Identify the status of individuals who have not yet experienced a crisis or made any commitments.

3 Empirical Work: The Identity Statuses

The four identity statuses (Marcia et al. 1993) are ways in which a late adolescent might be found to be dealing with the identity issue. They are intended to reflect, on a behavioral level, the nature of the identity structure described by Erikson. Criteria for determining the identity statuses are the presence or absence of exploration and commitment in the areas of occupation, ideology, and interpersonal values. Identity status is typically assessed by means of a structured interview scored with a standardized manual, although sometimes a questionnaire is used. ‘Identity achievement’ persons have undergone a period of exploration and have made ideological, occupational, and interpersonal value commitments. ‘Moratorium’ individuals are currently in the exploration period, actively searching among alternatives. When this exploration process becomes emotionally fraught, these kinds of moratoriums are described as being in an ‘identity crisis.’ ‘Foreclosure’ persons are those who are committed in the interview content areas, but who came to those commitments with little or no exploration; usually, they have adopted directions laid down for them by parents or other early authority figures. ‘Identity diffusions’ persons are uncommitted in important life directions and are not currently engaged in a process leading to commitment (as are the moratoriums).

Over 35 years of research has established empirically some of the following characteristics of the four identity statuses. Identity achievement individuals have been found to be resistant to experimental attempts to raise or lower their self-esteem, to be nonconforming to group pressure, to think effectively under stressful conditions, to employ the higher levels of moral reasoning, to be advanced in intimacy development, to be complex in thought processes, and to come from families where differences among members are acknowledged and accepted. In addition, they appear to have a strong and autonomous sense of self, are capable of secure attachment relationships, and are realistically high in self-esteem and relatively unimpeded by rigid superego strictures.

Moratorium persons, like identity achievements, are relatively stable in self-esteem and not easily moved to conform. Sometimes their level of cognitive performance exceeds that of achievements and they tend to function at the highest levels of moral thought. Occasionally, they vacillate between harsh self-judgment and lax self-permission. They are the lowest among the statuses in their endorsement of authoritarian values, probably reflective of their attempts to differentiate themselves from their parents. Their relationships with their families are ambivalent, and they tend to be somewhat insecure in their attachment, at least for the duration of their moratorium period.

Foreclosure individuals are the least cognitively flexible of the statuses and the most highly endorsing of authoritarian values, suggesting a relatively unmodified ego ideal. They employ conventional reasoning about moral issues and either acquiesce superficially to, or stubbornly resist, positions discrepant from their own. In relationships, they give the appearance, but not the substance, of intimacy. They describe their families in unrealistically ideal terms. In terms of attachment, they are about evenly divided between secure and insecure attachment patterns.

Identity diffusion persons are vulnerable to self-esteem manipulation and become disorganized in their thinking when under stress. They are at the lower levels of both moral reasoning and capacity for intimacy. Diffusions experience a marked distance between themselves and their parents, especially the parent of the same sex, whom they feel that they can neither emulate nor please. It is not surprising, then, that they are the most insecure in attachment among the statuses.

It should be kept in mind that most of the studies that have furnished the above findings have involved the use of the identity status interview, have been done in Western, technologically advanced countries, and most of them have involved college students. However, there have recently been a fairly large number of studies being conducted in developing countries and with other social classes and ethnic group, especially by Jean Phinney and her colleagues (see Roberts et al. 1999). Whether or not the foregoing descriptions of the identity statuses will obtain with these noncollege groups remains to be seen. One might expect, for example, a foreclosure individual to appear differently in a culture that prizes foreclosure than in one valuing exploration and change. In any case, the interview method would provide more flexibility in such investigations than the more static questionnaire measure.

Research on Identity Statuses

Much more concerted effort has been devoted to studying identity statuses than to research on the Eriksonian stages. Since the mid-1960s, an extensive body of research validating the construct of identity statuses has emerged. To date, several insightful reviews of empirical work on identity statuses have been published. This literature indicates that results from the existing work can indeed offer answers to some of the major theoretical questions centered on the nature of the construct of psychosocial development in general and on the nature of the development of identity statuses in particular. Such issues concern the process, domain, timing, pattern/direction, and stability of identity development, as well as the identification of correlates of identity statuses. In all the studies concerning the aforementioned issues, gender differences in identity development remain predominant.

The process of identity development refers to the particular identity status typical of an individual's approach to arriving at one's self-definition. The key concern here is whether or not one is disposed toward exercising sophisticated decision making, as in the case of a moratorium identity status individual or an identity achiever. The domain of identity development refers to the particular content areas in which one's self-definition is formed, including family, ethnicity, ideology, sex-role orientation, religious beliefs, and vocation. The timing of identity development concerns the specific time in one's life when identity activities are taking place in different domains. The key question regarding timing is, do different domains become more salient for different genders as a function of different points within varying contexts? The pattern/direction of identity development concerns the trajectory of each of the four identity statuses. The basic developmental assumption is that all individuals go through identity diffusion, foreclosure, moratorium, and identity achievement – in that order. Finally, a related issue is the stability (or changeability) of identity statuses. The principal question here is, is it possible for individuals to regress from a more advanced identity status to an identity status that is indicative of lack of identity maturity?

