The Identity CrisisErikson, Marcia, and More

Erikson

• Establishment of identity is key to development

• Building identity is task unique to adolescence

• Identity Crisis: period of inner conflict during which adolescents worry intensely about who they are

Identity Crisis

• Cognitive changes - can now contemplate the future and think abstractly

• Torn between being unique and fitting in

• Physiological changes - sexual awakenings, physical maturation

Who Am I?

• Resolve this crisis continually through– Job selection– Personal values– Sexual identity

………………According to Erikson

James Marcia

• Supports Erikson• Four attempts to achieve identity

identity moratoriumidentity foreclosureidentity confused/diffusedidentity achieved

Identity- According to Marcia

• Identity Moratorium – Adolescents are seriously considering the issues

but have not made a commitment• Identity Foreclosure

– Adolescents have made a commitment but not of their own choice

• Identity Confused– Adolescents who are not even considering options

• Identity Achieved– Adolescents who considered options and made

commitment

What’s all this about Crisis?

• Peterson – Crisis is not normal– Crisis happens 20% and typically caused by

external forces• Bandura

– Development is one of continual progress/process– Social Learning Approach - we learn from

interactions with others • Mead

– Stressed importance of social environment– Development is a process rather than chunks

marked by discontinuity

To Be or Not To Be in Crisis• G Stanley Hall (1904)

– President of APA and Clark (invited Freud and Jung to lecture)– Based theory on Darwin – Transition from beast to human– Period of Storm and Stress– “Marginal being”, confused, troubled, highly frustrated

• A Freud (1958)– Adolescence is in interruption of growth– Adolescence is abnormal if it goes smoothly– Adolescence is equal to a psychiatric disorder

• M Rutter (1976)– Yes, there is some stress, but not comparable to a psychiatric disorder

David Elkind 1984All Grown Up and No Place to Go.

• Described some problems adolescents develop as a result of new found cognitive skills combined with immaturity.

• Finding fault with authority• Argumentative• Indecisiveness• Apparent hypocrisy• Self-consciousness• Invulnerability

To Be or Not To Be in Crisis• R Havinghurst (1974)

Each adolescent must master/face 9 challenges1. accept physical make-up and acquire sex role2. develop appropriate same sex relations3. emotional independence4. assurance of economic independence5. decide upon, prepare for, enter a vocation6. develop cognitive skills and concepts necessary for social competence7. understand and be socially responsible8. prepare for marriage and family9. acquire values that are in sync with world picture