Identity Development in a Cultural Context

1
Identity Development in a Cultural Context

• Dr. Randal G. Tonks February 24th, 2006

2
Overview

• Eriksons identity model
• Culture as a formative factor
• Acculturation and adjustment
• My research studies on identity and acculturation

3
Eriksons Identity Model

• Identity is central to human psychological
  development
• The basis of identity is in three principle
  processes
• Soma Biological process of the body and organ
  systems
• Psyche Psychic process of organizing individual
  experience or ego synthesis
• Ethos (Polis) Communal process of cultural
  organization of the interdependence of persons

4
Identity

• Identity is a lifelong process involving the
  development of ego strengths or virtues
• Identity is psychosocial process of mutuality,
  inter-living, or cogwheeling.
• Rituals of psychosocial (mutual) activity shape
  identity for all persons involved.
• Identity involves a widening radius of social
  relations parents, family, community, culture,
  humankind.

5
Ages and stages
6
Identity Development

• While identity formation occurs throughout the
  lifecycle, it comes into special focus in
  adolescence, where ideological identity is
  formed.
• Erikson describes it as A sense of identity
  means being at one with oneself as one grows and
  develops and it means, at the same time, a sense
  of affinity with a community's sense of being at
  one with its future as well as its history--or
  mythology. (1974, pp. 27-28, italics added)

7
Culture as a formative factor

• Normative behaviour including self
• Ways of thinking and feeling emotions
• Ethics and values
• Expected relationships with others
• Education and enculturation

8
Identity in Canada

• Youth often face many ideological alternatives as
  there are so many cultural, political, religious,
  and philosophical choices.
• Acculturation occurs as we each learn and adapt
  to other cultures or ways of living beyond those
  found in our home, family and heritage.

9
Berrys Acculturation Model tradition
maintenance other group contact

• Yes to maintenanceYes to contact
• Integration

• Yes to maintenanceNo to Contact
• Separation

• No to maintenanceYes to contact
• Assimilation

• No to maintenanceNo to contact
• Deculturation
• Marginalization

10
Adaptation Stress

• Positive adaptation is least likely to be found
  among those showing Marginalization (Berry,
  1997).
• Acculturative Stress has been characterized as
  one form of stress that is due to challenges in
  the process of acculturation...

11
Acculturative Stress

• Berry et al. identify it as lowered mental
  health status (especially anxiety, depression),
  feelings of marginality and alienation,
  heightened psychosomatic symptom level, and
  identity confusion. (1992, p. 284)
• Stress is higher among involuntary migrants,
  nomadic peoples, women, more aged, middle phases
  of acculturation.

12
My Research Programme

• Built upon Eriksons bio-psycho-social model
• Integrating the empirical paradigm of John Berry
  along with that of James Marcia
• Began with examination of variables convergent
  construct validation of both sets of variables

13
Marcias Ego-identity Modelsearch commitment
of identity

• Yes to search
• Yes to Commitment
• Achievement

• Yes to search
• No to commitment
• Moratorium

• No to Search
• Yes to Commitment
• Foreclosure

• No to search
• No to commitment
• Diffusion

14
(No Transcript)
15
Methodological Issues

• Challenges in distinguishing some statuses using
  quantitative methods
• Challenges in the interpretation of acculturative
  items both quantitatively and conceptually
• E.g. AssimilationMost of my friends are of my
  ethnic group because I feel very comfortable
  around them, but I don't feel as comfortable
  around Canadians from other cultural groups
• Retreat to Qualitative case studies

16
Qualitative Methods

• With a qualitative approach the interest is in
  providing subjective meaning behind the
  experiences.
• Drawing from the tradition of hermeneutics there
  is interest in understanding the lived
  experiences of another person.
• Here one attempts to provide a biography or
  narrative of life events that conveys the
  subjective experiences as well as putting them
  into a broader context of the common experiences
  of others.
• Eriksons psychohistory making methods show the
  personal psychological meaning along with the
  collective social or cultural meaning of events
  and experiences

17
Narratives of identity Understanding the
experiences of

• Canadian youth growing up in a multicultural
  context
• Immigrant Canadian youth as they adjust to life
  in a new culture
• International students studying in Canada
• Canadian students studying abroad

18
Review Summary

• Identity is seen as bio-psycho-social process
  that evolves across the lifespan.
• Cultural processes are central to normative
  identity development and changes due to
  acculturation.
• We continue to explore both quantitative and
  qualitative studies of identity development,
  acculturation, stress and adjustment.