Identity Development
GFCM Definition of Identity
Identity involves one’s commitments (what one is dedicated to; values), and related goals and roles.
When well-formed, through a process of in-depth and supported exploration, identity give one’s life direction and purpose; serves as a blueprint for the way in which one conducts one’s life and plans one’s future.
Exploring and Committing to an Identity is a cornerstone of Growth-Focused Youth Justice Case Manage
References for Illustration of Unhealthy Outcomes
Poor School Attachment
- Robert Agnew, “Interactive Effects of Peer Variables on Delinquency,” Criminology, 1991, 29(1). Agnew’s analysis derives from his well-established General Strain Theory which holds that pressure (or strain) derived from social factors drives individuals to offend. The focus of his paper is the life domain of peers. Severe strain from anti-social peers can have deleterious effects on positive identity formation, of which poor school attachment is a manifestation (see also Tommy M. Phillips and Joe F. Pittman, “Identity Processes in Poor Adolescents: Exploring Linkages Between Economic Disadvantage and the Primary Task of Adolescence,” Identity: An International Journal of Theory and Research, 2003, 2(2); and Peggy A. Thoits, “On Merging Identity Theory and Stress Research,” Social Psychology Quarterly, 1991, 54(2))
- John P. Hoffman, Lance D. Erickson, and Karen R. Spence, “Modeling the Association Between Academic Achievement and Delinquency: An Application of Interactional Theory,” Criminology, 51(3)
- For additional insight into effects of the peer domain on the exploration process on which identity formation is based, see Ryan E. Spohn, “Delinquent Friends and Reactions to Strain: An Examination of Direct and Indirect Pathways,” Western Criminology Review, 2012, 13(1)
Poor academic achievement:
- Terrie E. Moffitt and Avshalom Caspi, “Childhood Predictors Differentiate Life-Course Persistent and Adolescence-Limited Antisocial Pathways Among Males and Females,” Development and Psychopatholoy, 2001, 13 - Moffitt’s seminal work on the life-course persistent and adolescence-limited pathways provide remarkable verification of the role of identity. The adolescent developmental task of identity formation relies on a series of successes with earlier developmental tasks, resulting in what Erikson called trust, autonomy, initiative, and industry. Moffitt’s work, by its in-depth analysis of early developmental problems as predictors of life-course persistent offending, reveals some of the early behavioral results of poorly undertaken early developmental tasks, which Erikson maintained results in forming mistrust, shame, guilt, and inferiority. These negative outcomes increase the likelihood of identity confusion during adolescence. Moffitt’s term “disordered personality” comes close to the idea of identity confusion. He wrote: “Over the first two decades of development a sequence of transactions between child and environment accumulate to gradually construct a disordered personality, with hallmark features of physical aggressions and antisocial behavior.”
- Sonja E. Siennick and Jeremy Staff, “Explaining the Educational Deficits of Delinquent Youth,” Criminology, 2008, 46(3)
School dropout:
- Terrie E. Moffitt and Avshalom Caspi, “Childhood Predictors Differentiate Life-Course Persistent and Adolescence-Limited Antisocial Pathways Among Males and Females,” Development and Psychopatholoy, 2001, 13
- Sonja E. Siennick and Jeremy Staff, “Explaining the Educational Deficits of Delinquent Youth,” Criminology, 2008, 46(3)
Poor relationship with parents:
- Mark Warr, “The Tangled Web: Delinquency, Deception, and Parental Attachment,” Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 2007, 36;
Poor relationship with peers:
- Natalie Mercer, Elisabetta Crocetti, Susan Branje, Pol van Lier, and Wim Meeus, “Linking Delinquency and Personal Identity Formation Across Adolescence: Examining Between- and Within-Person Associations,” Developmental Psychology, 2017, 53(11)
Delinquency:
- Seth J. Schwartz, Wim Beyers, Koen Luyckx, Bart Soenens, Byron L. Zamboanga, Larry F. Forthun, Sam A. Hardy, Alexander T. Vazsonyi, Lindsay S. Ham, Su Yeong Kim, Susan Krauss Whitbourne, and Alan S. Waterman, “Examining the Light and Dark Sides of Emerging Adults’ Identity: A Study of Identity Status Differences in Positive and Negative Psychsocial Functioning,” Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 2011, 40
