Erik Erikson,
a psychologist, influenced this genre through his
description of life stages and sequence of developmental tasks. He had
profound influence on psychosocial theory in the following three ways.
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“Epigenetic
principle”—“anything that grows has a ground plan, and that out of this
ground plan the parts arise, each part having its time of special
ascendancy, until all parts have arisen to form a functioning whole.”
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Erikson theorizes there
are eight stages or periods when biological and psychological changes
interact with sociocultural demands presenting a “crisis” which he
defines as a time for decision requiring serious consideration of and a
significant choice among alternative courses of action.
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In college age students,
Erikson identifies the “identity versus identity confusion” crisis as
the dominant development task. Identity development in regard in the
change among college students is a major component in most psychosocial
theories.
Arthur
Chickering, the most well known student development theorist,
built on the works of Erikson and in the late 1960s he described seven
vectors of development that cumulatively contribute to self identity. He
teamed with L. Reisser, and in the 1990s they presented a revised
theory presenting a comprehensive overview of psychosocial development
during the college years. The seven vectors are:
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Developing competence.
Three kinds of competence develop in college–intellectual competence,
physical and manual skills, and interpersonal competence.
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Managing emotions.
Students develop the ability to recognize, accept, express and control
emotions.
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Moving through autonomy
toward interdependence.
A key developmental step for students is learning to function with
relative self-sufficiency, to take responsibility for pursuing
self-chosen goals, and to be less bound by others’ opinions.
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Developing mature
interpersonal relationships. Developing mature relationships involves tolerance and
appreciation of differences and the capacity for intimacy.
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Establishing identity.
Identity formation builds on the other vectors already mentioned:
competence, emotional maturity, autonomy, and positive relationships.
Development of identity involves: comfort with body and appearance;
comfort with gender and sexual orientation; sense of self in a social,
historical, and cultural context; clarification of self-concept through
roles and life-style; sense of self in response to feedback from valued
others; self-acceptance and self-esteem; and personal stability and
integration.
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Developing purpose.
Developing clear vocational goals, committing to personal interests and
activities and establishing strong interpersonal commitments even when
there is opposition are the key to developing purpose.
-
Developing Integrity.
Developing integrity involves three sequential but overlapping stages:
humanizing values-shifting away from automatic application of
uncompromising beliefs and using principled thinking in balancing one’s
own self-interest with the interests of others; personalizing
values-consciously affirming core values and beliefs while respecting
other points of view; and developing congruence-matching personal values
with socially responsible behavior.
Identity models were built on Chickering’s work as follows:
James Marcia, ego identity
status:
Marcia reasoned that forming of this status is a dynamic process involving
a crisis pertaining to the engagement of choice among meaningful but
competing alternatives, and the making of occupational and ideological
commitments. He identified four responses to identity formation:
-
Identity-diffused:
have neither experienced a crisis nor made a commitment
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Foreclosure:
have not undergone any crisis and have not made commitments
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Moratorium:
actively involved in a crisis period and have not reached a commitment
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Identity-achieved:
have successfully weathered a crisis and have made a commitment
Ruthellen
Josselson
offers a research based discussion of Marcia’s theory in an
application for women’s identity development.
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Foreclosures (purveyors
of the heritage):
women who graduate from college with identity commitment but without
experiencing identity crisis
-
Identity Achievements
(pavers of the way):
women who break the psychological ties to their childhood and form
separate, distinct identities
-
Moratoriums (daughters of
the crisis):
is an unstable time of experimenting and searching for new identities
-
Identity Diffusions (lost
and sometimes found):
there is a lack of crisis and commitment with a tendency to withdraw
from situations
William E. Cross, Jr.,
developed a model regarding African American
identity development.
Stage 1, Pre-encounter or
pre-discovery:
person’s world view in dominated by the white culture
Stage 2, Encounter:
involves an experience that confronts the person’s understanding of
black’s place in the world and leads to a restating of views and beliefs
Stage 3,
Immersion-Emersion:
a personal search for understanding of self as a black person
Stage 4, Internalization:
with four possible outcomes—
1) Continuation and
rejection
2) Continuation and
fixation at stage 3
3) Internalization that
brings in inner security and satisfaction but no commitment to action
4)
Internalization-commitment—commitment and plan to participate in the
reformation of the black community
Janet
Helms
proposed a white identity model based on the abandonment of racism
(through 3 statuses—contact, disintegration and reintegration) and the
defining of a non-racist white identity (through 3
statuses—pseudo-independence, immersion-emersion, and autonomy).
Jean Phinney
is known for her three stages Model of Ethnic identity Development.
She feels ethnic identity is important to development of a positive
self-concept for minority adolescents.
Stage 1,
Diffusion-Foreclosure:
a person has not yet explored ethnic identity
Stage 2, Moratorium:
a person is increasingly aware and is exploring his/her ethnic identity
Stage 3, Identity
Achievement:
a healthy bicultural identity is achieved
Vivienne
Cass developed a six stage theory of homosexual identity
development that has both a cognitive (how an individual views self)
and an affective (how one feels about self and others’ perceptions). The
stages are: identity confusion, identity comparison, identity tolerance,
identity acceptance; identity pride and identity synthesis.
Anthony D’Augelli developed the model of lesbian, gay, and bisexual
development as a “social construction” shaped by varying degrees of
social events and the environment throughout the life span.