Several independent reviews of the literature (e.g., Archer, 1989a; Cramer, 2000) have all concluded that adolescents and young adults generally demonstrate increasingly more sophisticated identity activities with increasing age. They have further concluded that research strongly supports Marcia's (1980) hypothesis that identity is mainly formed between the ages of 18 and 22 years. Moreover, few gender differences exist in the process, timing, and pattern/direction of identity development. The domains in which gender differences tend to be found are those of sexuality and family roles, which are likely to hold greater salience for women than for men. Further with respect to developmental patterns, the fundamental developmental hypothesis of the identity status model assumes a decrease in diffusion and foreclosure and an increase in achievement during the course of development. However, comprehensive reviews of the literature (Archer, 1989a; Kroger et al., 2010) have consistently pointed out that, although developmental shifts are largely progressive, regressions do occur.

Kroger et al. (2010) examined the stability (or change) of developmental patterns of identity status during adolescence and young adulthood through meta-analysis of 124 studies published between 1966 and 2005. Results from 11 longitudinal studies showed that the mean proportion of adolescents making progressive identity status changes was 36%, compared with 15% who made regressive changes and 49% who remained stable. Cross-sectional studies indicated that the mean proportion of moratorium individuals rose steadily to age 19 years and declined thereafter, while the mean proportion of identity achievers rose between late adolescence and young adulthood; foreclosure and diffusion statuses declined over the high school years, but fluctuated throughout late adolescence and young adulthood.

Together, these reviews suggest that, although there is a general tendency for individuals' identity statuses to progress from diffusion to foreclosure, to moratorium, and finally to achieved identity, the trajectory of identity development is nonlinear. The exploration-commitment processes underlying the identity statuses are lifelong.

Finally, identifying the correlates of the choice of developmental pathways has been a research interest of scholars for a long time. As early as 1958, Hartmann conjectured that those who attain more adaptive identity statuses would tend to function better in educational, personal, and social domains. Such an insightful supposition has long been empirically supported. More than three decades ago, Marcia's (1980) extensive review of the identity literature showed that identity achievement (and moratorium to a lesser extent) tended to be associated with psychological variables commonly perceived to be desirable, whereas identity diffusion (and foreclosure to a lesser degree) tended to be associated with psychological variables normally deemed to be undesirable. Throughout the years, reviews of a similar nature focusing on different variables have reached the same conclusion – that identity achievement carries the most adaptive value, whereas identity diffusion is the most detrimental to related aspects of psychological functioning, learning, and development, with moratorium being the second most beneficial and foreclosure being the second most damaging (e.g., Hoegh and Bourgeois, 2002).

Empirical Studies of the Identity Formation Process

Erikson's (1963, 1968) writings on identity have generated much research in the social sciences over the past five decades. One general stream of studies from the 1960s through 1980s focused on the role that ‘Identity versus Role Confusion’ plays in Erikson's eight-stage epigenetic scheme. A further stream of work has focused on the ‘Identity versus Role confusion’ task in relation to other variables (e.g., Berman, 2009 on identity distress and problem behaviors), while a third approach addresses other dimensions of identity that Erikson describes in his writings (e.g., Van Hoof and Raaijmakers, 2003; on structural integration). For purposes here, it is perhaps the expansions that James Marcia (1966, 1967; Marcia et al., 1993) made to Erikson's model of identity development that have generated the greatest volume of research over the past decades.

Rather than conceptualizing the task of Identity versus Role Confusion in terms of a continuum, with identity being an entity that one has ‘more or less of,’ Marcia instead proposed qualitatively different pathways by which late adolescents approach the identity formation task. Marcia (1966, 1967) used the variables of exploration and commitment that Erikson had viewed as central to identity development in adolescence to propose two ways by which one might establish identity-defining commitments, and two ways by which one might not do so. Selecting the domains of vocation, ideology, and later sexual roles and values that Erikson (1968) had described as the primary identity concerns of adolescence, Marcia developed the Identity Status Interview to identify which identity approach (or identity status) was most descriptive of the adolescent's way of approach in identity-defining decisions.

The identity-achieved individual has gone through a time of exploration, based on careful consideration of his or her own interests, talents, capacities, and values to form identity-defining commitments that set one's directions in early adult life. Like the identity achieved, the foreclosed individual has equally strong identity commitments, but they have been attained without identity exploration. Most commonly, late adolescent foreclosures will merely assume the values of significant others around them and adopt a type of conferred identity. Moratorium and diffuse individuals both lack firm identity commitments, but the moratorium is in the process of trying to find personally meaningful identity-defining directions, while the diffusion is not. There may have previously been a little identity exploration for the identity diffusion, or none at all. The identity diffuse individual may be unable to adopt meaningful identity commitments for a variety of reasons, ranging from severe psychopathology to a carefree, uninvolved approach to life, just ‘going where the wind blows.’

III Summary of Recommendations for Assessment and Treatment of GRC with Culturally Diverse Populations

In therapy with African American men, mental health professionals must, at minimum, assess racial identity. In general, Pre-Encounter, Encounter, and Immersion-Emersion racial identity statuses are associated with GRC in African American, Asian American, and Latino men but there is no association with Internalization. With Asian American and Latino men, racial identity appears to be less salient; therefore, with these clients, measuring ethnic identity, acculturation, and/or cultural values may be more informative. Therapy with Mexican American women and, probably, other women of color would benefit from the integration of female cultural icons.

