Daanya Khan
Part 1: Topic Reflection
What I knew before I started
When appointed this research process, I had a variety of different topics to choose from. Though one specific topic kept occurring multiple times, the psychology of labels. A while ago, I was asked a question, “If you were to introduce yourself without mentioning your name, occupation, nationality, ethnicity, hobbies, or religion, how would you describe yourself and who you are at your core?” (The Axel Schura Show 2025) that intrigued me so incredibly as I came to the sudden epiphany that over the years, the world has stacked a number of superficial markers and labels in order to fit into societys rigid expectations and standards. Rather than aiming to discover our profound intrinsic selves and values, people have adhered to others’ beliefs and thought processes. This concept had stuck with me for a while, yet I didn’t have significant prior knowledge about the topic, which is when I appointed this topic to research. When initially beginning the research process, I had the base concepts pre-existent in my mind and knew precisely what I desired to research, although I hadn’t enlightened myself to the level I have now. I initially believed that personality traits and labels are a way to deflect from our true selves and often restricted people into fitting rigid and structured boundaries. When I began researching during the ‘Rabbit Hole’ activity, I came across a blog that discussed the broader concept of labels and how detrimental they can be, especially as ‘we are deeply social creatures whose sense of self if profoundly shaped by how others percieve and treat us’ (Kelly 2025). This phrase compelled me to see beyond the labels I had stacked for myself, labels that had bound me to complying with others expectations. Furthermore, before I had begun researching this topic thoroughly, I briefly interviewed a psychology expert on the existence of ‘labelling theory’ who analysed that “the theory’s presence is prevalent due to a simple reason; humans aren’t able to fully comprehend the extent of one’s personality and character, which is where the emergence of stereotypes and personality traits occurs” (Laura Manker, Psychology Educator). This further enhanced my stand on the topic; the labels that people often bound themselves to can progress to be detrimental and prejudiced when prolonging stigma around self-expression. Further along my brainstorming research, through the use of key words such as ‘labels’ ‘psychology’ and ‘self-expression’, it came to my knowledge that there is pre-existing label theory which was developed by Howard Becker in the late 1960s, and discusses how societal stigma surrounding the people who had performed wrongdoing or misdeed often reinforces primary and secondary deviance, allowing the person to project further misdeed if only to compell themselves into the boundaries of the labels they have been called for, which conveys how deep-rooted labels can be when called out for in both a positive and a negative manner.
Part 2: Research Process
What I learned when I researched
Throughout my research process, I would analyse it in the sense that it was progressive rather than fickle. This is because my initial intuition of the topic was thorough enough to provide me with a pre-existing understanding and insight. After our brainstorm activity, when we began to look for research that fit the extent of our research interests, I had incredible trouble finding precise and relevent sources that correlated with my interests. Upon further research of ‘Labelling theory’, I realized that the majority of the theory was constructed to project and illustrate the destructiveness that follows through when labelling a crime, wrongdoing, or act of self-expression, which causes deviance, to which the sources analyzed in a societal lense rather than a psychological lense, being slightly irrelevent to my topic. This is when I was met with a podcast that talked about society’s progressive adaptation and reliance on social labels in order to avoid judgement though simultaneously restrict individualism. Due to the podcast being hosted through BBC, a globally recognized broadcaster, by Claudia Hammond, a british academic psychologist, I could depend on its reliability, even if I found the source to be slightly vague and lacked the necessary evaluation and precision I was on the search for. Hammond discusses how ‘we’re not one type of personality all the time. We’re very different in different situations…’ (Hammond “Why Are We Obsessed with Personality Types and Labels?”). This subtly hints and reinforces how a label is unsound as humans cannot be classified into a single type of restrictive character trait. Moreover, Gelbert (host) claims how ‘asking someone’s MBTI [Myers-Brigg Personality Test] is just starting another small conversation like asking caual questions such as ‘whats your major’ and ‘where are you from’. Though, this represents a logical and unsound fallacy as such objective identity factors and cultural traits cannot be identified and acknowledged in the same manner as subjective, fluctuating personality traits, illustrating that labels have become career-defining, taking them into another light altogether.
