Identity formation is considered to be the central developmental task of adolescence. As many of you already know, adolescence is a time when youth begin to question who they are, what they want to be, and what they believe.
Future orientation/possible selves: First, according to Piaget that we discussed in Week 7, adolescents have the newfound ability of formal operational thought. This type of thought allows them to think in systematic
ways about hypothetical and future events, which is manifested in two main ways:
Future orientation refers to the extent to which an individual is able and inclined to think about the potential consequences of decisions and choices. Future orientation greatly increases in adolescence.
Possible selves refers to the various identities adolescents might imagine for him/herself. Scholars divide possible selves into two categories: (1) Feared self and (2) Ideal self. A feared self is someone
the adolescent does not want to become, like an alcoholic. An ideal self is someone that the adolescent does want to become, like highly popular. These possible selves require adolescents to think abstractly.
Social roles: Adolescents often begin to take on new social roles that offer an array of choices and decisions that were not concerns previously. For example, an adolescent may be hold their first job or have their first romantic partner. Involvement in these new roles leads youth to question who they are and where they are headed, like what they really want out of life or what things are important to them.
Identity Achievement: (High commitment, high engagement in search process)
These youth tend to be psychologically healthy: They exhibit high achievement motivation, moral reasoning, intimacy with peers, reflectiveness, and career maturity.
Identity Moratorium: (Low commitment, high engagement in search process)
These
youth tend to exhibit the highest level of anxiety and have a difficult time dealing with authority. That said, they are doing better (with respect to individual adjustment) compared to foreclosure and diffusion adolescents.
Identity Foreclosure: (High commitment, low engagement in search process)
These youth tend to be the most prejudiced and exhibit the highest need for social approval. These youth are also closest to parents, although they often accept their parents' values without
exploring them.
Identity Diffusion: (Low commitment, low engagement in search process)
These youth tend to exhibit the lowest intimacy with peers and parents. These youth also tend to be socially withdrawn and exhibit high levels of anxiety and apathy. Identity diffusion is predictive of later psychological problems and is the most problematic identity stage.
Adolescence can be a difficult adjustment and can take a great toll on parents. In
fact, adolescence is commonly a low point in parents' marital satisfaction, and two-thirds of parents say it's the most difficult parenting stage. Because the average age for an individual to have their first child is 25, the typical parent of an adolescent is around 40 when their first child enters adolescence. Forty can be a difficult time for adults anyways - it is often the age characterized by a midlife crisis. Whereas adolescents come into their own physically (puberty etc.), parents begin
feeling increased concern about their own bodies and sexual appeal.
Whereas adolescents are newly thinking about the future and looking ahead, parents begin to feel as though the possibility of change is limited. For example, instead of thinking about how long they have been alive, parents start thinking in terms of how much time they have left.
Whereas adolescents are on the threshold of gaining new status/power and their careers and marriages lie ahead, parents feel as though those
choices have already been made.
Another term to be familiar with is separate realities, which refers to the idea that adolescents and parents can experience the same interaction very differently. For example, a mother might see a conversation with her son as a serious discussion, whereas her son might see it as an argument. The more parents and adolescents experience separate realities, the more difficulties they will have in their relationship.
Myth # 1: Parent-adolescent relationships are generally a period of high conflict and stress.
Truth: The majority of adolescents report feeling close to, loved, and cared for by parents. Moreover, like we discussed in Week 1, there is continuity in parent-child relationship quality from childhood. Twenty-five percent of adolescents report problems in their relationships, but the majority of these problems started in childhood (80%). Although it is true that there is an increase in conflict in early adolescence, this conflict declines later in adolescence.
Myth # 2: Adolescents seek independence from parents and spend more time with peers, schools, and other contexts; thus, parental influence is not important.
Truth: The majority of adolescents list at least one parent as one of the most important influences in their lives. Not only do adolescents report that their parents are important to them, but research evidence also supports that adolescents tend to adopt their parents' values in many areas. Basic values, like the questions you just answered, develop gradually over time and are shaped from an early age. For example, the research finds that teenagers and their parents have surprisingly similar beliefs about such things as the importance of hard work, educational and occupational ambitions, or personal characteristics that they feel are important. Preferences and tastes for things like clothing, music, and hairstyles are far more transitory and subject to influences by peers.
Psychological Functioning: The more adolescents works, the more likely they are to struggle with anxiety/depression. This does not mean that adolescent work causes depression problems, but they are correlated.
Physical Health: Work has little effect on the sleep patterns of youth who work up to 10 hours a week. Sleep declines, however, as work hours increase for youth who work more than ten hours a week. Moreover, working more than 10 hours a week is disruptive to eating and exercise habits.
School Performance: Working long hours is associated with a lower grade point average, frequency of absence from school, spending less time on homework, being less likely to participate in extracurricular activities, enjoying school less, and completing fewer years of college.
