Thematic Focus (NAT): The development of and debates about democracy, freedom, citizenship, diversity, and individualism shape American national identity, cultural values, and beliefs about American exceptionalism, and in turn, these ideas shape political institutions and society. Throughout American history, notions of national identity and culture have coexisted with varying degrees of regional and group identities. Learning Objective: Explain how and why colonial attitudes about government and the individual changed in the years leading up to the American Revolution. Colonial attitudes toward government: Colonial attitudes toward the individual: