence. Such a person needs a system of reference points in order to be able to compare himself with a specific object.

Based on this, Freud considered the identification mechanism as an attempt by a weak person to compare himself with those individuals who are authorities for him. A weak person is afraid of reality. And such a mechanism allows him to reduce his fear of her.

Stages

Stages of identification from forensic science:

1. Preparation. Experts must study the available data about a specific person, evaluate the information, and weed out useless and false information. If there is enough information, a research plan is drawn up and technical means are prepared.
2. Analytics. The specialist begins to study the properties, signs of objects and subjects that are involved in the case.
3. Experiment. It is needed to obtain samples of the subjects being studied.
4. Comparison. Stage of object identification.

The last stage is summarizing the information received, analyzing it, drawing conclusions, and recording the results. The results of the examination are recorded in special acts.

Components of Identification

When a person identifies himself with someone, he tries on the parameters of that personality. Focusing on them, he unconsciously tries to turn into an object of imitation, to look at the world through his eyes. Psychologists identify the following components of identification in psychology:

1. Transferring the sensations of the object of imitation into your inner world, accepting his life attitudes and values.
2. Projecting that personality onto yourself. A person begins to continue to imitate the object, that is, to identify himself with it. This helps to transfer one’s own character, emotional component, desires, etc. to that person.
3. An attempt to “live the life” of the object of identification. That is, acceptance and assimilation of its behavioral nature.

Identification in psychology

This is a process in which a person completely rejects himself. He projects the object of identification onto his essence, tries to become something he has never been. That is, by leaving himself, such an individual tries on someone else’s role and tries to play it - to put it in simple words.

For the development and formation of personality, this is a normal process that manifests itself in childhood.

What example of identification in psychology can be given? Identification of the child with the father. A son or daughter is trying to learn the way of thinking of their beloved parent and his actions.

What is the difference between identification and imitation? After all, these concepts are often confused. Their main difference is that imitation is a conscious imitation of someone. And identification occurs at an unconscious level. While a person goes through his individual path, it acts. But sometimes an individual cannot find himself. And then identification turns into a barrier that inhibits human development and takes on the character of a pathology.

Identification of psychological functions

It leads to the creation of a secondary character. That is, the individual transfers his true individuality into an unconscious state by very strongly identifying himself with the most developed function.

In psychology, the problem of gender identification is precisely this type. What is she like? One aspect of gender. is defined as the self-identification of a person with a certain gender. That is, this feeling of being a woman, a man, or an intermediate state. This exists, no matter how strange it may sound.

Gender identification usually corresponds to biological sex. But this does not always happen.

Gender identification. A person considers himself to belong to one of the genders, which means that his guideline is the requirements corresponding to this gender.

Distinctive features of forensic identification

1) is one of the methods of proof and is carried out with the aim of establishing the truth in the case;

2) the purpose of forensic identification is to establish an individual specific identity;

3) in the process of forensic identification one has to deal with insignificant (and sometimes negligible) quantities of substances and traces of display;

4) forensic identification is carried out according to a certain system: first, methods are used that do not lead to changes in the properties of the object being studied (description, photographic methods, microscopic research methods), and then all other methods (physical, chemical);

5) forensic identification is carried out within the time limits established by law;

6) forms of identification are regulated by law: i.e. the expert must present his findings in the form of an expert opinion.

Defense mechanism

Identification in psychology can represent a defense mechanism. It is the idea of ​​someone as oneself. The most striking example of such a mechanism is parents’ identification with their own children. The parent projects his own desires and needs onto the child, and then prescribes his achievements. For example, my mother dreamed of being a pianist all her life. But she became an accountant. She creates such antecedent factors in the environment that her daughter will follow this path. Against the child's will. And when she achieves success, my mother is as proud of herself as if she had succeeded as a pianist.

Conceptual apparatus of the theory of forensic identification

Identification

is the process of establishing identity.

Object identity

means the uniqueness of an individually specific object and its equality to itself.

Identify object

- this means: to individualize him, to establish his equality with himself.

Identification period

– this is the period that elapses from the moment the information is reflected until the moment it is used in the identification study.

Searched object

- this is a single material object that left traces at the scene of a crime. For example, the PM pistol, traces of a shot from which remained on the bullets and cartridges found and seized during the inspection of the crime scene.

