Identity formation among African late-adolescents in a contemporary South African context

Abstract

Questions relating to the domainsof occupation, religion and politics, taken fromMarcia's original Identity Status Interview, as wellas questions on attitudes toward pre-marital sex,formulated by Marcia and Friedman (1970), were used todetermine the nature of identity-related choices (egoidentity statuses) made by 102 African first-yearuniversity students from both sexes in the present-daySouth African circumstances. It was found thatsignificantly more female and also male adolescentsused sophisticated decision-making modes (identityachievement and moratorium) in forming an occupationalidentity, and that males were more inclined to useless sophisticated modes (foreclosure and identitydiffusion) in the area of religion. In contrast tofindings often obtained in Western settings a highproportion of male adolescents achieved a maturepolitical identity, indicating high levels of personaland emotional involvement in political affairs.Significantly more female participants usedsophisticated modes of decision-making in forming asexual identity. A comparison of the patterns ofdecision-making between the sexes revealed nosignificant differences in the domains of occupation,religion, and attitudes toward premarital sex.However, a significant difference was obtained for thedomain of politics, suggesting greater diversity inthe way that female adolescents deal with the world ofpolitics in comparison with males. It can be concludedfrom the findings that Marcia's identity statusparadigm is a fruitful method of studying identityformation in an African context, however, the use ofqualitative methods would provide valuable insightinto the peculiarities of formulating a personalidentity in a different (African) cultural setting.