“Write an essay of 1000 words addressing the following question: Describe any one approach to identity. Discuss how this approach can help to explain the identities of people with disabilities.”

This essay will consider the contribution of Social Identity Theory to an understanding of identity. The theory which was initiated by the Jewish psychologist Henri Tajfel and it concentrates on group and social identities. The essay will also illustrate how Social Identity Theory helps to explain the identities of people with physical impairment whilst at the same time highlighting the limitations of this approach.

Social Identity Theory stresses out the development of identity through individual identification with one particular social grouping and not with the other. Tajfel differentiated two correlated kinds of identity: the personal and social. He also enhanced our understanding of humans identity by the view that we all put ourselves into the subjective categories we think we belong to. This active engagement in creating an identity is also visible in providing the meaning…(short extract)