Object being checked

- a material object that is only supposed to be the one being sought, but in the process of identification research may turn out to be an object that has nothing to do with the case under investigation. For example, a “PM” pistol, discovered and seized during a search at the apartment of a murder suspect, as a result of a ballistic examination turned out to be not the desired object, since traces of shots, loading and extraction found on bullets and cartridges seized at the scene of the incident were formed during shooting from another pistol.

Direct identification link

— direct connection between the identified object and the display of its properties (signs) in traces.

Feedback Identification

- a return reflection of the properties (signs) of the interacting object, perceived by the desired object.

Identification feature

- this is a property of an object that satisfies certain requirements that make it possible to reliably establish the species difference and characteristic features of the object under study.

Identification field

is a complex of identification features based on their relationship with each other, location and other features in the objects being compared.

Identification cycle

- the process of isolating, comprehensive analysis of a separate characteristic or group of characteristics, and then their comparative study and subsequent evaluation.

Adaptive process

Let's consider identification as an adaptive process. What does it consist of? In an attempt to become like a certain person, to adopt his features. Instead of an individual, there can be a group of people. This begins in childhood, so initially identification is quite primitive. Over time, a strong emotional attachment develops to the chosen object, or to a group of people. The person feels one with them and “absorbs” not only character traits and characteristics, but also the values, attitudes and patterns of behavior of the group or object of worship.

Adaptive identification can change over time. For example, if during her school years her target was a local bully and this gave her a certain social status, then an adult is unlikely to want to have the status of a criminal.

Levels of depth of conformity

There are many levels of depth of conformity.
This:

1. Submission
   , which only occurs when the pressure group is physically present. When it disappears, the person returns to his beliefs or behavior. The motive for action is most often the fear of punishment or rejection from the group.
2. Identification
   is a deeper form of conformity. He appears even when the group is not physically present. This is said when an individual identifies with a group, resulting in his behavior adapting to the ideas of the individual.
3. Introjection
   (or internalization) is the deepest form of conformity, which involves recognizing certain norms and values ​​as one’s own. This is one of the tasks of socialization.

Psychologically unstable character: should you be afraid?

Interesting facts about Freudian identification

Z. Freud developed two key directions of identification in psychology: erotic and mimetic. The first refers to those people who act as objects of desire. The second is those people whom the individual looks up to. In other words, those they want to be like.

It is mimetic identification that serves as the “thread”. With its help you can control not only one person, but also a crowd. A group of people abandons their own ideals and turns their attention to one common leader. Another thing is that you need to try hard to gain authority among the crowd.

Let's summarize

What to remember from the article?

1. Identification in psychology is identifying oneself with a person, group of people or image.
2. It can be primary and secondary. Primary is typical for a child, secondary - for an adult.
3. The identification mechanism, according to Freud, is that a weak person cannot rely on himself. He needs an authority with which he will identify his essence.
4. Identification can be viewed as both a defense mechanism and an adaptive process.
5. A defense mechanism is the transfer of one’s desires to another object, while the achievements of this object are regarded as one’s own. It is characteristic of parents in relation to children.
6. The adaptive process is an attempt to become like an individual person, or a group of people, to adopt his/their values.
7. According to Freud, identification is divided into mimetic and erotic.

Empathy

Over time, a person will move away from his parents and may adopt the behavior and character traits of literary heroes. Bravery in extreme situations, honesty, valor, etc. can be the merit of the books on which a child or teenager was raised. I have a separate article about what empathy is.

The impact of films is weaker, since the period of their influence on the human psyche is short-lived. Identifying with the hero of a work of art helps to better understand the work and evokes vivid emotions and experiences.

At a young age, many girls show a penchant for reading romantic literature. From books they learn more about how true ladies behave, as a result of which they themselves develop such traits as morality, delicacy, and femininity.

You can use the desire for identification for your own purposes. For example, during a divorce, it is recommended to read books about strong women, or heroic epics to develop self-confidence.

By the way, all this is written very interestingly in Yulia Fomina’s book “Psychological characteristics of fairy-tale characters and personal identification.” It tells exactly how fairy tales influence a child and what consequences they lead to in adulthood. Who knows, maybe in this work lies the answer to the question: “Why am I like this?”