Additional information that is essential for a therapist to collect when working with all people of color is identity prominence. Innovative, “right-brain” methods, such as the diagramming exercise in Narváez et al. (2009), seem promising for obtaining such data. Returning to native cultures for healing concepts and practices is valuable; for example, Afrocentric concepts (Aymer, 2010), powerful female icons (Arredondo, 2002), and retraditionalization (Napholz, 2000). Gender role conflict occurs in many contexts. Thus, therapists not only must address the issue in therapy with individual clients in the office, but must also go out into the community to meet African Americans, Asian Americans, Latinas/os, and Native Americans; explain therapy; and stimulate discussions about traditional versus expanded gender role definitions.

C Acculturation Assessment

Immigrant acculturation has been described by sociologists as multidimensional and multidirectional, and essentially disrupting the accepted developmental process (Berger, 2007; Phinney et al., 2006). The issue of acculturation is closely linked to identity development in the host culture. This makes understanding acculturation as a singular concept difficult because we have to identify how the client’s identity developed in the host culture. Considering traditional Muslim socialization from the Middle East, Africa, Asia, and Europe, it is clear that migration can disrupt several aspects of the developmental path. Established relationships get disrupted. First, there is the issue of attachment (Bowlby, 1980), and how this process can get disrupted, by either arriving in the host culture as a child without family as a refugee, or losing parental support by trying to adapt and adjust to US peer culture, and encountering conflict with family members. Second, during adolescence when there is so much stress and strain to develop an identity, we find Muslim immigrant parents fear American culture because they consider it toxic to adolescents because of racial prejudice, violent gangs, addictive drugs, sexy clothes, materialistic values, and boundless selfishness (Berger, 2007). The process of developing an identity and acculturation can take several paths as a result of these pressures. To add to this, the host culture in the West may see the adolescent as a threat and create conditions that may lead to depression, anxiety, or fantasizing about seeking revenge.

To assess acculturation status, we need to also consider the specific identity status of the client. Marcia (1966) based his theory of adolescent identity development on Erikson’s (1950/1980) theory of psychosocial identity development and identified four identity statuses: identity diffusion, identity foreclosure, identity moratorium, and identity achievement. To combine these with acculturation, let us consider Berry and Sam’s (1997) bidirectional model of acculturation. They propose that immigrants need to address the following questions as they adjust to the new culture: Do I want to accept and work with the new culture (adaptation)? Or do I want to stay with the cultural assumptions I have brought with me (separation)? (Van de Vijver & Phalet, 2004). The first approach leads to bicultural acculturation, the second to separation from host culture. Two other outcomes are possible, assimilation, where one chooses to give up original culture and adopts the culture of host culture, and marginalization, where the person no longer remains connected to the culture of origin or parents’ culture, and is unable to establish strong ties with the host culture. We contend that the combinations in Table 19.1 are based on identity status in the host culture.

Table 19.1. Identity Status and Acculturation

The relationship between acculturation status and identity formation relates to the developmental process occurring in immigrants as they try to make sense of their new culture. Identity diffusion would lead to marginalization, since the person would end up not connecting with the culture of origin or the host culture, due to indecision. Identity foreclosure would lead to marginalization because after trying to use one’s own culture and then the host culture as a guide but not succeeding with either would lead to being marginal to both cultures. Moratorium is the status where the person is still trying to ascertain what would be meaningful, due to conflict of values between the host culture and the culture of origin. This status could lead to bicultural acculturation with identity achievement, or marginalization. Staying too long in diffusion can create confusion for the person and frustration for others, because the behavior is seen as unpredictable and erratic and would isolate the person. Bicultural acculturation and identity achievement are the healthiest outcome, since elements of the culture of origin that are important to the person are retained, and elements of the host culture that are meaningful and useful for success are adopted. This would lead to a useful and meaningful identity and acculturation outcome. Van de Vijver and Phalet (2004) note that in some countries, generally, second and third generation youth will show marginalization because they cannot connect with their parents’ culture and values, and they are not able or allowed to establish their own identity.

Van de Vijver and Phalet (2004) recommend that measures for specific cultural groups need to be developed to assess acculturation based on the recommendations of the American Psychological Association’s Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing (2011). In reviewing the literature on acculturation instruments for Muslims from Asia, Africa, the Middle East, or Europe, none were found (Taras, 2008). This process would involve clinical judgment based on immigrant identity development and acculturation processes, as identified in Table 19.1. Another aspect that can impede or facilitate acculturation is cultural or racial identity. Immigrants with a cultural or racial identity that is at the Achieved Identity status could adapt really well to the host culture as they move toward bicultural identity and acculturation status. This perspective is based on the assumption that Achieved Identity status would parallel the final phase of racial identity development (Cross, 1995; Helms, 1990). In this phase, a person has come to terms with their race/culture and can appreciate the positive aspects of their own culture and can make conscious decisions about what aspects and values to adopt to be functional in the host or dominant culture. Other identity statuses may impede this level of development given the confusion in identity statuses associated with Identity Diffusion and Identity Moratorium. Identity Foreclosure is already limited by an inability to move past parental or culture of origin beliefs, values, and assumptions.

