For decades, scholars in organizational and social psychology have distinguished between two types of identity: social and personal. To what extent, though, is this dichotomy useful for understanding identities and their dynamics, and might a different approach facilitate deeper insight? Such are the guiding questions of this article. I begin by reviewing framings of the social/personal identity dichotomy in organizational psychology, and tracing its origins and evolution in social psychology. I then evaluate the strengths and limitations of this dichotomy as a tool for understanding identities. In an attempt to retain the dichotomy’s strengths and overcome its limitations, I present a modified conceptualization of the social and personal dimensions of identity, one that defines these dimensions based on psychological experience (not identity content), and treats them as two independent continua (not two levels of a dichotomy, or opposing ends of a continuum) that any given identity varies along across contexts.

Plain language summary

A single person can identify with lots of different aspects of their life: their family, community, job, and hobbies, to name but a few. In the same way it helps to group different items in a shop into sections, it can be helpful to group the different identities available to people into categories. And for a long time, this is what researchers have done: calling certain identities “social identities” if based on things like race and culture, and “personal identities” if based on things like traits and habits. In this paper, I explain that for various reasons, this might not be the most accurate way of mapping identities. Instead of categorizing them based on where they come from, I suggest it’s more helpful to focus on how identities actually make people feel, and how these feelings change from one moment to the next. I also point out that many identities can make someone feel like a unique person and part of a broader group at the same time. For this reason, it’s best to think of the “social” and “personal” parts of an identity not as opposites—but simply different aspects of the same thing.

中文翻译：

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社会/个人身份二分法的动态重构

几十年来，组织心理学和社会心理学的学者区分了两种类型的身份：社会身份和个人身份。然而，这种二分法在多大程度上有助于理解身份及其动态，不同的方法可能有助于更深入的洞察？这些是本文的指导性问题。我首先回顾组织心理学中社会/个人身份二分法的框架，并追溯其在社会心理学中的起源和演变。然后，我评估了这种二分法作为理解身份的工具的优势和局限性。为了保留二分法的优势并克服其局限性，我提出了对身份的社会和个人维度的修改概念化，

简明语言摘要

一个人可以认同他们生活的许多不同方面：他们的家庭、社区、工作和爱好，仅举几例。以同样的方式将商店中的不同商品分为多个部分也很有帮助，将人们可用的不同身份分组也很有帮助。长期以来，这就是研究人员所做的：如果基于种族和文化等因素，将某些身份称为“社会身份”，如果基于特征和习惯等因素，则将其称为“个人身份”。在本文中，我解释说，出于各种原因，这可能不是映射身份的最准确方法。与其根据它们的来源对它们进行分类，我建议将重点放在身份实际上如何让人们感受到，以及这些感受如何从一个时刻到下一个时刻发生变化会更有帮助。我还指出，许多身份可以让一个人感觉自己既是一个独特的人，又是一个更广泛群体的一部分。出于这个原因，最好不要将身份的“社会”和“个人”部分视为对立面——而只是同一事物的不同方面。