Identity & Integrity

One of my old favorite books is Triumphs of Experience, by Dr. George Vaillant. This is one of many books written about the Harvard Grant study, which I’ve talked about quite often. For those who may not know, it’s a longitudinal study that has been running continuously since 1938, following hundreds of Harvard graduates throughout their lives with interviews, surveys, and questionnaires, mapping their adult development and trying to learn everything it can about what it takes for a human being to thrive through adulthood.

In the book, Dr. Vaillant talks a bit about the Eriksonian model of adult development, laying out six stages, or developmental tasks, as he calls them, which are challenges that each of us must eventually face as we develop throughout our lives. I want to talk about two of them in particular today: the first task, Identity, and the last task, Integrity.

To Dr. Vaillant, who needed quantifiable metrics for his survey, achieving Identity meant formulating your own beliefs and worldview independent of your parents. More abstractly, you could say that Identity means creating a stable foundation of beliefs and values on which to live your life.

According to Vaillant, Identity is the first task because most (if not all) of the others depend on it—and this makes a good deal of intuitive sense. For example, the next task is Intimacy, meaning the ability to form intimate relationships. The most important factor in a long-term relationship such as a marriage is sharing core values, therefore, it is very difficult if not impossible to be prepared for such a relationship unless you have stable core values. You could say that there are three levels of preparation there: the first is having stable core values, the second is knowing what your core values are, and the third is knowing how to make them comprehensible to others. The further along you are, the better.

I would also add that most people have a fragmented identity. One example of this would be a person who calls themselves a Christian, yet practices only part of Christian teachings while ignoring other commandments of the Bible. But of course, this is not unique to Christians, nor is it merely a matter of externally obvious hypocrisy. In the parable of the sower, I’m informed that the original Greek describing the thorny soil, “the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches,” can be interpreted as “that which fragments a man.”

The way I understand this is that a person’s values exist in a hierarchy, with some transcendent value such as Love or God at the top of the hierarchy, from which all other values are ultimately derived. Once you know what is at the top of the hierarchy—and I mean really know it, in a clear, assured way—it’s best to go all-in, to make every part of your life serve the highest value. So “fragmented identity” doesn’t just mean self-destructive behaviors, but anything that is out of alignment with that core. Doing nothing at all could be evidence of a fragmented identity, depending on the circumstances.

This is where Integrity comes in, because I understand the Eriksonian concept of Integrity to essentially mean learning to reconcile all aspects of your life, and especially Identity, with life’s pains, suffering, and eventual end. It reminds me of how C.S. Lewis once described the virtue of Fortitude, otherwise known as courage or guts: that it is the strength of all virtues at the point of testing, which is to say the point of highest reality, and that you cannot practice any virtue for very long without bringing this one into play.

In the same way, Integrity defines the strength and reliability of all the other developmental tasks. Identity without Integrity will yield in the face of life’s challenges, and will rarely if ever remain unfragmented for long. The obvious question, then, is how to form and strengthen these qualities.

In the case of Identity, the answer is something I have been prescribing for decades: a genuine, wholehearted search for the truth, even should it put our feelings in harm’s way. The more we can test and measure our beliefs against reality and bring them more into line with our best and most honest conception of truth, the stronger the resulting Identity will be.

So what about Integrity? The first thing to note is that there are a couple of different meanings at work here. There is the aspect of Fortitude, our ability to make choices based on our Identity-beliefs even when they may conflict with our own circumstantial desires and comfort. Then, there is the philosophical aspect, our ability to intellectually reconcile our Identity-beliefs with the world. This second part is important because it links the journey of Integrity to that of Identity, meaning that continual, active progress in the latter will also aid our grounding in the former. After all, human beings typically don’t do things without a reason (whether it’s a good reason being another question), so the more aware you’re aware of your reasons, and the more your reasons are grounded by insight and hard work, the better equipped you are.

The next thing to keep in mind has to do with the limits of willpower. Of course, you ought to apply your willpower to keep your actions in line with your Identity, but all humans fall short of the glory of God, and we all commit the sin of hypocrisy. When this happens, I think the important thing is to avoid repression. Face up to the truth of the matter and try to learn a lesson from it. To do otherwise would likely be to initiate a negative feedback loop that could consume your life for who knows how long. But as long as you can keep yourself honest, you’ll be equipped to grow in the right direction.

Have a blessed, wonderful day!

Dr. Alex Loyd