Olds (2009) has proposed that religiousness and acculturation may be related; if a person is very committed to her or his faith, and migrates to another country where the immigrant’s religion may not be valued, this will lead to significant acculturative stress, and the person may choose to acculturate by separation from the host culture. Positive acculturation occurs only if the immigrant feels welcome and valued, increasing chances of an integrative acculturation or bicultural acculturation

Olds (2009) modified a version of the Bicultural Identity Integration Scale (BIIS; Benet-Martanez & Haritatos, 2005) for use with Muslims, called Religious-Cultural Identity Integration Scale (Olds, RCIIS, 2009). The BIIS examines the way in which individuals deal with the challenge of reconciling disparate cultural identities. Some may deal with this challenge by keeping these two cultures distant and distinct. Others may perceive a conflict and feel torn between these cultural identities. A positive aspect of the BIIS (Benet-Martinez & Haritatos, 2005) is that it examines identity integration from a nonhierarchical perspective. This approach is conducive to examining forms of identity integration that fall outside of the traditional ethnic immigrant-focused investigations of acculturation. Although these are promising developments, both scales need further research for reliability and validity, and should be used with caution.

Development of Personal Identity in Adolescence

Erik Erikson initiated a tradition in the study of the concept of personal identity. His interest in this topic was clearly stated in his early work on World War II veterans, men who “did not know any more who they were” and therefore provided evidence of a “distinct loss of ego identity.” As Erikson (1968: p. 67) observed clinically, “the sense of sameness and continuity and the belief in one's social role were gone.” This was the first time in his career that he formulated the assumption of the importance of a sense of identity for a healthy person. For Erikson, adolescence was only completed when the individual could subordinate his childhood identifications to the choices and decisions he had to transform into meaningful commitments, which also needed confirmation by a significant social community. Although it was during adolescence that the task of creating a sense of identity attained its greatest ascendancy, according to Erikson every crisis showed elements of this identity formation.

The work of James Marcia marked the start of numerous critiques of the identity status paradigm, all with their origin in attempts to falsify Erikson's propositions in Ego Psychoanalytic Theory (Kroger and Marcia, 2011). Marcia's primary task was to determine what observable referents were available that might point to the presence of an identity structure. As no one can observe an identity, these observable referents were important if any empirical research was to be possible.

Marcia chose two dimensions, exploration (originally called crisis) and a commitment to empirically document the identity process. Exploration referred to some period of rethinking and trying out various roles and life plans. Commitment referred to making a choice to adhere to one's values, goals or beliefs in a given life domain and the ability to make future projections with regard to this choice. The four identity statuses based on the criteria of exploration and commitment were as follows: Identity achievement – when a person has undergone exploration and is currently committed; Moratorium – when a person is in an exploratory period and therefore bereft of commitments; Foreclosure – when the person has not explored but is committed to one or more choices; and Identity diffusion – when the person is characterized by a lack of both exploration and commitment.

Early research with identity status focused primarily on individual personality and cognitive and relational differences across the four different status positions. Although the initial method for obtaining evidence of these statuses was the Identity Status Interview, whose focus was deliberately qualitative and developmental, the most subsequent research has used questionnaires. By means of questionnaires such as the Objective Measure of Ego Identity Status, the four statuses have been correlated extensively with different personality variables such as self-esteem, anxiety, moral reasoning, and ego development (Kroger and Marcia, 2011) with a view to finding differences between the statuses that would imply changes in the underlying identity structure.

Achievement has been associated with balanced thinking, mature interpersonal relationships, and thoughtful consideration of potential life options. Individuals with foreclosure status are inflexible and defensive. They have been associated with high self-worth but also with rigidity, closed-mindedness, and authoritarianism. Moratorium is the identity status with the lowest level of well-being and characterizes young people in an identity crisis. In many ways, they resemble achievement individuals in their cognitive complexity and higher levels of moral reasoning, yet they also demonstrate greater openness to experience. But this status has a dual trait so that an individual in moratorium may be an explorer but also suffer paralysis. Diffusion is less homogeneous as a group, but individuals with this status share an inability to make definite commitments and decline to explore options. Some diffusion individuals may go through life in a carefree, uninvolved way, while others manifest a severe psychopathology and great loneliness.

It has been recognized that the main drawback of this quantitative approach based on the use of questionnaires was the creation of a ‘static’ sociological conception of identity, which was more interested in classifying individuals into categories (the statuses) than in examining the complex psychodynamic that Erikson had initially described. In view of this major drawback, at the beginning of the last decade, instead of answering calls to abandon identity status theory, some models were developed in order to extend or expand its original formulation. What emerged from these extensions of the theory were such original contributions as the works of Luyckx et al. (2011) and of Crocetti et al. (2008).

Luyckx and colleagues model subdivided exploration and commitment into two different processes. Exploration included exploration in breadth and exploration in depth. In the same way, commitment differentiated between commitment making and identification with commitment. Both exploration in breadth and commitment making are equivalent to Marcia's original dimensions. Exploration in breadth refers to the gathering of information about several identity alternatives (values, roles, careers, relationships, ideologies, etc.), while commitment making refers to establishing strong choices in different identity domains as a consequence of prior exploration in breadth. What is new is the evaluation of those commitments, which were enacted previously. This commitment evaluation phase begins with exploration in depth, that is to say, a closer examination of those commitments after choosing them. Identification with commitment follows after a period of exploration in depth in order to integrate one's commitments into one's sense of self; in other words, identification with commitment is a measure of the degree of fit or agreement between those commitments and one's own wishes and personal standards. The interaction of the four processes is far from being simply linear. Not only may exploration in depth influence identification with commitment, but also a lack of identification with commitment may influence the need for a prolonged exploration in depth of those commitments or a renewed exploration in breadth of alternatives (Luyckx et al., 2011).

