Ethnic Identity Of Teenagers And The Need For Security

Abstract

Ethnic identity is one of the variants of personality social identification and entails cognitive, affective and behavior components. Identity is restlessly on the way changing and transforming in historical, social and cultural context under the influence of diverse factors. The study into young people identity is of great importance since they generate their own interpretations of the world and explore it. Adolescents form their identity under the impact of multiple factors, partly, as a defense mechanism in the constantly changing world they are living in, or as a way of self-assertiveness but the level of psychological security always acts as an integrating indicator of identity. The study was aimed at examining specifics of ethnic identity in teenagers with different degree of the need for security satisfaction. The respondents represented 17-18 olds from comprehensive schools. The sample number was 223. The study of ethnic self-awareness in the context of personality psychological security, the degree of the need for security satisfaction typical of an individual made it possible to single out a number of specific features. Moderate pronouncement of ethnic belonging was characteristic of the group with high degree of the need for security satisfaction and the group with low values of this need. Distinctions in dominating types of ethnic identity were found in adolescents with different degree of the need for security satisfaction. The results empirically confirm the link between personality psychological security, the individual’s assessment of the degree of the need for security satisfaction and ethnic identity.