James Marcia's Theories Of Identity Development

Refining and extending on Erik Erikson’s work, James Marcia is another influential theorist who came up with four Identity Statuses of psychological identity development. Although Marcia’s theory originally conceptualized identity development in terms of a progressive developmental trend, his theory has subsequently become more descriptive and categorical, defining and identifying configurations of identity exploration and commitment (mentalhelp.net). Marcia's theory descriptively categorizes his four main points along the series of identity development. Marcia believed that specific situations, in which he called “crises”, serve as prompting movements along this continuum and through the various identity statuses. These “crises” create internal

The points are identity diffusion, identity foreclosure, moratorium, and identity achievement. The first identity status, identity diffusion, describes youth who have not yet explored or committed to any single identity. Adolescents in this category, have not yet considered their identity at all, showing a low level of commitment and exploration, thus having to deal with situations or crisis as they arise. The second identity status is the identity foreclosure status. This identity status shows a low degree of exploration but a high degree of commitment. Youth, in this status, obtain their identity by committing to accepting the beliefs and values of their family, community, and culture and typically do not question why they are or aren’t doing something. The third identity status is called moratorium. This identity status represents a high degree of exploration but a low degree of commitment. At this status, youth have been prompted to explore and experiment with different values, beliefs, and goals because they are facing an identity “crisis”. They still have not made any final decisions about which beliefs and values are most important to them, so they are not yet committed to any one identity. The final identity status is identity achievement. In this identity status, youth show a high degree of exploration and a high degree of commitment. They have achieved their

Though the different identity statuses are in some sense progressive, Marcia's theory does assume that every adolescent will experience all four of the identity statuses; many may/will only experience one or two identity points during adolescence. Furthermore, there is no assumption that a youth's identity status is uniform across all aspects of their development, meaning they may change statuses as they mature and grow up. Youth may also identity in different statues across various areas of life such as home, work, religion, and politics; so, it is quite possible for youth to have more than one identity status at a time. Unlike Erickson's stage theory, Marcia's theory accounts for functioning movement between the various identity statuses. For example, youth who experience a traumatic event such as parental divorce, or a violent assault, may re-evaluate their understanding of the world and their value system because of their situation. This type of experience may cause them to withdrawal to a previous identity status as they process this latest information or