SIDE Theory

Social Individuation Deindividuation Theory. A fascinating theory I encountered during my 2nd semester in my Year 1 as NUS undergraduate. The theory mentioned that human, as an individual, will always categorize him/herself to a certain category differentiating him/herself from the rest.

I was really fascinated by this theory as it was really a very good explanation of the origin of community. Too abstract? Well, consider such example:
Whenever one feels uncomfortable to people around him/her, one may draw a line and begin to categorize oneself to comfort oneself about the origin of one's discomfort. A sample case would be culture categorization. Sometimes when we are not comfortable of the culture due to some culture shock, we always and always remembered of our own culture and reminded ourselves that we are from such culture.

Fascinating thing about this theory is that humans, as a social creature, have (to a certain extent) the will of individuating themselves as well as deindividuating themselves. Human individuation includes the belief that one is unique and different from the rest of the humans in this world. Human deindividuation includes the belief that everybody is of equal authority and power as in a community.

What can you expect from the so-called most advanced organism on Earth? Complexities.

peace
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