Crocetti et al. (2008) provide a second new extended model of identity. In their studies, identity is operationalized as a three-factor model with interplay among commitment, in-depth exploration (the extent to which individuals reflect on their commitments), and reconsideration of commitment (comparison of present commitments with alternative ones when the previous ones are no longer satisfactory enough). Individuals begin the process in early adolescence with a set of commitments in at least the ideological and interpersonal domains. These commitments are explored through reconsideration of commitments and through in-depth exploration. Reconsideration compares present commitments to alternative ones and includes decisions about whether to change them or not. In-depth exploration is a continuous monitoring of present commitments with the function of making them more consciously and maintaining them. In this model, commitment is not differentiated.

These newer distinctions of exploration and commitment offer interesting insights into the process of exploration. Luyckx et al. (2011) introduced the concept of ‘ruminative exploration’ to explain the paradoxical yet common association of exploration with both distress and openness to new experiences. Ruminative exploration refers to an obsessive concern about making the ‘correct’ choice, with the result that the person remains ‘stuck’ in the exploration process. This recurrent finding was in fact due to the merging of multiple exploration processes, which had not been distinguished in the original identity status theory. According to said authors, exploration in breadth and exploration in depth are associated with the positive side of exploring new alternatives, ruminative exploration with the negative side of distress.

The introduction of new distinctions in the processes of exploration and commitment has understandably provided some additional variants in the original statuses (see Table 1). From the combination of the three factors proposed by Crocetti et al. (2008), five identity statuses emerge: achievement, early closure, moratorium, searching moratorium, and diffusion. From the combination of exploration in breadth, exploration in depth, commitment making, and identification with commitment, cluster analysis identified the following statuses (Luyckx et al., 2011): an achievement cluster, another of foreclosure, two variants of moratorium (adaptive and arrested), and two of diffusion (carefree and diffused).

Table 1. Identity status classification as per Crocetti–Meeus (shaded) and Luyckx models

Another recent contribution of these two extended models has been to answer the age-old question of whether any developmental sequence underlies the identity statuses. Recent meta-analysis studies have tried to find out whether identity develops progressively and whether identity statuses can be ordered on a developmental continuum. Kroger and Marcia (2011) discussed a review of 124 longitudinal or cross-sectional studies performed before 2005, with adolescents (13–19 years of age) and young adults (20–36 years of age). Their conclusion was that the data generally supports a developmental process of identity formation. This means that there are more progressive than regressive developmental movements over time (D → F, D → M, D → A, F → M, F → A, M → A). Meeus (2011) concluded with respect to progression and stability that studies generally show a developmental progress in personal identity during adolescence. But, in addition to progress, many cases of stability have also been reported since many adolescents and adults do not change their identity status, such stability being more common in adulthood than in adolescence. Stabilities were more frequent in the high commitment statuses than in the diffusion and moratorium statuses. It can therefore be concluded that adolescents may follow two distinct paths on the identity status continuum: D → F → A or D → M → C → A.

Recently, Meeus et al. (2012) have confirmed that it is better to conceptualize achievement, moratorium, early closure, and diffusion as trajectories rather than statuses. On this account, every status would be an example of an “over time solution of the identity puzzle” (p. 1017). By combining the three dimensions of commitment, exploration in depth and reconsideration of commitment they found the following trajectories: 15.8% of the respondents were classified within a trajectory of achievement, 39.6% within an early closure trajectory. A smaller number of respondents, mostly early-to-middle adolescents, were classified in the trajectory of searching moratorium. 20.5% of the respondents were in the moratorium trajectory. In contrast to searching moratorium, the moratorium trajectory describes participants without strong commitments, which have not been processed actively. In addition, they manifest a high level of depressive symptoms. Finally, 20.7% of respondents were in the diffusion trajectory. These trajectories are evidence of the richness and usefulness of Marcia's original work on status. But in this case, statuses are understood as long and stable trajectories instead of a path of statuses that must be crossed.

Empirical Evidence

Until recently, few studies addressed the identity–creativity question. First, studying high school and college samples, Waterman and colleagues found that poetry writing—but not journal writing—was significantly related to identity achievement (Waterman & Archer, 1979; Waterman, Kohutis, & Pulone, 1977). Moreover, in longitudinal research, the dimension of “cultural sophistication” (including artistic interests) predicted later identity achievement (Waterman & Goldman, 1976; Waterman & Waterman, 1971). Also conducting a longitudinal study, Helson and Pals (2000) studied graduates of a liberal arts college for women when participants were in their early 20s and again in their early 40s. These authors correlated California Q-sort personality descriptions with a prototype of the identity-achieved person (Mallory, 1989); each participant’s similarity to this prototype was the measure of identity achievement. Helson, Roberts, and Agronick (1995) then used this measure to predict occupational creativity at age 52, based on the creativity implied by career choices and accomplishments. Controlling for age 21 creative potential, identity achievement at age 43 indeed predicted creativity. However, an age 21 identity achievement measure and an age 27 “identity consolidation” measure did not predict age 52 creativity. Helson and Pals concluded that creative achievement is associated with both intrapsychic and psychosocial personality development. The impressive Helson and Pals (2000) study focused longitudinally on real-world creativity with follow-up well into the participants’ adult lives. However, the different results for the two measures of identity achievement raise questions, as does the lack of reported correlation between them. It would also be interesting to know whether any participants were in moratorium status in their early 20s and whether they became creative in the process as a result of their identity explorations. Nevertheless, the study does indicate the value of this research question.

