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Figure 4.6 Adolescent Identity Categories
Progress in the search for one’s identity can be divided into four categories. In which category would you place someone who is not actively concerned with his or her identity and is waiting until later to decide the issue?
Identity Foreclosure
Identity Moratorium Identity Diffusion Source: Adapted from Kalat, 1999.
Exploring identity issues Not exploring identity issues yet
Decisions already made
Decisions not yet made
Identity Achievement
adolescence is not strife-ridden, but a smooth transition from one stage of life to the next—especially following a healthy childhood.
One of the reasons Erikson may have arrived at his view is that he focused his study on disturbed adolescents who sought clinical psychi- atric treatment. When adolescents attending school are selected at random and studied, critics point out that most show no sign of crisis and appear to be progressing rather smoothly through adolescence (Haan & Day, 1974).
Social Learning View
Psychologists and social scientists seeking an alternative to Erikson’s theory have offered several other explanations for adolescent identity for- mation. A.C. Peterson (1988), for example, argues that crisis is not the normal state of affairs for adolescents. When crises develop—as they do in a little more than 20 percent of all adolescent boys (Offer & Offer, 1975)—the cause is generally a change in the external circumstances of an individual’s life rather than a biological factor. Thus, a divorce in the family or a new set of friends may trigger teenage rebellion and crisis, but no internal biological clock dictates those events.
Human development, in Albert Bandura’s view, is one continuous process. At all stages, including adolescence, individuals develop by inter- acting with others. Because of Bandura’s emphasis on interaction in understanding adolescence and all other phases of human development, his approach is usually referred to as the social learning theory of development (Bandura, 1977).
Margaret Mead also stressed the importance of the social environ- ment in adolescent identity formation. On the basis of her studies in Samoa (1973), for example, she concluded, like Bandura, that human development is more a continuous process than one marked by radical discontinuity. In that remote part of the world, adolescents are not expected to act any differently than they did as children or will be expect- ed to act as adults. The reason is that children in Samoa are given a great
Reading Check
What is the major criti- cism of Erikson’s theory?
social learning theory:
Bandura’s view of human development; emphasizes interaction
Chapter 4 / Adolescence 107