Identity and Self in Adolescence

Identity and Self in Adolescence

Thinking back to my adolescence days, the groups of people that had most effect on my sense of identity and self is my teachers and my peers. My teachers had most effect on my sense of identity and self because they told me to be myself and do what I wanted, instead of what others wanted. My peers had most effect on my sense of identity and self because they helped me fit in and helped me be what I am today. An individual person that had most effect on my sense of identity and self would be my soccer coach. My soccer coach was my math teacher also; he guided me through right and wrong. He gave me the strength to get through math, for that was my worst subject. He helped me realize that I loved soccer, and that that is what I wanted to pursue. He helped me with the ways of soccer, and even had me help out as a tutor for people who needed some extra soccer skills. He helped me believe I could do whatever I wanted as long as I believed in myself. It is safe to say that he was my best friend, for I could talk to him about anything and everything.

Marcia's suggests that identity can be seen in terms of which of two characteristics: crisis and commitment, which is present or absent. Crisis is a period in which an adolescent consciously chooses between various alternatives and makes decisions. Commitment is psychological investment in a course of action or an ideology. An example would be one adolescent might careen from one activity to another, with nothing lasting beyond a few weeks, while another becomes totally absorbed in volunteering at a homeless shelter. Marcia proposed four categories of identity: identity achievement, identity foreclosure, moratorium, and identity diffusion. Identity achievement is when a teenager has successfully explored and thought through who they are and what they want to do. Identity foreclosure is when adolescences commit to an identity without passing through a period of crisis in which they explored alternatives. Instead, they accepted other's decisions about what was best for them. Moratorium is when adolescences explore some alternative but made no commitments. Identity diffusion is when adolescences neither explore nor commit to various alternatives. They tend to shift from one thing to the next. In high school, I experienced identity achievement, and moratorium. First, I used moratorium, I explored some alternatives but made no commitments. I did this when I was a freshman because I was in a trade school. In a trade school, starting out as a freshman, you have to go through a series of trades, or "shops" to help decided which shop you would like to be in. I went through a few, such as carpentry, horticulture, cad, cosmetology, automotive, culinary arts, and auto body. After exploring shops, we were to pick the top three shops that we liked and we were placed by that rank. On my rank, I had cosmetology as my third choice,