As noted earlier, more recent scholars of identity have placed a greater focus on identity process rather than identity status (Adams & Marshall, 1996; Berzonsky & Adams, 1999). According to Berzonsky (1989, 1992, 1994), identity development can be conceptualized in terms of three social-cognitive styles of decision making, particularly decisions about the self. Self-explorers use an information orientation; before making identity-relevant decisions, they actively seek out and process information. These individuals are expected to internalize new possibilities for themselves and thus to enhance their creativity. The earlier status group of foreclosure is reflected in a normative orientation, consisting of a concern with the standards and prescriptions held by family and friends. Finally, uncommitted or diffuse individuals operate with a diffuse orientation involving avoidance and procrastination. Thus, the latter style translates to letting circumstances dictate one’s life paths. The latter two orientations should yield less creativity than the more active informational style. Berzonsky uncoupled the commitment and exploration components by including an identity commitment scale to his styles inventory, since commitment and exploration were confounded in past objective measures of identity status. Research on Berzonsky’s Identity Styles Scale indicates that the dimensions have theoretically meaningful relations to identity status groupings, coping styles, need for cognition, and openness to experience (Berzonsky, 1989, 1992, 1994; Berzonsky & Sullivan, 1992).

Dollinger and Dollinger (1997) found indirect support for the identity–creativity connection by examining the association of college students’ identity statuses and styles with the richness of autophotographic essays (Ziller, 2000), a creative product developed to the question “who are you?” Specifically, university students’ photo-essays were rated by judges on a dimension of richness or individuality (i.e., more creative, aesthetically oriented, complex, self-reflective, multidimensional, “one-of-a-kind” vs. repetitive, conventional, dull, and unimaginative). In categorical analyses, students in the achieved and moratorium statuses were judged to have richer photo-essays than those in the foreclosed and diffuse statuses. In a conceptual replication study, participants scoring highest on Berzonsky’s informational style had the richest photo-essays, followed by the diffuse and then the normative-preferring participants. In other words, the richness of self-descriptive photo-essays related to both identity status and identity style. Thus, individuals who engage in greater identity exploration depict themselves with greater individuality or richness in photo-essays, [for other relevant work, see Barbot (2008) and Barbot and Heuser (this volume)].

The photo-essay procedure was also used in connection with Sampson’s concept of the “location” of identity and Cheek’s (1989) AIQ measure. Using multiple regression, Dollinger, Preston, O’Brien, and DiLalla (1996) found that the individuality of photo-essays was predicted by the three AIQ scales in simultaneous regression, with significant negative betas for Social and Collective Identity, and a significant positive one for Personal Identity. In short, those who depicted the greatest richness and individuality felt that internal or Personal aspects were most self-defining, whereas those devising stereotypic and less creative self-portraits focused on their external (Social and Collective) identity aspects as important.

Given that photo-essay instructions prompt thoughts about who one is, the photo-essay in fact falls at the intersection of identity and creativity—because individuality/richness is measured with the consensual assessment technique. Thus, it represents a kind of creativity applied to the self. In this regard, in cross-sectional analyses, it is noteworthy that the individuality/richness of photo-essays seems to increase with age, as indeed does the inclusion of creative products as a category within photo-essays (Dollinger & Dollinger, 2003).

Using a variety of different creativity measures, Dollinger, Clancy Dollinger, and Centeno (2005) built on the previous studies by considering both Berzonsky’s Identity Styles and Cheek’s AIQ. Creativity was operationalized by judge-rated creative products (stories and drawings), self-reported creative accomplishments from the Creative Behavior Inventory (Hocevar, 1979), ratings of an open-ended creativity dossier, and, finally, a measure of creative potential, the empirically derived Creative Personality Scale (Gough, 1979). We hypothesized that the informational orientation and personal identity scales would predict creative potential, past creative accomplishments, and present creative products over and above variance explained by gender and verbal intelligence; we also expected that the normative and diffuse-avoidant styles, as well as social and collective identity scales would relate negatively to creativity. Note that, unlike Helson and Pals (2000), our prediction was that information seeking rather than the achievement of an identity would be critical for adolescent and young adult creativity. We did not expect identity commitment to predict creativity because, for this age group, a high level of commitment making might be viewed as “premature closure” and thus something that creative students would avoid. The five creativity measures were standardized and averaged for use as a creativity composite. In a hierarchical multiple regression, the first step (gender and vocabulary) accounted for 11% of the creativity variance, primarily attributable to verbal ability. The second step consisted of either Identity Style Inventory (ISI) or AIQ Questionnaire scales. For the ISI analysis, an additional 10% of variance was accounted for, primarily due to information seeking and normative styles. Again, information seeking led to greater creativity, whereas the normative style led to lower overall creativity. For the AIQ analysis, all three measures contributed to explaining an additional 13% of the creativity variance. As in Dollinger et al. (1996), Personal Identity contributed positively to creativity, whereas Social and Collective Identities contributed negatively. Thus, it seems clear that individuals who define themselves in terms of their social identities and group memberships score lower in creativity, whereas their counterparts with a stronger Personal Identity orientation draw on their less visible inner qualities as inspiration for their creative contributions.