Problem Behavior: One strong and consistent finding is that adolescents who work are more likely to use alcohol, smoke cigarettes, and use drugs, especially if they work more than 10 hours a week. We do not yet know the direction of these effects; scholars disagree whether working leads to greater substance use or whether adolescents who work already have a tendency toward substance use. Either way, these findings persist into adulthood: Individuals who work longer hours as teenagers drink and use drugs more in their late 20s than their peers who worked less or not at all.
Occupational Deviance: Occupational deviance refers to deviant acts committed at the workplace, such as calling in sick when you are not or taking things from the workplace. To study occupational deviance, researchers had first-time adolescent workers indicated on a confidential questionnaire how often they had engaged in each of nine behaviors. Look at the chart below to see how common these behaviors are.
Invention of birth control (which was approved by the FDA in 1963) and the sexual revolution of the 1960's and 1970's: Because of both birth control and the sexual revolution, people no longer have to be married to have sex. Today, there is a widespread tolerance and acceptance for people in emerging adulthood having sex.
Increase in years devoted to higher education: Approximately 60% of young people enter college after graduating high school. In 1940, this number was only 14%. Most emerging adults postpone marriage and parenthood until graduation.
Changes in women's roles: Young women in the 1950's, 60's, and even 70's felt pressure to "catch a man". Being single was not a viable status for a woman in her early 20's. Few women attended college, and for those who did, many were in pursuit of their "MRS." degree. Further, the range of occupations open to women was limited to a few jobs, including being a secretary, nurse, teacher, or waitress. Indeed, those jobs were often temporary because women were supposed to focus on finding a husband. Alternatively, women of the twenty-first century have a virtually unlimited occupational choice. Although men still dominate engineering and some sciences, the number of women in the fields of law, business, and medicine are almost equal to the number of men. Women therefore feel less pressure to marry and less pressure to stay married.
Change in the way young people view the meaning and value of becoming an adult: In prior generations, women were in a hurry to settle down and have a home, job, and children. Today, marriage, children, and a mortgage are often viewed by emerging adults as the end of choice and independence. It's not that those things are viewed negatively - they are just viewed as something for later.
1. Identity Exploration, Especially in Love and Work: Erikson thought identity achievement by 18 or so. Arnett thinks into the 20's with more serious exploration than in adolescence
2. Age of Instability: The plans of emerging adults are subject to revision, including majors, interests, jobs, relationships, residences. For example, emerging adulthood is the period with the highest amount of residentially instability than any other age group.
3. Self-directed and Self-focused: In the sense that emerging adults have little in the way of social obligations, duties, and commitments to others, they have a great deal of autonomy to run their lives. EA are therefore self-directed in terms of how they want to live their life and what decisions they want to make. Interestingly, emerging adults spend more time alone than any other age group except the elderly.
4. Optimistic World View: Emerging adults are optimistic about their own future and think their lives will be better than parents lives. Even if they've experienced hard things in the past, they report feeling that the world is now open up to them and that life holds many possibilities.
5. Feel in between: Emerging adults don't know if they are adolescents or adults.
6. Risk Behavior Peaks: Alcohol use, unprotected sex, drug use, risky driving peak in emerging adulthood.
College to Full- Time Job
"Educated singles" 27% Women in this trajectory did not have families of their own and were not committed either by cohabitation or marriage to a romantic partner, although many were involved in dating. These women had the highest level of social (e.g., support network of family and friends) and personal
(e.g., low levels of depression, high self-esteem) resources compared to the women in the other groups. These women also reported high religiosity.
High School to Full-Time Job
"Working singles" 19% Women in this trajectory did not pursue higher education directly from high school, but they also did not start their own families. These women also reported high levels of religiosity.
Full-Time Job Plus Cohabitation
"Working and committed" 16% Women in this trajectory did not pursue
higher education directly from high school, but they were involved in a romantic relationship that involved cohabitation.
Married Mothers
"Fast starters" 14% Women in this trajectory did not cohabit before they got married. Most of these women had their first child within a year or two after marrying, although some were likely pregnant when they got married. These women did not pursue higher education directly from high school and reported high levels of religiosity.
Single
Mothers
"Slow starters" 9% Women in this trajectory did not pursue higher education directly from high school often because of their need to care for their child(ren). The probability of these women working increased over time partly due to welfare to work laws. 77% of these women graduated from high school, and 37% of these women were living with one or both parents at age 23.
Cohabiting Mothers
"Committed and mothering" 9% Women in this trajectory had high probabilities of
cohabitation and having child(ren), but they had low probabilities of higher education and marriage. Some of these cohabiting unions, however, did eventually transition to marriage. On average, women in this trajectory did not have many socioeconomic resources in their family of origin, nor did they have academic success when in school.
Inactive 6% Women in this trajectory had low probabilities of full-time employment, cohabitation, marriage, and parenthood. Many of the emerging adults in this group had disabilities, which accounted for their inactivity.
Psychological Impact because of new surroundings, peers, ideas, freedoms, and academic grounds: better at reasoning, identifying strengths and weaknesses of opposing sides, quality of thinking
Factors Influencing Vocational Choice: Personality, Family Influence, Teachers, Gender Stereotypes,