Personal Skills for Optimal Identity Development: A Person-Centered Approach in Italian Late-Adolescents.

Luigia Simona Sica,Laura Aleni Sestito

doi:10.17505/jpor.2021.23450

Luigia Simona Sica, Laura Aleni Sestito

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.17505/jpor.2021.23450

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Abstract

The present study examined the association between identity statuses and some competences such as creativity, personal growth initiative and agency, which can actually be considered as resources for the development of optimal identity in our de-standardized society (personal skills for optimal identity development, PSID). Participants were 250 adolescents (118 males and 132 females) attending the last two years of various high schools in Italy. We used five self-report measures of identity development, agency, creativity, and personal growth initiative, and specific psychosocial correlates (anxiety, depression and well-being) to examine the association between identity, PSID and both well- and ill-being. Based on a person-centered approach, five typologies were obtained in order to describe the differentiated interplay between identity and PSID. Our findings suggested that late adolescents showing medium/high levels of PSID seem to be more advanced in their identity definition; as a result, they show positive psycho-social functioning, supporting the hypothesis that PSID can allow the acquisition of optimal identity. Suggestions for developing interventions to foster personal resources in this age group are discussed.

Highlights

In order to provide this model with empirical support, the present study aims to test whether young people with active identity statuses are characterized by a specific set of personal resources – emotional-divergent aspect of creativity, personal growth initiative, and agency
The general aim of the study was to explore the hypothesis that resources such as the emotional-divergent aspect of creativity, personal growth initiative and agency, which we have labelled Personal Skills for Identity Development (PSID), can be considered as resources for optimal identity development in cultural contexts requiring more flexible and more individualized life trajectories from young people in comparison with the past, such as the Italian one
In order to address this issue, we explored the identity statuses in Italian late adolescents and the interplay between them and the PSID, following four steps: First, we identified the identity statuses of late adolescents

Summary

Introduction

Developing a strong sense of identity synthesis, i.e., markers of passage in the transition to adulthood in parti-. Not knowing ‘who I am’ (identity and late adolescents currently have to identify a personal confusion; Schwartz et al, 2015), on the contrary, renders life trajectory (du Bois-Reymond & Chisholm, 2006; Sica individuals vulnerable to ill-being (Kroger & Marcia, 2011) et al, 2014), cope with complex contextual factors (Côté et and negative psycho-social outcomes (Schwartz et al, al., 2016) and be open to change in their life-plans and life. Acquiring optimal identity development is a conditions (Sica et al, 2016) In this scenario, helping key element for the individual well-being. Traditional literature (Erikson, 1968) has linked the iden- portant aim for developmental psychologists and it requires tity formation process to adolescents’ psycho-social devel- the identification of resources to support optimal identity opment, posing identity achievement as a transitional step development in late adolescents

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