Social Identity: Male and Female. Identities to write about: Gender “ Male and Female *Be sure to use and define specific social psychological processes/concepts that contribute to identity formation and recognition in the paper and define them In this exercise, we ask you to consider ways that individuals are subject to social influence in the construction of their identities, and the use of that identity in action. We ask that you start from the assumption that �selves� are formed through interaction with others in particular settings of experience in which particular �definitions� of reality hold currency. These definitions of reality are conveyed through verbal and symbolic communication. In these situations actors respond through their endowments for cognitive and emotional action to the �meanings� they encounter about themselves, the world and others. This paper should reflect on TWO specific versions of an identity that differ between two individuals on a common, sociologically important dimension of social differentiation. The paper should be based on information you retrieve through systematic self-reflection and interviews focusing on your informants, concerning their experiences acquiring a specific social identity. Explore: How and where individuals believe that they acquired an awareness of their identity; and How they have responded to: assumptions of that they learn others have made about them; meanings they learn others have associated with their personal characteristics and social positions; and expectations others have of them, based on these assumptions and interpretations, for their �life chances�(a sociological term signifying their possible attainments, including possibilities of success, comfort, hardship, etc., in life); options in making critical life decisions, and their likely actions in different arenas of society. RESEARCH AGENDA AND CONTENT OF YOUR PAPER Your inquiry should: 1. Specify the personal traits or social roles or positions that form the basis for the identities whose development in your subjects you are exploring; 2. Describe the broadly construed �meaning systems� that individuals have encountered though which they have define their identities. (See Jodi O�Brien�s (pp, 69-76) discussions of the centrality of �symbolic� communications in human interaction, and the availability of categories of interpretations, systems of classification, and the descriptive and evaluative �languages� that operate in social settings to bestow meaning and identity on persons and things.) You should show how the �meanings,� �codes,� or languages you identify your subjects encountering have offered them an interpretation of the traits individuals possess or have interpreted the consequences of the particular institutional or social structural contexts or roles that people have found themselves in. 3. Describe the ways in their life experiences individuals have encountered the identity-defining signifiers, codes, language, meaning systems ” belief sets, knowledge systems, ideologies, categories) � that shaped their own understandings of the the significance of their personal characteristics or social positions. 4. Provide accounts of how individuals have responded in cognitive and emotional terms to the �texts,� �discourses,� �labels,� and various interpretations of their attributes or situations as they developed their personal understandings of their identities. (See Jodi O�Brien�s discussion, �From Masks to Selves.�) 5. Present the identities in question as acquired, developed or learned over time, in stages, and through specific phases of someone�s biography. Think in terms of a �time-line� in the history of the identity, with attention to formative intervals, critical moments or defining occasions in which individuals understood themselves to have been embedded in a process of identity formation, recognized others� perspectives on them, and came to a practical acceptance of themselves as having particular features of a consequential social identity.