Week 6 - James Marcia and Identity

James E. Marcia developed a theory of Identity Status. He was drawing from Erikson for this, as many developmental theorists do: Erikson's main conflict of adolescence is "Identity v. Role Confusion", and Marcia expands on this idea to describe four distinct stages (or statuses) of identity development.

Marcia's status are as follows (adopted from chapter 9):

• Diffusion - individual is overwhelmed, does little to acheive an identity
• Foreclosure - individual has identity defined for them by adults
• Moratorium - individual is exploring several alternatives for identity but is not committed to any
• Achievement - individual has deliberately chosen a specific identity.

Marcia's stages are distinct, but they do not necessarily occur in order, and moving to a more defined status doesn't mean you won't drop back later, even well into adulthood. This is natural - even as adults, we are not so thoroughly formed that we can't be changed. Marcia goes into detail on this, in a section contributed to the Handbook of Stressful Transitions Across the Lifespan edited by T.W. Miller. Marcia's chapter is available at this link and is worth reading; he's an excellent writer. This bit starts at p27 -

Normal expectable disequilibrating events are associated with each of the succeeding adult life cycle stages. Each stage involves a re-formulation of identity as one responds to the demands and rewards of each developmental era. Of course, this is true only if the individual were identity achieved at late adolescence, thus remaining open to future change. If he/she is too anxious or fearful to undergo change (as in foreclosure) preferring to ignore disconfirming information or just assimilating to an existing identity structure, then a kind of psychological stasis ensues. [...] Psychosocial stasis is a kind of death. Change or die is true both evolutionarily and psychologically.

The expectable changes in identity throughout the adult life cycle after late adolescence involve moving into partnership and friendship at young adulthood, mentorship at middle age, and eldership at old age. As one enters each of these psychosocial stages, an identity reconstruction can be expected. 

Marcia admits to having what he terms a "tragic view of life" - that growing means change, and that change means loss. These disequilibrating events (divorce, falling in love, job loss, promotion, birth of a child, death of a parent) are desirable, in a sense, because that shift of identity - a drop back to Moratorium, and then Achievement with a slightly refined vision of self - is necessary to grow.

And the ability to manage those shifts starts in adolescence. What the quoted section says to me is that when you settle on an identity in 'Achievement,' what that identity IS is less important than the EXPERIENCE of finding it.  That's important, because you'll have to do that again and again.