- Wim Meeus, Rens van de Schoot, Loes Keijsers, and Susan Branje, “Identity Statuses as Developmental Trajectories: A Five-Wave Longitudinal Study in Early-to-Middle and Middle-to-Late Adolescents,” Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 2012, 41
- Natalie Mercer, Elisabetta Crocetti, Susan Branje, Pol van Lier, and Wim Meeus, “Linking Delinquency and Personal Identity Formation Across Adolescence: Examining Between- and Within-Person Associations,” Developmental Psychology, 2017, 53(11)
- Daphna Oyserman and Hazel Rose Markus, “Possible Selves and Delinquency,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1990, 59(1)
- David Brownfield and Kevin Thompson, “Self-Concept and Delinquency: The Effects of Reflected Appraisals by Parents and Peers,” Western Criminology Review, 2005, 6(1)
- Laurence Steinberg, Elizabeth Cauffman, and Kathryn C. Monahan, “Psychosocial Maturity and Desistance From Crime in a Sample of Serious Juvenile Offenders,” Juvenile Justice Bulletin, United State Department of Justice, March 2015
References for Illustration of Healthy Outcomes
Motivation and self-regulation:
- Daphna Oyserman, Pathways to Success Through Identity-Based Motivation, Oxford University Press, 2015
- Cecile Nurra and Daphna Oyserman, “From Future Self to Current Action: An Identity-Based Motivation Perspective,” Self and Identity, 2017, 17(3)
- Jean-Louis van Gelder, Hal E. Hershfield, and Loran F. Nordgren, “Vividness of the Future Self Predicts Delinquency,” Psychological Science, 2013. This study focuses on the well-known matter of how youth that engage in delinquency “tend to focus on short-term gains” and “fail to adequately think through long-term consequences of their behavior. It was found that when vividness of a youth’s future self is increased, they are less inclined to engage in delinquent behavior. Therefore, GFCM’s practice of basing the case plan long-term goal on a vivid depiction of the youth’s future, ideal self contributes to reducing reoffending.
- Daphna Oyserman, Neil A. Lewis, Jr., Veronica X. Yan, Oliver Fisher, S. Casey O’Donnell, and Eric Horowitz, “An Identity-Based Motivation Framework for Self-Regulation,” Psychological Inquiry: An International Journal for the Advancement of Psychological Theory, 2017, 28(2-3)
- Gerald R. Adams and Judy A. Shea, “The Relationship Between Identity Status, Locus of Control, and Ego Development,” Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 1979, 8(1)
- Tara M. Dumas, Wendy E. Ellis, and David A. Wolfe, “Identity Development as a Buffer of Adolescent Risk Behaviors in the Context of Peer Group Pressure and Control,” Journal of Adolescence, 2012, 35. This study found that “identity development may be a suitable target to deter negative effects of peer pressure in high-risk adolescents.”
Transition to adulthood:
- Jane Kroger, Identity in Adolescence: The Balance Between Self and Other, Third Edition, Adolescence and Society Series, Routledge, 2004, see Chapter 5, “Ego Development in Adolescence. The term “ego development” corresponds with the terms “maturation” or “psychosocial development” typically used in the desistance literature. GFCM captures these ideas with the term “growth.”
- Anna Izabela Brzezinska, Tomasz Czub, Szymon Hejmanowski, Radoslaw Kaczan, Konrad Piotrowski, and Malgorzata Rekosiewicz, “The Determinants of Identity Formation During the Transition from Adolescence to Adulthood,” Culture and Education, 2012, 5(91) Argembeau
- Arnaud D’Argembeau, Claudia Lardi, and Martial Van der Linden, “Self-Defining Future Projections: Exploring the Identity Function of Thinking About the Future,” Memory, 2012, 20(2)
- In relation to the trend toward “emerging adult justice” which specifically considers the interplay between offending and handling the challenges of growing into adulthood, the following: Seth J. Schwartz, Byron L. Zamboanga, Koen Luyckx, Alan Meca, and Rachel A. Ritchie, “Identity in Emerging Adulthood: Reviewing the Field and Looking Forward,” Emerging Adulthood, 2013, 1(2)
Desistance from offending:
- Alissa Mahler, Cortney Simmons, Paul J. Frick, Laurence Steinberg, and Elizabeth Cauffman, “Aspirations, Expectations and Delinquency: The Moderating Effect of Impulse Control,” Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 2017, 46. In GFCM, work with youth begins with assisting them in seeing who they can become (i.e., future non-offender identity) and, then, utilizing the case plan as the way to move toward it. In this sense, the case plan supports youths’ aspirations and expectations. Mahler et al., assert that “empirical evidence identifies expectations as an influential and robust predictor of delinquent behavior.
