Adolescent Identity Exploration: A Test of Erikson

Theory of Transitional Crisis Kidwell, Dunham, and Richard (1995) investigated Eriksons conjecture that young identicalness geographic expedition is associated with a variety of symptoms, such as fluctuations in ego strength, mood swings, insubordinateness, and heightened corporeal symptoms. They sampled a total of 82 exalted educate students (43 males, 39 females) between the ages of 14 and 17.These students were academic exclusivelyy superior high school students who attended the Florida State University Summer lore and Mathematics Camp during the summers of 1988 (30 students) and 1989 (52 students). The minimum requirements for opening to the program include percentile ranks of 90 or more on standardise achievement tests, as well as sustained high academic performance. The students were from the middle-to-upper-middle consort socioeconomic posture. They responded to the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality line of descent (MMPI) and the Ego indistinguishability Intervie w (Grotevant & Cooper, 1981).Results showed that adolescents who were progressively engaged in identity geographic expedition were more likely to produce a personality pattern characterized by egotism doubt, confusion, disturbed thinking, impulsivity, conflict with pargonnts and authority figures, slighten ego strength, and increased physical symptoms. Although results were interesting, at that place are several limitations in the choose that must be considered. The Ego Identity Interview (Grotevant & Cooper, 1981) was based on Marcias (1964) operationalization of Eriksons possibleness (1968) regarding adolescence as a time of increased geographic expedition and freight.The semi-structured question was designed to gather evidence of exploration and commitment in six surface areas occupation, religion, politics, friendships, dating, and shake roles. Family relationship was non one of the domains in the Ego Identity Interview. Family should be included as one of the dom ains to be deliberate because it plays a big role in an adolescents vitality. Adolescents who are exploring whitethorn tend to have poor kindly judgment and whitethorn be rebellious and hostile toward parents and authority figures whom they tend to charge for their own problems (Feldman, 2003).As such, it is important to include the family domain in the interview to assess adolescents commitment and relationship with their immediate family members. Next, Eriksons hypothesis does not apply to people in reduced economic circumstances who cannot spend a moratorium in adolescence to explore contrasting roles and develop an ego identity. Moratorium is a issue in which an adolescent avoids commitment. This stage may be a luxury useable only to those with means to attend college or take time out to trip out (Slugowski & Ginsburg, 1989 as cited in Schultz & Schultz, 2005).The socioeconomic status of the families-of-origin for the student samples was middle-to-upper-middle class. T herefore this fits with the criteria of adolescents to confirm Eriksons theory. Generalizations could not be do to all adolescents, especially those coming from the lower socioeconomic status. Furthermore, this study was carried out in the united States, as such, it could not be compared to other(a) adolescents across other cultures. Erikson argued that the end of active exploration is likely pronounced in the gifted, just like the sample in this study.A similar pattern of findings may not be revealed in a less select group of comparable age. maybe the crisis impart surface at a later age, or perhaps the profiles will differ. Such questions remain to be turn to in future research. Also, the adolescent in this study were involved in a new and unfamiliar environment, being in a camp away(p) from their families and nourishment on a college campus for a period of six weeks. This may imply that the exploration process may be further by the exposure to the new and diametric env ironment.The adolescent may likely to be experiencing a need to explore and discover about the new setting they are in. This may lead to confusion and uncertainties which may result in the skewed results of the study. When Erikson unquestionable his theory, he suggested that males and females move through the identity versus identity confusion period differently. He argued that males are more likely to belong through the social development stages in enjoin, developing a stable identity before committing to an advert relationship with another(prenominal) person.In contrast, he suggested that females reverse the order, seeking intimate relationships and then defining their identities through these relationships (Feldman, 2003). These ideas should be considered by the researchers when designing this study. Gender differences in identity formation should be explored. This in any case suggests that Eriksons psychosocial stages of development may not always progress in the order he proposed. Despite the limitations, Eriksons theory had a great deal of prevalent appeal, as he shifted the focus away from the more psychosexual emphasis of Freuds toward a more psychosocial focus.Erikson elaborated on Freuds stages of development. Whereas Freud emphasized on former(a) childhood, Erikson suggested that development continues in a successiveness of 8 stages over the entire lifespan. Erikson made efforts to collect cross- pagan data, which is something that Sigmund Freud never did. His theory has been validated in cross cultural studies for example by Nurmi, Poole, & Kalakoski (1996) who studied Australian and Finnish adolescents. This helped to show that his theory had instructive power that extended beyond a limited population.References Feldman, R. S. (2003). Development across the life span. 3rd ed. New Jersey learner Hall. Kidwell, J. , Dunham, S. , & Richard, M. (1995). Adolescent identity exploration A test of Eriksons theory of transitional crisis. Adolesce nce, 30, 1-7. Retrieved may 8, 2008 from EbscoHost database. Nurmi, J. E. , Poole, M. E. , & Kalakoski, V. (1996). Age differences in adolescent identity exploration and commitment in urban and rural environments. Journal of Adolescence, 19, 443-452. Retrieved May 8, 2008 from EbscoHost database. Schultz, D. P. & Schultz, S. E. (2005). Theories of Personality. 8th ed. Belmont, CA Thomson Wadsworth.