PSYB20H3 Chapter Notes - Chapter 16: Identity Formation, Heterosexuality, Both Family
18 Dec 2016
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Chapter 16: Psychosocial Development in Adolescence
1) The Search for Identity
• The search for identity—according to Erik Erikson, a coherent conception of the self, made up of goals,
values, and beliefs to which the person is solidly committed—comes into focus during the teenage
years.
a) Erikson: Identity vs. Identity Confusion
• Adolescents seek to develop a coherent sense of self.
• Erikson’s fifth stage of psychosocial development.
• Also called “identity vs. role confusion”.
• Identity resolves 3 major issues:
- Choice of an occupation.
- Adoption of values to live by.
- Development of a satisfying sexual identity.
• Psychosocial moratorium: Time where young people search for commitment to which they can be
faithful.
- For example, going to college or university allows adolescents the time and opportunity to
think about different career paths, before taking on all the responsibilities of adulthood.
• Adolescents who resolve the identity crisis develop the virtue of fidelity.
- Fidelity: Sustained loyalty, faith, or sense of belonging to a loved one, or to friends and
companions.
• Cliquishness and intolerance of differences, both hallmarks of adolescence, are defences against
identity confusion.
• According to Erikson, a man is not capable of real intimacy until after he has achieved a stable identity,
whereas women define themselves through marriage and motherhood.
b) Marcia: Identity Status – Crisis and Commitment
• Crisis is a period of conscious decision-making where a young person is actively grappling with an
identity issue; commitment is a personal investment in an occupation or ideology (system of beliefs).
• Identity Achievement
- Characterized by a commitment made following a crisis.
- People in this category to be more mature and more socially competent than people in the other
three.
- Crisis and commitment.
• Foreclosure
- Person who has not found alternatives is committed to other people’s plans for his or her life.
- Commitment without crisis.
• Moratorium
- Person is considering alternatives and seems headed for commitment.
- Crisis without commitment.
• Identity Diffusion
- Characterized by absence of commitment and lack of serious consideration of alternatives.
- No crisis, no commitment.
- People in this category tend to be unhappy and often lonely.
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• Categories are not stages; they represent the status of identity development at a particular time, and
they are likely to change in any direction as young people continue to develop.
c) Gender Differences in Identity Formation
• Girls and women, says Gilligan, judge themselves on their handling of their responsibilities and on
their ability to care for others as well as for themselves.
• Much research supports Erikson's view that, for women, identity and intimacy
develop together.
• In research on Marcia's identity statuses, however, few gender differences have
appeared.
d) Ethnic Factors in Identity Formation
• Diffused: little or no exploration with no clear understanding
• Foreclosed: little or no exploration but has clear feelings
• Moratorium: Explores identity but is confused.
• Achieved: Explores ethnicity and understands/accepts it.
• Highest proportion of adolescents falling into the moratorium status.
• Additionally, the proportion of people in achievement rises throughout
adolescence and into adulthood, and those people who attain identity achievement are more likely to
view race as central to their identity.
• Many minority youth are keenly conscious of differences between the values
stressed at home and those dominant in the wider society, as they work through what being Canadian
means to them.
• There is also quite a lot of diversity in identity formation based on whether the
youth are first- or second- or later-generation immigrants, on the region and type of community where
the individual lives (large urban, smaller urban, rural), and on the family circumstances before arriving
in Canada (families emigrating by choice, refugee families).
• Aboriginals - Disruption of traditional ways of life through a history of
colonization, relocation to reserves, separation from families and abuse in residential schools, and
efforts at assimilation have dealt a severe blow to the maintenance of strong cultural identities in many
communities.
e) Prosocial Behaviour and Volunteer Activity
• Prosocial moral reasoning is reasoning about moral dilemmas in which one
person's needs or desires conflict with those of others in situations in which social rules or norms are
unclear or non-existent.
• Prosocial reasoning based on personal reflection about consequences and on
internalized values and norms increased with age, whereas reasoning based on such stereotypes as “it's
nice to help” decreased from childhood into the late teens.
• Girls tend to show more prosocial behaviour than boys.
• Girls are more likely to volunteer than boys, and adolescents with high socio-
economic status (SES) volunteer more than those with lower SES.
2) Sexuality
a) Sexual Orientation and Identity
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• Sexual Orientation: Focus of consistent sexual, romantic, and affectionate
interest, either heterosexual, homosexual, or bisexual.
- Thought to occur along two dimensions: 1) one for degree of other-sex
orientation, 2) one for degree of same-sex orientation.
- Heterosexuality predominates in nearly every known culture throughout the
world. The prevalence of homosexual orientation varies widely, depending on how it is defined
and measured.
b) Origins of Sexual Orientation
• Partly genetic.
- least three stretches of DNA on chromosomes 7, 8, and 10 that are involved in
male sexual orientation.
- Identical twins not completely concordant for sexual orientation, so non-genetic
factors also involved.
• Greater the number of older biological brothers.
- immune-like response to the presence of successive male fetuses in the womb
• Imaging studies have found similarities in brain structure between homosexuals
and heterosexuals of the other sex.
- Brains of gay men and straight women are symmetrical, whereas in lesbians and
straight men, the right hemisphere is slightly larger.
- Also, in gays and lesbians, connections in the amygdala, which is involved in
emotion, are typical of the other sex.
• Similar hypothalamus activation to pheromones.
- that attract mates, the odour of male sweat activated the hypothalamus in gay
men much as it did in heterosexual women; the analogous effect was found for lesbians and
straight men exposed to female pheromones.
c) Sexual Behaviour
• The average age of first sexual intercourse reported by Canadian youth 15 to 19
years of age occurs between 16 and 17 years.
d) Early Sexual Activity and Risk Taking
• Two major concerns about adolescent sexual activity are the risks of contracting
sexually transmitted infections (STIs) and, for heterosexual activity, of pregnancy.
• Most at risk are young people who start sexual activity early, have multiple
partners, do not use contraceptives regularly, and have inadequate information—or misinformation—
about sex.
• Other risk factors are living in a socio-economically disadvantaged community,
substance use, antisocial behaviour, and association with deviant peers. Parental monitoring can help
reduce these risks.
• Various factors, including early entrance into puberty, poverty, poor school
performance, lack of academic and career goals, a history of sexual abuse or parental neglect, and
cultural or family patterns of early sexual experience, may play a part in why adolescents begin having
sex early.
• The absence of a father, especially early in life, is a strong factor.
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Document Summary
Identity confusion: adolescents seek to develop a coherent sense of self, erikson"s fifth stage of psychosocial development, also called identity vs. role confusion . Development of a satisfying sexual identity: psychosocial moratorium: time where young people search for commitment to which they can be faithful. Characterized by a commitment made following a crisis. People in this category to be more mature and more socially competent than people in the other three. Person who has not found alternatives is committed to other people"s plans for his or her life. Person is considering alternatives and seems headed for commitment. Characterized by absence of commitment and lack of serious consideration of alternatives. Much research supports erikson"s view that, for women, identity and intimacy. In research on marcia"s identity statuses, however, few gender differences have: moratorium: explores identity but is confused. Diffused: little or no exploration with no clear understanding. Foreclosed: little or no exploration but has clear feelings.