Further along my research, I came across a Ted Talk given by Carol Dweck, an American psychologist and renowned author who published ‘Mindset’, and evaluates the difference between a growth and fixed mindset. Dweck claims that in educational systems, rewarding the ‘intelligence’, rather than the process and efforts can lead to rigid perceptions of a student’s ability, emphasising and implementing certain expectations for the student. The central premise of Dweck’s TED talk (which is heavily reliant on her pre-existing book), analyses ‘the power of yet’, arguing that thought processes and individualistic habits are scientifically progressive and constantly developing, implying that one should adhere to keeping an open mindset rather than binding themself to a label. Even as the source does not outrightly address the precise use of ‘labels’ in todays world, it does analyze that ‘they’ve [students] done so poorly for so long that many people think its inevitable’ (Dweck ‘The Power of Believing You Can Improve’), a phrase that insightfully suggests that due to one’s behaviour, people tend to attach belittling labels that only aide in reinforcing one’s own insecurities and dilemma, supporting my argument of how societal labels reinforce stereotypical belief systems and expectations.
When researching for an academic article that aided in answering my research question, I found great difficulty as the overall concept of my topic was broad, though the specific point I was targeting was too meticulous, which many articles were deflecting away from. Though, when I was introduced to an article that doesn’t narrow itself to labels, but overall identity theory, I found my question being answered in a much more efficient and well-rounded approach. ‘Labels and the Self ‘Identity Labels as Scaffold’ was a comprehensive article published in 2023 by a psychotherapist qualified in Jungian Analysis (analytical psychology), Leigh Money. The article ponders upon how self-selected identity tags function dynamically and psychologically, arguing that while these self-adopted labels can be proven to act as shortcuts when needing to synthesize our personalities, they can be restricting in terms of growth and developmental processes, which is why knowing the full extent of the labels definition is crucial in order to prevent rigidity. Though it can be taken into consideration that the source, in order to reduce and mitigate bias/opinionation, does not directly refer to the concept of a label as ‘destructive’, and rather subtely implies it, potentially compelling the reader to conduct further evaluation and analysis of the source. Money evaluates how ‘when people use labels to describe themselves, they often have a fixed or definitive quality. This is especially the case when the label is the hard-won fruit of a long-standing search for self-understanding and acceptance’, which corroborates the idea that labels confer a sense of justification/normality to people’s actions and mannerisms, creating the impression that the label profoundly defines their behaviour without verifying its relevence or implications. This was enlightening to me, as I hadn’t considered that people not only use labels to deflect from their genuine personalities, but also to justify themselves. The source implies that labels can grow to become one’s overall being and entity, as it evades from not having to detangle the ‘mess’ underneath, implicating that people should work on their own intrinsic and inherent disposition and individuality rather than seek for broad terms and labels that inhibit oneself. Moreover, the article helped me abstain from regarding labels as entirely destructive, and rather envision transitional objects, existing in the subjective space between the present self and the future, allowing for further self-exploration (as the title of the article implicates ‘identity labels as Scaffold’).
Summarizing my research, I discovered a non-fiction text rooted in the theories of Alfred Adler and Sigmund Freud, the pillars of psychology. Published by Ichirio Kishimi and Fumitake Koga, Japanese philosophers and psychologists, ‘The Courage To Be Disliked’ discusses the main themes that trauma does not define one’s present and future, all problems are interpersonal relationship problems, and that genuine contentment is the aftermath of letting for the need for approval. Though the source deliberately omits the use of key words such as ‘label’, which leads to prior thorough comprehension of the topic being necessary, the book states that ‘every time my [youth] self-consciousness kicks in and puts the brakes on, and its as if I’ve been straightjacketed. My consciousness won’t allow me to behave in an innocent way.” This argues that self-awareness and the strive for conscientiousness act as barriers to inhibit one’s full potential and act against the limitations of their personality, conveying that people often conform to social labels and superficial markers if only to meet external validation and satisfy their own insecurities/dilemmas. This furthermore implies that labels act as self-fulfilling prophecies/harbingers for the future, enforcing one to employ fabrications to hide their true selves and evolve to fit the boundaries of the label.
