The Dimensions of Personal Identity
In this paper I tackle the question of personal identity as to “what attributes define a person and make them who they are”. The paper aims at informing cultural competency trainees and learning providers and therefore I shall not go into detailed discussions about what defines personhood , evidence of personhood, or about what persistence of personality is (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, n.d.) Lack of Consensus Researchers and theoreticians in the fields of philosophy, psychology and social sciences, do not have a consensus regarding what factors define personal identity. While West & Zimmerman, for example, focused in their research on the effects of gender , Maddox studied ethnicity . Cheryan & Monin’s work, on the other hand, focused on nationality and Proshansky introduced and studied ‘ place identity ’. Professor Vivian Vignoles, of the School of Psychology at the University of Sussex, on the other hand proposes that identity has personal and social attri