Subsequent work with the autophotographic essay has produced a number of insights into the individualistic personality, particularly in terms of their inquiring intellect and verbal abilities, general and political values, reading interests, and other kinds of creativity and linguistic processes in their written essay. This research is summarized in Dollinger (2017) so we will note only one finding here. Dollinger (2006) conducted a follow-up survey of students who devised photo-essays 5–9 years earlier. The follow-up survey asked about creative activities and accomplishments, as well as awards and honors received. Five judges with varying creative backgrounds rated the typed responses. As an example, one low-rated response stated: “I have not had enough free time to pursue creative endeavors. My life since 1995 has been spent in pursuit of degrees, jobs, and licensure as a Clinical Professional Counselor.” One high-rated response was: “I have taken oil painting classes and hand coloring black and white photos. I start an acrylic painting class this week.” Because Openness is consistently the best personality predictor of creativity (Feist, 1998), a regression model predicted postcollege creativity from individuality/richness ratings and this trait, both measured on average 7 years earlier. Whereas Openness did not make a significant contribution, individuality indeed predicted later creativity.

Marcia’s Four Identity Statuses

In 1966, Marcia published his first article on identity development. He classified people’s identity formation into one of four categories based on whether a person had gone through a crisis and whether the person had made a commitment in an important area of life. One of these important areas of life concerns religious issues. The four identity statuses are achieved, moratorium, foreclosed, and diffused.

I prefer the term questioning rather than crisis, because many people question their religious/spiritual beliefs, but do not have to go through a major crisis similar to Luther’s fit in the choir. However, I use the term crisis because this is the term used in the literature.

The achieved and foreclosed statuses have made a commitment. The difference is that achieved people have gone through a crisis, or time of questioning their faith or spirituality. Foreclosed people, however, have strong beliefs and have made a commitment, but they have not gone through a crisis. That is, they just go along with whatever faith they were raised with and do not question that faith. Research does support that religiously committed people are more likely to be of the identity achievement and foreclosure statuses, compared to the less religiously inclined (Markstrom-Adams, Hofstra, & Dougher, 1994; Hunsberger, Pratt, & Pancer, 2001; Tzuriel, 1984).

Fulton (1997) found identity achievement (crisis and commitment) people are more likely to have an intrinsic religious orientation. That is, their practices of their faith are based on internal reasons and they are genuinely committed to their faith (Allport, 1950). Whereas foreclosed identities (no crisis, but makes a commitment) are more likely to exhibit an extrinsic religious orientation. That is, extrinsically motivated people are more motivated by external reasons, such as appearing to be a good person; going to church or the temple is what they should do. With Mormon and Jewish participants, identity diffusion (no crisis and no commitment) are also more likely to be associated with an extrinsic religious orientation (Markstrom-Adams & Smith, 1996).

The moratorium identity status (crisis but no commitment) is frequently considered to be the status of many adolescents and young adults in various areas of life. For example, it is common for college students not to have made a commitment to a career; yet they are questioning or struggling, as apparent by the number of times that they change their majors. Research does support that people with moratorium identities (crisis, but no commitment) are more religiously doubting or questioning (Hunsberger, Pratt, and Pancer, 2001).

When religious people are in a crisis, or a time of doubting, do they seek people and literature that would support their beliefs (belief-confirming consultation), or do they seek a balance and seek friends with no religious preference or even literature that is against their beliefs (belief-threatening consultation)? People who scored higher on identity achievement (crisis and commitment) tend to seek out belief-confirming and belief-threatening consultations (Hunsberger, Pratt, & Pancer, 2001). The identity foreclosed group (no crisis, but commitment) significantly sought less threatening consultation. They did not want to hear information that challenged their beliefs. The diffused group (no crisis and no commitment) did not seek out consultation.

Marcia’s nomenclature of the four identity categories is promising for future research. Even though identity achievement and identity foreclosed have strong beliefs, their cognitive rationales for their faith are substantially different. The identity achievement, after going through a time of questioning and crisis, has affirmed their beliefs. Whereas the identity foreclosed, also testifying to strong commitment, have never questioned their religion. It will be exciting to see what develops from future research.

Individual identity versus identity confusion

The final stage of early development discussed in this chapter, individual identity versus identity confusion, takes place during late adolescence (18–24 years). Based on substantial brain research, it is believed that early adulthood does not begin until after the brain is fully matured, a time period occurring after the age of 24–25 years (Casey et al., 2008; Spear, 2000). This late adolescent time period is marked by greater individual determination to realize goals augmented by increased legal rights and privileges. It is also a time period when career paths are explored, although often not fully acknowledged or solidified. Greater autonomy and self-sufficiency is attained and a deeper understanding regarding cultural norms and values are examined and either accepted or rejected in accordance to a burgeoning sense of an adult identity (Newman & Newman, 2015). The earlier need to identify with peer groups shifts to identifying with individual values and desires. These are weighted more than group norms. This process can prove challenging if individual identity status runs counter to family or cultural beliefs. For example, this is a period when sexual orientation is fully acknowledged; many struggle with concerns about acceptance or rejection from family, church, and/or community. Others may struggle with career choices that contradict family beliefs. Many performing artists struggle with a desire to embrace a career in the performing arts, despite financial instability and disapproval from family members. During this phase of development, increased ability to manage stress is evident, especially when balancing educational, financial, and personal needs. If these challenges are not met, the late adolescent enters adulthood without a clearly defined sense of individual identity. Consequently, early adulthood becomes substantially more confusing, in particular, there is greater difficulty in defining social roles, establishing intimate relationships, and engaging in meaningful careers (Newman & Newman, 2015). If successfully navigated, Erikson’s sixth psychosocial stage of development clearly prepares the individual to enter adulthood.

