Chapter 8 = Identity
- Identity as an adolescent issue:
o First substantial reorganization and restructuring of the individual’s sense of
self at a time when he or she has the intellectual capability to appreciate fully
just how significant the changes are
o Adolescents are far more self-conscious about thee changes than during
childhood, and feel them more acutely
o Puberty and identity development:
Undergoing the physical changes of puberty may prompt fluctuations in
one’s self-esteem and self-conceptions
o Cognitive change and identity development:
Adolescents become much more able to imagine their possible selves
(= the various identities an adolescent might imagine for him- or
herself)
Adolescents exert more conscious, deliberate effort when asked
to think about themselves than adults, who seem to do this more
effortlessly
There is an impressive increase in future orientation (= the extent to
which an individual is able and inclined to think about the potential
consequences of decisions and choices)
Adolescents’ expectations for the future are predictive of how
they behave, and those who have stronger future orientations
report better mental health and less risky, delinquent, or
impulsive behaviour than their more short-sighted peers
o Social roles and identity development:
Facing decisions about their place in society necessitates adolescents
asking questions about who they are and where they are headed – they
must make important choices about education and their commitments
to other people
Identity development is better understood as a series of interrelated
developments, that involves changes in the way we view ourselves in
relation to others and in relation to the broader society in which we
live.
- Changes in self-conceptions:
o Self-conceptions = the collection of traits and attributes that individuals use to
describe or characterize themselves
o Children describe themselves in relatively simple, concrete terms
o Adolescents are more likely to employ complex, abstract, and psychological
self-characterizations
o With development also comes greater consistency between how individuals
describe themselves and how they actually behave; there is also evidence that
adolescents’ ideas about the sort of person they would like to be (their ‘ideal
self) become more stable over time
o Changes in the content and structure of self-conceptions:
Differentiation of the self-concept
, The realization that one’s personality is expressed in different
ways in different situations is an example of the increased
differentiation; another one is that teenagers distinguish
between their own opinions of themselves and the views of
others (who is doing the describing); another one is that
adolescents also recognize that they may come across
differently to different people (adolescents’ self-conceptions
may be particularly sensitive to the opinions of others)
Organization and integration of the self-concept
Adolescents are likely to organize and integrate different
aspects of their self-concept into a more logical, coherent whole
The proportion of adolescents who give opposite traits in self-
descriptions, who feel conflicts over such discrepancies, and
who feel confused over such discrepancies increases markedly
between 7th and 9th grades, and then declines somewhat
Although the recognition that one’s personality is multifaceted
– even contradictory – may initially cause some distress, it has a
number of advantages in the long run
o It is one way that individuals cope with the recognition
of their faults and weaknesses, a recognition that comes
with increased self-awareness
o It also gives the ability to distinguish among one’s self
(who one really is), ideal self (who one would like to
be), and feared self (who one most dreads becoming)
important to have a balance between ideal self and
feared self [delinquents don’t have balance, so maybe
they dread to become criminal – they don’t have ideal
self to balance them up]
False self-behaviour
False self-behaviour = behaviour that intentionally presents a
false impression to others
This is another consequence of adolescents’ recognition that
they are not always consistent in their personality
Adolescents who report less emotional support from parents and
peers, who have low self-esteem, and who are relatively less
satisfied with life are more likely to engage in false-self
behaviour
The connection between false-self behaviour and low self-
esteem is bidirectional
Depression and hopelessness are highest among adolescents
who engage in false-self behaviour, because they genuinely
devalue their true self
o Dimensions of personality in adolescence:
Five-factor model = the theory that there are five basic dimension to
personality: extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness,
neuroticism, and openness to experience
, Extraversion: how outgoing and energetic someone is
Agreeableness: how kind or sympathetic
Conscientiousness: how responsible and organized
Neuroticism: how anxious or tense
Openness to experience: how curious and imaginative
Delinquent adolescents are more likely than their peers to score
high in extraversion and low in agreeableness and
conscientiousness
Adolescents who are high achievers in school score high in
conscientiousness and openness
Between childhood and mid-adolescence, people become less
extraverted (more self-conscious?) and less conscientious (more
emotionally autonomous from parents?)
Temporary drop in maturity during early adolescence (peak of
meanness, laziness, and closed-mindedness)
Between adolescence and young adulthood, individuals become
less extraverted, but as they mature, more conscientious, more
agreeable, more resilient, and more emotionally stable
By the end of adolescence, there are few gender differences in
maturity (boys catch up somewhat later, but differences go
away then)
Although the external manifestations of traits may change with
age (anxiety first bed-wetting, later nervous talkativeness), our
basic underlying traits turn out to be remarkably unchanging
Despite popular stereotypes about adolescence as a time of
‘rebirth’, research does not show that adolescence is a time of
tumultuous upheaval in personality
- Changes in self-esteem:
o Self-esteem = the degree to which individuals eel positively or negatively
about themselves
o Storm and stress doesn’t creates problems in self-esteem!
o From about age 14 on, self-esteem is highly stable
o There has been no appreciable increase in American adolescents’ self-esteem
during the past several decades
o Stability and changes in self-esteem:
Stability (of a trait) = the extent to which individuals’ relative ranking
within a group on a particular trait stays more or less the same over
time
Height: tall children tend to become tall adults
Self-esteem becomes increasingly more stable between childhood and
early adulthood (gradually consolidate and less likely to fluctuate in
response to different experiences)
Day-to-day fluctuations in mood tend to become smaller between early
adolescence and late adolescence
Changes in self-perceptions (positive and negative) are greater during
early adolescence than during middle or late adolescence
, From middle adolescence through young adulthood, self-esteem either
remains at about the same level or increases
3 aspects of self-image: self-esteem (how positively or negatively they
feel about themselves), self-consciousness (= the degree to which an
individual is preoccupied with his or her self-image), and their self-
image stability (= the degree to which an individual’s self-image
changes from day to day)
Fluctuations in self-image most likely between 12-14; early and middle
adolescents have lower self-esteem, are more self-conscious and more
unstable self-image
Most marked fluctuations in self-image occur during the transition into
adolescence, rather than over the course of adolescence itself
Young adolescents with the most volatile self-image report the highest
levels of anxiety, tension, and adjustment problems – especially when
lot of stress in day-to-day lives
Fluctuations in self-image during early adolescence due to several
interrelated factors
Egocentrism that is common in early adolescence makes the
painfully aware of others’ reactions to their behaviour
Individuals become more socially active, they learn that people
play games when they interact and learn that it is not always
possible to tell what others are thinking by seeing how they act
or what they say (impression management)
Increased importance of peers, so especially interested in their
peers’ opinions of them (they can say contradictory things than
your parents)
hearing contradictory messages can create uncertainty about
oneself
The wrong question?:
Adolescents with better family and peer relationships are more
likely than their peers to maintain positive self-esteem or
develop enhanced self0esteem over time
The brains of adolescents with relatively higher self-esteem
tend to have stronger connections between areas of the brain
that regulate how we think about ourselves and areas that
control feelings of reward
Research on overall feelings about self, but young people
evaluate themselves both globally and along several distinct
dimension (academics, athletics, appearance, social
relationships and moral conduct)
Components of self-esteem:
Even within broad domains of self-esteem (academics),
adolescents often have quite differentiated views of themselves
Adolescents physical self-esteem (how they feel about their
appearance) is most important predictor of overall self-esteem,
followed by self-esteem about relationships with peers