in this chapter, I have drawn a distinction between (a) components of identity that arise out of choices made available to individuals in their social contexts and (b) components of identity over which individuals have no choice but around which they must construct meaning/in order for the identity literature to address issues such as coherence of personality and continuity over time, it is critical that we identify the similarities and differences in the identity process for assigned and chosen components and that we then understand conceptually how the different components of identity fit together into a whole/adoptive identity was used as an example of an assigned component, and several avenues by which assigned and chosen components of identity might interact were proposed