Part 3: The Evolution of the Research
How the research and I evolved through the process
Throughout the research process, both my comprehension of my topic expanded as well as my research question. When initially developing my research question, I unsuccesfully made it too narrow and tailored, while simultaneously targeted a vast number of aspects on the implications of the term ‘label’ (societal stigma surrounding expectations, psychological effects of both positive and negative labels, and intrinsic restrictions), all which lead to my research needing to be incredibly thorough and all-encompassing in the short given time frame, something that seamed unfeasable. In order to fix this, I narrowed down my research question to target specifically the implications of labels when influencing conformity and submission as well as inhibiting self-expression in adolescents, two aspects that represented an interlinked relationship, making it a more feasable research question. Though, nearing the end of my research process, I came across the relevation that my research, though comprehensive, had not specified to ‘adolescents’ in the slightest, compelling me to omit that and keep it to simply people in a generic overview. Nearing the end, after evaluating the majority of my research and synthesizing the main points/attributes I was focusing towards, I created/honed the research question to be ‘to what extent do labels act as a catalyst when influencing conformity and inhibiting self expression and individualism?’ As my research question evolved and progressed, so did my research throughout the entirety of the unit. Initially, I found my research to be slightly evasive and vague, which I found to be irrelevent as my research question would have been discussing the psychological effects of labels when restricting self-expression and perpetuating stigma surrounding it, which were far too specific and tailored. Though, I had spent a considerate amount of time simply researching my three primary sources, and had found that my research question evolved to better suit them as well as my initial interests for the topic. One aspect of my research I would reflect on in order to describe how it went overall, is that I would percieve my research to be progressive rather than fluctuating, as fluctuating research would mean that I was finding frivalous and irrelevent bits of information that enforced me to revise my research question, though it was more progressive in the sense that I built and enhanced upon the pre-existing and prior knowledge I already had. Since my topic could be viewed as slightly broad and encompassing, it compelled me to have a precise and thorough understanding of what I wished to find out. Initially, doing this was challenging, as finding a research article that didn’t deviate from my specific target of research was difficult. Though in order to revise this inhibiting marker, I structured my way of researching differently, and rather than looking for articles that discussed the narrow ‘Labelling theory’, I shifted towards researching for ‘Identity theory’, as it better adhered to my interests. Identity theory is the framework and concept behind how humans are biologically created to have a progressive mindset, which is why a label can be demoralizing and detrimental when inhibiting one’s progression, wheras ‘labelling theory’ is the psychological premise that employing a negative label causes further deviance. Furthermore, I constructed my research in a consequential, progressive manner, where I started with ‘colloquial’ sources that discussed this issue’s prevalence in today’s society, and expanded my research to sources that discussed the philasophical psychology and science behind labels, to which my non-fiction book was immensely helpful for, and allowed me to develop a well-rounded base understanding of my topic before backing it with scientific evaluation.
If I were to continue this process of researching the depreceating effects of labels on personality development, I would divert my attention towards the social effects of labels when reinforcing societal hierarchies and expectations, while also perpetuating long-standing stigma involving self-expression and individualism in a society that prioritizes classification systems and rigid categorization. Nearing the end of my (continuous) research project, I would synthesize what I learnt by considering what are achievable steps to offsetting cognitive boundaries in our lives so that people can forgo/abstain from utilising labels/ rigid, inaccurate markers, overall knowing how to eradicate their restrictive nature.