I strongly agree that we define ourselves primarily through our identification with social groups, as the speaker asserts. Admittedly, at certain stages of life people often appear to define themselves in other terms. Yet, in my view, during these stages the fundamental need to define one's self through association with social groups is merely masked or suspended.

Any developmental psychologist would agree that socialization with other children plays a critical role in any child's understanding and psychological development of self. At the day-care center or in the kindergarten class young children quickly learn that they want to play with the same toys at the same time or in the same way as some other children. They come to understand generally what they share in common with certain of their peers in terms of appearance, behavior, likes and dislikes--and what they do not share in common with other peers or with older students and adults. In other words, these children begin to recognize that their identity inextricably involves their kinship with certain peers and alienation from other people.

As children progress to the social world of the playground and other after-school venues, their earlier recognition that they relate more closely to some people than to others evolves into a desire to form well-defined social groups, and to set these groups apart from others. Girls begin to congregate apart from boys; clubs and cliques are quickly formed--often with exclusive rituals, codes, and rules to further distinguish the group's members from other children. This apparent need to be a part of an exclusive group continues through high school, where students identify themselves in their yearbooks by the clubs to which they belonged. Even in college, students eagerly join clubs, fraternities, and sororities to establish their identity as members of social groups. In my observation children are not taught by adults to behave in these ways; thus this desire to identify oneself with an exclusive social group seems to spring from some innate psychological need to define one's self through one's personal associations.

However, as young adults take on the responsibilities of partnering, parenting, and working, they appear to define themselves less by their social affiliations and more by their marital status, parental status, and occupation. The last of these criteria seems particularly important for many adults today. When two adults meet for the first time, beyond initial pleasantries the initial question almost invariably is "What do you do for a living?" Yet in my opinion this shift in focus from one's belonging to a social group to one's occupation is not a shift in how we prefer to define ourselves. Rather, it is born of economic necessity--we don't have the leisure time or financial independence to concern ourselves with purely social activities. I find quite telling the fact that when older people retire from the world of work an interest in identifying with social groups--whether they be bridge clubs, investment clubs, or country clubs--seems to reemerge. In short, humans seem possessed by an enduring need to be part of a distinct social group--a need that continues throughout life's journey.

In sum, I agree that people gain and maintain their sense of self primarily through their belonging to distinct social groups. Admittedly, there will always be loners who prefer not to belong, for whatever reasons; yet loners are the exception. Also, while many working adults might temporarily define themselves in terms of their work for practicality's sake, at bottom we humans are nothing if not social animals.