Erik Erikson's Identity Theory Research Paper

Erik Erikson was the first person to identify and apply the idea of ego identity in his writings on what constitutes a good personality growth for a person throughout their lifetime. The term ego identity, first coined by Erikson himself, is defined as “perception of continuity and coherence in one's self-picture and in one's social relations.”(Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, s.v. “ego-identity,” accessed October 21, 2021) His work was later said to have expanded by James Marcia. The works of both the psychologists are widely accepted as accurate and have been important for the advance of research on this subject. The identity status paradigm presented by Marcia is often seen as one which appropriately conceptualizes Erikson’s theory of identity formation. However, in this essay I will argue that Marcia’s ideas, even though they had some element of similarity, were quite independent from Erikson’s own ideas.

Erikson believed that a person's personality develops in a predefined order, with each stage building on the one before it. According to his theory of identity formation, there are 8 different stages during the formation of an individual’s identity during each of which they would face a psychosocial crisis, the outcome of which could either be good or bad, though in my essay I will only be focusing on his fifth stage of identity development that takes place during an individual’s teen years as that is the one that overlaps with Marcia’s Paradigm. (Mcleod 2018, 1) During this period an individual becomes curious about what their role will be as adult. They start discovering their identity to find out who they really are. (Mcleod 2018, 6) According to Erikson adolescents may get confused or uneasy about themselves and their place in society as they transition from childhood to adulthood and to find their place in society they may try out many different things in order to create a better sense of self. (Mcleod 2018, 6)  If they are successful in this stage, they achieve fidelity, which according to Erikson, says Mcleod, means “Being able to commit one's self to others on the basis of accepting others, even when there may be ideological differences.” (Mcleod 2018, 6) But failing to find their role in society would lead to Role Confusion which means the individual would remain unsure about their role in society. To counter that, the individual may start to experiment with multiple lifestyles. (Mcleod 2018, 6) However, it appears that identity and role confusion are not mutually exclusive because the individual is constantly reflecting on their reason for existence, which leads to role confusion, as well as constantly changing themselves and their way of life until they find a role that they are comfortable with, which becomes their identity. (Mcleod 2018, 6)

James Marcia has a bit different idea of how identity develops. Marcia seems to be contending that the identity stage and its resolution could be understood on two levels. According to his views, at the most basic level, the individual successfully concludes the identity stage by achieving an ego identity. (Côté and Levine 1988, 149) At a cognitive behavioral level, identity stage can be inferred in terms of four “modes of reacting to the late adolescent identity crisis”. (Marcia 1966, 551 in Côté and Levine 1988, 150). These four stages are “Identity diffusion”, “Moratorium”, “Foreclosure” and “Identity Achievement”, with Identity diffusion and Identity Achievement being on the opposite side of the spectrum from each other and Foreclosure and Moratorium being the transitional points between them. People who are experiencing identity diffusion are not in the midst of a decision-making process or have made any strong commitments. These people may never have had a moment of crisis during which they considered their future selves. In childhood or early adolescence, many people go through a phase of identity diffusion, which they ultimately grow out of. Long-term identity diffusion is, nonetheless, possible. Foreclosure is when people think that they know who they are, but have not yet explored their alternatives. It is not a good place to be in as in identity foreclosure the person closes all ways to discover something new about themselves without trying any new things. Moratorium is when the individual has not committed to any role but has opened their doors to many different options and is open to many alternatives to their current situations to find their identity. This is can happen at any time during a person’s life. It is seen as a positive as the person can discover their true self after experimenting with multiple alternatives and once they do that they can move on to Identity Achievement. Finally, Identity achievement is when an individual finally commits to a role in their society after having a taste of all of their options. This is the final stage in Marcia’s paradigm through at which a person finally discovers their identity. (Côté and Levine 1988).  This work of Marcia is quite different from that of Erikson with little to no similarity. Erikson has frowned upon the usage of the term “Identity Achievement” as he believed “identity is never ‘established’ as an ‘achievement’ in the form of a personality armor, or anything static and unchangeable”(Erikson 1968 in Côté and Levine 1988, 158). . Ego identity, according to Erikson, is not "achieved" and is subject to constant challenges and variations. Marcia believed that a person can be going through multiple stages at the same time which is contrary to Erikson’s views that one can only move on to the next stage after completing the previous stage. Moreover, while Marcia contends that only some people go through identity crisis, Erikson believes that every adolescent must go through some sort of identity crisis which enables them to proceed further to their identity development. (Côté and Levine 1988, 167).  

However, the research methods that both Erikson and Marcia used in the development of their theories are seen as inadequate. Firstly, Erikson almost exclusively used middle class, white males in his research. Because of severe restriction of the research pool, his theory can only provide a limited insight into the experiences and views of those groups who have been excluded from the theory-building process, and they cannot, in particular, provide acceptable frameworks for study on the lives of women or others from disadvantaged groups.(Sorell and Montgomery 2001, 98) These theories may not hold up for those who did not grow up in a similar setting as that of the people that participated in this research may develop their identities differently. Similarly, Marcia’s research pool included exclusively males from a single college, so he used similar like minded individuals for his research, which means his theory might not hold up for the groups he did not include. Moreover, both Erikson and Marcia failed to consider that everyone is not given the same opportunities to discover their identities, some are limited to a single choice due to circumstances. (Sorell and Montgomery 2001) Furthermore, both Erikson and Marcia did not include women in their study. Women and men fulfil different roles in society and cannot be considered the same, and it would be wrong to say that these theories also apply to females, considering their lack inclusion of women. (Sorell and Montgomery 2001)

In conclusion, despite the obvious flaws in their research, both the theories of Erikson and Marcia have elements of truth to them. Though, the extremely restricted group of people in their research is quite noticeable. Regardless, the works of Erikson and Marcia were important to further the research in this field. However, even though Marcia’s Paradigm is seen as an advance of Erikson’s Theory of identity formation, it seems more like Marcia only used terms from Erikson’s original work and modified them to fit his own work and as such it cannot be seen as an extension of Erikson’s theory. 

References

1. Côté, James E, and Charles E Levine. 1988. “A Critical Examination of the Ego Identity Status Paradigm.” Developmental Review 8 (2): 147–84. https://doi.org/10.1016/0273-2297(88)90002-0.
2. Mcleod, Saul A. 2018. “Erik Erikson's Stages of Psychosocial Development.” Simply Psychology. https://www.simplypsychology.org/Erik-Erikson.html.
3. Sorell, Gwendolyn T., and Marilyn J. Montgomery. 2001. “Feminist Perspectives on Erikson s Theory: Their Relevance for Contemporary Identity Development Research.” Identity 1 (2): 97–128. https://doi.org/10.1207/s1532706xid0102_01.

Definitions

1. Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, s.v. “ego-identity,” accessed October 21, 2021, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ego-identity.