Have you ever noticed that the way you act around your friends is totally different from how you act at home? Or even online? 

It’s common for us to think we have a good idea of who someone is based on their behaviour. The truth, however, is usually more complex than that. The version of a person seen at school is often different from the one at home, with friends, or even online. Without being aware of it, many people change their behaviour depending on who they are around, thus having many different “versions” of themselves existing at once.

There are clear physiological reasons behind this. Humans are social by nature, and adapting to different situations helps us fit in and avoid conflict. We change our speech patterns, beliefs or style of interacting with others so that we have some similarities in common with those around us. (Pardede and Kovač) The adaptations or variations in behaviour do not represent being untruthful, but rather being socially conscious. Observing what is going on around you, and responding appropriately, is an extremely valuable life skill, and one that helps us form connections, maintain balance and feel accepted within different groups.

However, this constant adjustment can sometimes go too far. When someone changes themselves too much depending on their surroundings, it can become difficult to identify which version feels most real. This may lead to a sense of disconnection, as if different parts of one’s personality are scattered across different situations. This will in turn produce feelings of pressure to live up to those roles even when one does not feel authentic to them.

Having several sides of ourselves isn’t necessarily a bad thing. People are multilayered; it is normal for us to show different behaviours depending on context. A crucial part of this is proving to balance adapting to different contexts with staying true to who we really are. One of the first keys to recognising these differences is knowing how to better understand yourself.

Ultimately, the way we have many versions of ourselves demonstrates just how strongly impacted we are by our environments. Even though change happens regardless of our ability to maintain some sense of our own identities, what allows all of these different versions of us to come together as a whole is our ability to maintain a sense of being authentic. Being authentic means acting in a way that truly reflects who you are, even if it changes depending on the situation. It does not mean being exactly the same everywhere –people naturally adapt to different spaces – but it’s about staying true to your values, feelings and thoughts underneath all those surface-level changes. Therefore, rather than choosing one of our authentic identities to be “real”, we need to ensure that each version has a sense of continuity between them.

Works Cited

Pardede, Saga, and Velibor Bobo Kovač. “Distinguishing the Need to Belong and Sense of Belongingness: The Relation between Need to Belong and Personal Appraisals under Two Different Belongingness–Conditions.” European Journal of Investigation in Health, Psychology and Education, vol. 13, no. 2, Feb. 2023, pp. 331–44, https://doi.org/10.3390/ejihpe13020025.

An illustration of several human silhouettes, each with different scenes inside their heads, symbolizing diverse thoughts, emotions and perspectives among individuals. (2020, October 10). https://www.instagram.com/p/CGKJ3f-sz7X/