- Alissa Mahler, Expecting the Unexpected: Expectations for Future Success Among Adolescent First-Time Offenders, THESIS, University of California, Irvine
- Chonogmin Na and Sung Joon Jang, “Positive Expected Selves and Desistance Among Serious Adolescent Offenders,” Journal of Developmental and Life-Course Criminology, 2019, 5. “We found that a shift in a youth’s expectation of positive self-identity in the future is significantly related to a downward trend in both offending and arrest outcomes.”
- Michael Rocque, Chad Posick, and Ray Paternoster, “Identities Through Time: An Exploration of Identity Change as a Cause of Desistance,” Justice Quarterly, 33(1). “Several lines of criminological thought suggest that identities are a causal factor in the etiology, continuation, and cessation of delinquency (Brownfield & Thompson, 2005; Lemert, 1951; Lofland, 1969; Maruna, Lebel, Mitchell & Naples, 2004; Matsueda, 1992).”
- Glenn D. Walters, “Maturing Out of Delinquency: Unpacking the Effects of Identity Achievement and Future Orientation on Crime Desistance,” Self and Identity, 2019, 18(3). This study provides robust support for the significance of the GFCM framework being in itself an intervention that fosters growth or maturation. Walters states: “General desistance may therefore be better served by interventions that transform an immature identity into a mature one.”
Mental health:
- David Pettie & Andrea M. Triolo, “Illness as Evolution: The Search for Identity and Meaning in the Recovery Process,” Psychiatric Rehabilitation Journal, Winter 99, 22(3)
- Theo A. Klimstra, Elisabetta Crocetti, Wiliam W. Hale, Aline I.M. Kolman, Eveline Fortanier, and Wim H.J. Meeus, “Identity Formation in Juvenile Delinquents and Clinically Referred Youth,” Revue Europeenne de Psychologie Appliguee (Elsevier Masson, www.sciencedirect.com), 2011, 61. “Throughout the years, linkages between identity statuses and psychosocial adjustment (i.e., internalizing and externalizing problem behavior) have been uncovered and replicated (e.g., Crocetti et al., 2008a; Luyckx et al., 2008a; Marcia, 1966; Meeus et al., 1999)
- Andrada D. Neacsiu, Nathaniel R. Herr, Caitlin M. Fang, Marcus A. Rodriguez, and M.Zachary Rosenthal, “Identity Disturbance and Problems With Emotion Regulation Are Related Constructs Across Diagnoses,” Journal of Clinical Psychology, 2014, 00(0). “Of direct relevance to mental health, the construct of identity includes finding meaning in life and understanding one’s fit in the world (Wilkinson-Ryan & Westen, 2000).”
- Erin A. Kaufman, Marilyn J. Montgomery, and Sheila E. Crowell, “Identity-Related Dysfunction: Integrating Clinical and Developmental Perspectives,” Identity: An International Journal of Theory and Research, 2014, 14
Posttraumatic growth:
- Marie J. Forgeard, “Perceiving Benefits After Adversity: The Relationship Between Self-Reported Posttraumatic Growth and Creativity,” Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts, 2013, 7(3).
- Richard G. Tedeschi & Lawrence G. Calhoun, “The Posttraumatic Growth Inventory: Measuring the Positive Legacy of Trauma,” Journal of Traumatic Stress, 1996, 9(3). Of five posttraumatic growth domains, formation of a positive identity corresponds with the domain of “perceiving new possibilities for one’s life,” which agrees with GFCM’s focus on the youth’s future ideal or best self.
- Steven L. Berman, “Identity and Trauma,” Journal of Traumatic Stress Disorders and Treatment, 2016, 5(2). Of noteworthy significance with regard to the trauma experienced by many justice-involved youth, while trauma can disrupt identity, identity can alter youths’ view of their trauma and incorporated in their identity in positive ways that serve as a life “turning point.” This underscores the value of GFCM’s focus identity formation.
Copyright © 2020 Growth-Focused Case Management - All Rights Reserved.
Powered by GoDaddy Website Builder