Personal Identity Formation : The Key Foundations Of Youth Development

According to Erik Erikson, adolescence is marked by the child’s questioning his or her identity during what he refers to as the identity versus identity confusion developmental stage. During this phase, the adolescent becomes mindful of his or her identity and seeks his or her purpose in life, as well as the answer to the eternal question, “who

The building blocks of personal identities begin at birth. Parents and teachers are a major influence on one’s identity. They teach the individual the basic morals, knowing right from wrong. However, some individuals do not have the benefit of parental or teacher’s guidance, and this results in a stunted personality, which negatively affects these individuals’ sense of identity. In some circumstances, these

With respect to Erikson’s eight stages of psychosocial development, the adolescence is the stage of identity versus role confusion. He also believes that identity as the significant personality achievement of adolescence is an essential step toward becoming a productive happy adult (Feldman, 2006). I remember so vividly my high school experience; especially

The life transitions are the major changes that occur throughout individual’s lifespan. Adolescence is often classified as one of the most challenging and significant stage during life transition. In this phrase, the individuals not only developing physical and sexual maturation but also experiencing the development of identity and transitions into social and economic independence (WHO, 2014). This essay will discuss the different concept of self-identity for adolescents, the important predictable and unpredictable elements during the transition, as well as the nurses’ role in relation to adolescence care.

Despite popular belief, when it comes to identity theory, adolescents are not the only factors involved in the formation of their development. A recent article published in Journal of Research on Adolescence shows that parents are active participants in the development of their child’s identity. Jonathan Ventura of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, along with Doctor Elli Schachter, studied parent’s who devoted time and effort to the thought of their child’s identity. Some of these parents even made changes in their own lives to do what is best for their child’s future identity. The parents thought about all aspects that could

Erik Erikson named the stage of adolescents “identity versus role confusion” (Sigelman, C. & Rider, E. pg. 343). This is a pivotal time in an individual’s life where many future endeavors; personal, academic, and professional, depend on the outcome of this stage. During this time, adolescents are trying to refine the many facets of their personality such as, political, sexual, religiousness, just to name a few. This is an arduous

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).

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.

According to him there are four stages namely identity diffusion, identity foreclosure, identity moratorium and identity achievement. And each identity status signifies a certain configuration of the adolescent’s development with regard to identity exploration and commitment to the values, beliefs, and goals that contribute to identity. The first identity status, identity diffusion, describes youth who have neither explored nor committed to any particular identity. Thus, this identity status represents a low level of exploration and a low level of commitment. The second identity status is the identity foreclosure status.

Sarah I also had something of an attitude problem when I was an adolescent. For me, my behavior was never a problem at school, but when I was at home my attitude was a bit of a problem. Much like you, I was pretty quiet and kept to myself. There was a time at this age where I was pretty open with my emotions and thoughts, but I was constantly being written off as being a hormonal teenage girl. So, eventually I just stopped talking about my feelings because no one took them seriously, and this resulted in those emotions being bottled up and me lashing out at my family. As far as what we will learn in this course, I am also very interested in how adolescents develop their

The process of adopting a child internationally is lengthy, costly, and both physically and emotionally exhausting.Since it takes so much to adopt, only a small number of Americans can and do; mostly middle- and upper-middle class couples.Therefore, many internationally adopted children grow up in an environment with ready access to resources, with adults who are able to support them financially and emotionally.In such narrow socioeconomic circumstances, the question then arises: What accounts for those internationally adopted children and youth who do not adjust well?What factors contribute to the normal, healthy development of these individuals?Examining international adoption also brings up this point:Is there really a significant

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.

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).

Since a collection of studies have highlighted the beneficial effects of youthful self-identity, it is important to understand predictors of self-identity. Many empirical studies conducted in Western countries have documented that self-identity is associated with sociodemographics (Bara, & Stern, 1986; Barrett, 2003), physical health (Barak & stern, 1986; Macia et al., 2012; Stephan, Demulier, & Terracciano, 2012), psychosocial factors (Bergland, Nicolaisen, & Thorsen, 2013) and social status (Marques, Swift, Vauclair, Lima, Bratt, & Abrams, 2015). Three studies on Chinese older adults also find correlations between self-identity and sociodemographics such as age, gender, education (Du & Wu, 2008; Ying & Yao, 2010), self-rated health (Du & Wu, 2008; Xie & Huang, 2014), mental health, and physical functioning (Liang, 2014) among older people in general and those of advanced old age in particular. Other studies indicate that productive engagement, especially volunteering, is positively correlated with older people’s social image, which can help to reduce ageism. For instance, Henkin and Zapf (2006) found that civic engagement among the older population can reduce age stereotypes and increase social integration. Moreover, older people’s contribution to communities can turn the pitcure of older adults as social burdens into social assets (Vitman et al, 2013). Bowen and her colleagues (2013) compared 28 European countries and found that old people were viewed as more

While childhood seemed like a breeze, my adolescent years were anything but that. Adolescence, the transition between childhood and adulthood beginning with puberty, is a time full of physical and psychological changes both positive and negative. During this time individuals are in search of their identity, a task that can yield a lot of confusion. The question of who am I lingers in the back of adolescent minds and the answer anything but simple. This struggle for an identity and one’s place in society can lead to stress. Through exploration and soul searching, however, one might find their identity. For me, this question seemed impossible to answer, however, I always had a strong desire to fit in and be liked by others. Reading through the different developmental theories in the text, I started to compare them to events in my own life and noticed many significant similarities.