Developing Stable Identity

For Erikson (1950) adolescence is a period during which individuals seek to avoid dangers of role diffusion and identity confusion by establishing a sense of personal identity. Individuals have to find answers for two major questions “who am I?” and “what is my place in society?” Identity is a “conscious sense of individual uniqueness” and an “unconscious striving for a continuity of experience” (Erikson, 1968, p. 208).

“Identity Development “ Identity is most simply defined as a person's own sense of self; their personal sense of who they are. Identity development is intrinsically linked with adolescence because, according to John Santrock author of the book entitled Adolescence 15th edition, "...for the first time, physical, cognitive, and socio-emotional development advance to the point at which the individual can sort through and synthesize childhood identities and identifications to construct a viable path toward adult maturity.” We often see the results of this sorting process in behaviors of adolescents such as adopting and shedding different personas, including speech patterns, clothing styles and peer groups. Although these transitions

Lastly, there are four possible attempts that adolescents may go through to get a sense of identity. The four possible attempts are: identity moratorium adolescents, identity foreclosure adolescents, identity confused or diffused adolescents, and identity achievement adolescents. All of these are examples of what adolescents go through to discover their identity. Some adolescents may go through every single example and others may only go through one. It depends completely on the individual and that’s what makes them special and

One of the theorists to investigate the development of identity would be Erik Erikson. According to Erikson (1968), throughout an individual’s life-span, they experience conflicts. These conflicts arise at certain points in life and need to be successfully resolved for the progression in to the next of Erikson’s eight stages (Sigelman & Rider, 2015). The specific stage relevant to the development of identity formation in adolescence would be the ‘identity versus role confusion’ stage. Identity development involves exploring options and making commitments to obtain a relatively stable self-perception (DeHaan & MacDermid, 1996). In contrast, role confusion occurs when individuals are not able to commit specific life choices (DeHaan & MacDermid,

James Marcia is another influential theory of Erikson, who expanded upon the concept of identity confusion and identity crisis. Marcia used the terms of identity status to describe four unique development identity points. Those points are identity diffusion, identity foreclosure, moratorium and identity achievement. Besides, Marcia’s theory does not assume that every teenager or adolescent will go through and experience all four identity status. Firstly, Identity diffusion explained that the teenage haven’t considered their identity at all and does not establish any life goals (Oswalt, 2015c). For example, Sheldon does not have any life goals or future plan after his finish his foundation and he just go with flow of his life.

In the reading assignment, Cultivate Positive Identities, Laura Roberts talks about ways individuals, and managers can use positive thinking, to enrich their lives, and those around them. She states that, “most individuals seek to hold positive self-views, desiring to be viewed positively by others” (How to Be a Positive Leader, 2014). Together, with positive thinking methods, the author of the chapter believes that positive identities are achievable and lead to a more fulfilling life. This chapter was somewhat overwhelming to read, as it mentioned many methods and strategies involved in “cultivating positive identities”.

The one thing that I learned in this course that caught my attention pertains to Marcia’s “identity formation statuses” beginning with “identity diffusion” the adolescent that simply doesn’t care where they’re headed in life and are not exploring any options displaying low commitment and low exploration. Then secondly “foreclosure” the adolescent has made a choice on who they want to become in time based on the values of others (e.g. becoming a police officer because their grandfather and father were both police officers) this displays high commitment, but low exploring. Thirdly the “moratorium” status exploring the different options one has its the opposite of “foreclosure” where the person displays low commitment, but high exploration. Then

Identity has been defined in many ways. It is the concept used to describe an individual's sense of who he or she is (Dashefsky and Shapiro, 1976). Changes in identity occur throughout the life cycle, however, the changes in identity are usually most notable during adolescence. Integrating a positive sense of ethnic identity into one's overall personal identity is an important task of late adolescence (Steinberg, 1996).

This is due to the adolescent not being able to explore different approaches on his or her own. Third, identity moratorium is when adolescents are experiencing a crisis and whose commitments are barely defined. Finally, identity achievement is when the adolescent has undergone a crisis and has made a

is also an intentional goal to keep one’s identity consistent and maintained, so that a

Identity is a socially and historically constructed concept. An individual learns about their own identity through interactions with family, peers, organizations, media, and educational institutions. Education and identity are two closely related topics. On average, most Americans will spend a fourth of their life in educational institutions. During this time period students are growing and maturing, but most importantly they are discovering themselves. Students realize their qualities, determine their morals, and establish their beliefs during this time of instruction. Undoubtedly, education forms and challenges a person’s identity throughout the years.

Erik Erikson believed that identity development is a life-long task through which individuals understand themselves and their roles in society. Erikson’s ideas sparked a demand for more research on the topic. In an effort to expand this topic, James Marcia focused on two of Erikson’s factors that are essential to identity development. These factors are Exploration and Commitment. Exploration is a process through which adolescents make decisions regarding their future roles in society, and find roles that satisfy their goals.

My future specialization will be working with children and adolescent. My focus will be to find out why the children are behaving in a manner that is unhealthy for them. Then I will use the theory that is more in place helping me in helping them manage what they experienced or are experiencing with a more optimistic attitude. For example, there are many children and youth who are still trying to determine “who they are and their purpose in life”. As Erikson 1950, 1968; and Ferrer-Wreder et al (2008 as cited in Wiley et al, (2011) mentions, identity development has been connected to psychological reformation both hypothetically and empirically.

All throughout our lives, we wrestle with the question of who am I and what do I want in life? However, it is usually during the adolescent years that this issue really comes to a head and we begin a more earnest search into finding ourselves and deciding the direction we want to take with our lives. One of the theorists who studied this idea of identity formation was James Marcia. Marcia proposed that there were four different stages or statuses in the development of identity which he labeled Identity Diffusion, Identity Foreclosure, Identity Moratorium, and Identity Achievement. In this essay, we will briefly summarize his four different stages and then apply his theory to my own identity development during the adolescent years.

The theory behind this study is that identity development is an important factor in academic achievement. So therefore, stating