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identity theft

identity theft, the use of one person's personal information by another to commit fraud or other crimes. The most common forms of identity theft occur when someone obtains another person's social security number, driver's license number, date of birth, and the like and uses it to open a fraudulent bank, credit card, cellular telephone, or other account, or to obtain false loans. Criminal identity theft, the most common nonfinancial type, occurs when someone gives another's personal information to a law enforcement officer when he or she is arrested. In addition to the financial losses resulting from identity theft, the person whose personal information has been used will have an erroneous credit or criminal history that is often expensive and time-consuming to correct. The occurrence of identity theft increased significantly beginning in the late 1990s due to the computerization of records and the ability to use another's personal information anonymously over the Internet.

The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia Copyright © 2004.
Licensed from Columbia University Press

identity

identity, in philosophy, problem of distinguishing sameness from change, or unity from diversity; primarily examined in connection with personal identity, universals, and the law of identity in logic. In personal identity the concern has been to determine whether anything in the body or mind remains constant; philosophers have reached no general agreement on this point. The term identity has also become increasingly important in modern psychology, largely through the work of Erik Erikson. He has used the term to designate a sense of self that develops in the course of a man's life and that both relates him to and sets him apart from his social milieu. The terms "identity crisis" and "identity confusion," introduced by Erikson, have gained a wide usage, which often varies from their intended technical sense.

The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia Copyright © 2004.
Licensed from Columbia University Press

dissociative identity disorder

dissociative identity disorder: see multiple personality.

The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia Copyright © 2004.
Licensed from Columbia University Press

identity theory

In the philosophy of mind, the doctrine that mental events are identical to physico-chemical events in the brain. So-called “type” identity theory asserts that each type of mental event, such as pain, is identical to some type of event in the brain, such as the firing of c-fibres. In response to objections based on the assumed “multiple realizability” of mental states, “token” identity theory makes the weaker claim that each token of a mental event, such as a particular pain, is identical to some token of a brain event of some type. Seealso mind-body problem.

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Encyclopedia Britannica, 2008. Encyclopedia Britannica Online.

dissociative identity disorder

formerly multiple personality disorder

Rare condition indicated by the absence of a clear and comprehensive identity. In most cases two or more independent and distinct personality systems develop in the same individual. Each personality may alternately inhabit the person's conscious awareness to the exclusion of the others, but one is usually dominant. The various personalities typically differ from one another in outlook, temperament, and body language and might assume different first names. The condition is generally viewed as resulting from dissociative mental processes—that is, the splitting off from conscious awareness and control of thoughts, feelings, memories, and other mental components in response to situations that are painful, disturbing, or somehow unacceptable to the person experiencing them. Treatment is aimed at integrating the disparate personalities back into a single and unified personality.

Learn more about dissociative identity disorder with a free trial on Britannica.com.

Encyclopedia Britannica, 2008. Encyclopedia Britannica Online.