James Marcia: Identity Development
What are Marcia's Identity Statuses?
1. Identity Diffusion 2. Identity Foreclosure 3. Identity Moretorium 4. Idenity Achievement
To understand Identity Formation process, Marcia conducted interviews with young people. He asked the participants if they had...?
1. established a commitment to an occupation and ideology 2. had experienced, or were presently experiencing, a decision-making period (adolescent identity crisis)
Identity Formation involves the adaptation of...?
1. sexual orientation 2. set of values and ideals 3. a vocational direction
What are the 3 areas of Identity that are important?
- Identity involves the adoption of: 1. sexual orientation 2. set of values and ideals 3. vocational direction
What is an Identity Crisis?
- a time of upheaval where old values are being reexamined - the end outcome of a crisis leads to a commitment made to a certain role/ value
Marcia's Theory of Identity Achievement argued that...?
- argues that 2 distinct parts from an adolescent's identity: 1. crisis (time when one's values/ choices are being reevaluated) and 2. commitment
What are the differences b/w less developed identities and well-developed identities?
- less developed identities are not able to define personal weaknesses/ strengths - well-developed identities have a greater sense of one's own strengths, weaknesses and uniqueness
What is the Identity Formation Process?
- ones sense of identity is determined by the choices/ commitments made regarding personal and social traits
Identity Moratorium
- people in this state have begun to experiment but they are still weighing their options and have not yet achieved an identity. - they are considered in an identity crisis (ex. people in college who have not yet declared a major but are taking all the general education courses and exploring what they may want to do with the rest of their lives which will determine what to eventually major in)
Identity Foreclosure
- people in this state have never experienced an identity crisis, however, they have prematurely conformed to an identity. - Foreclosure is a status with no exploration and an identity has been achieved. (ex. a person who chooses to follow along with the religious beliefs of their parents without exploring any other religious beliefs is in a state of foreclosure)
Identity Diffusion
- people in this state have not committed to an identity and they have not put effort into the exploration of identities. - not made commitment
Identity Achievement
- this is a state of having decided on an identity after careful consideration and exploration of options - have gone through crisis
Are male and female the same?
- we are not the same - women base identity on interpersonal relationships - women deal with traditional gender issues when determing identity
In Identity Development, what is commitment?
- when adolescents show a personal investment in what they are going to do
Marcia Overview
-extended/ refined Erikson's model -focused on adolscent development -added notion of Erikson Identity Development -> stages consist of neither identity resolution nor confusion, but degree which one explored/ committed to an identity of life domains (vocation, religion, relational)