Along with individual identity consolidation, the impulse to seek a mate potentially enhances creative productivity, although gender differences exist. Men tend to work more creatively regardless if the romantic relationship is potentially long- or short-term; whereas, women tend to display greater creative productivity when they are in safe long-term relationships (Griskevicius, Cialdini, & Kenrick, 2006). This gender relationship pattern is developmentally normal during late adolescence, although it often persists into adulthood. Clearly, establishing intimate relationships influences career stability but also career stress for many performing artists. This topic will be addressed in later chapters that discuss attachment formation and career development (Fig. 9.2).

Creativity and Identity Development in Adolescence

Adolescence is marked by intense biological, cognitive, and psychosocial changes, which have a profound impact on the development of both identity and creativity. Triggered by the onset of puberty, the asynchronous development of socioemotional and the cognitive control neurobiological system are the most characteristic features of the adolescent’s brain context (Steinberg, 2008, 2009). Also caused by new environmental demands (Kroger, Martinussen, & Marcia, 2010), these neurobiological changes (and associated cognitive development) underline the developmental task of identity formation, leading to the reorganization of self-representations (e.g., Harter, 1992) and personality maturation (Barbot, 2011; Branje, Van Lieshout, & Gerris, 2007; Klimstra, Hale, Raaijmakers, Branje, & Meeus, 2009). Indeed, this new identity “quest” also results from the emergence of developing cognitive abilities of formal operations, permitting abstraction, exploration of possible, and metareflection.

In Western societies, an adolescent’s identity formation is often qualified as a time of “crisis” (Erikson, 1968), as it involves a significant amount of conflict and exploration engaged in the resolution of contradictions within the self. According to Marcia’s (1966) identity statuses paradigm, a key to forming a mature identity in adolescence is to formulate well-defined commitments, which refer to decisions, choices, or oppositions of the adolescent in relevant ideological and interpersonal domains of life (e.g., leisure, future profession, political opinions). In a time of uncertainties about one’s self—identity formation being best described by the question “who am I?”—commitments can indeed provide the adolescent with well-defined self-concepts. For example, an adolescent who has firmly committed to athletics, such as being a soccer player, can define herself or himself as a soccer player. As such, commitments reflect one’s sense of identity.

However, Marcia points out that the relative “quality” of commitments depends ultimately on the extent to which an adolescent has explored alternative commitments. Identity exploration entails the search for, discovery, and identification of possible commitments and sense of selves, specifically “who and what one might be” (Berman, Schwartz, Kurtines, & Berman, 2001, p. 513). Commitments that result from an exploration phase are more articulated, and denote a more “mature” identity structure, referred to as Identity Achievement (Marcia, 1966). On the path to Identity Achievement, adolescents often experience a phase of “Moratorium” illustrating the adolescent’s “crisis” or “storm and stress.” According to Marcia (1966), this identity status is marked by a quest for commitment (i.e., intense exploration of possible) with an impossibility to crystalize any stable commitment. As pointed out in the subsequent text, this status has been unsurprisingly associated with divergent thinking (DT; e.g., Barbot, 2008), a key thinking process in creativity. Two other typical identity configurations are described by Marcia (1966), both marked by a lack of exploration: Identity Diffusion (adolescents have not explored meaningful alternatives and are not seeking to formulate commitments) and Foreclosed identity (commitments are firmly held, but they do not result from a thorough, in-depth exploration). As outlined elsewhere (Barbot, 2008; Barbot & Lubart, 2012a), these configurations have an important relationship with the development of creativity because each identity configuration is associated with a set of cognitive and conative features that are differentially related to creativity.

Given the typical turmoil experienced by adolescents, and the many reorganizations in the structure of identity throughout adolescence (there is no linear progression from Identity Diffusion to Achievement), it is not surprising that the development of creativity in adolescence is characterized by “peaks, slumps, and bumps” (Barbot, Lubart, & Besançon, 2016, p. 34). Triggered by neurodevelopmental changes (e.g., Barbot & Tinio, 2015), adolescence is indeed marked by the drastic development of higher cognitive functioning including DT. Although DT starts developing very early on (e.g., Bijvoet-van den Berg & Hoicka, 2014), adolescence represents a new turn in the development of this critical component of the creative potential, characterized by a discontinuous, multifaceted, and task-specific development (e.g., Kleibeuker, De Dreu, & Crone, 2016) often punctuated by “slumps” (Barbot et al., 2016). This trend coincides with a relative increase of “divergent feelings” (Claxton, Pannells, & Rhoads, 2005), including factors such as curiosity, complexity, or risk-taking, which seems to logically align with the adolescent’s identity formation context.

In sum, adolescence is a critical developmental time for the development of both identity and creativity. Although both creativity and identity seem to develop interactively, and, therefore, contribute to the development of each other, only little work has focused on the potential contribution of creativity in the formation of identity. We now turn our attention to this specific line of work with a focus on creative thinking, creative commitment, and creative expression and their specific contribution at various levels of the development of an adolescent’s identity.