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So what we're going to talk about today
is James Marcia's theory of adolescent
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identity development. And the reason that we
talk about it is it's a really good way
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to explain to people why they might not
know what they are majoring in in college.
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You know most people come to college and
they say "Oh, I don't know what I'm going
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to major in" and they sort of, they're wringing
their hands and they feel bad about
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it, they talk to their parents. And everybody
says "Hey, you're going to college! What
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are you going to major in?" It's like "I have
no idea what I'm going to major in!"
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And what I'd like to explain is there is
a theory that suggests that you
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shouldn't know yet. And so the theory
is James Marcia's theory and a
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really good way to explain it is to draw
it as a four blocker. And this is
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something that I've done for lots of
people. There aren't very many theories
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in psychology that I talk about in my
personal life outside because
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people have a pretty low tolerance for
that, but I have drawn this in the sand
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at the beach, I've drawn it on a napkin
at a cocktail party.
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It's a really useful thing and so I'd
like you to be able to draw it. It's going
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to be on the final exam, so get your
pens out. I don't care how you label
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it, you don't have to label it exactly
the same way I do
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as long as the intersections of the
things that you draw are correctly
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labeled within it. So across the top
we're going to put "Crisis."
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And "crisis" in psychology is not a bad thing.
So when you think about a crisis it's like "Oh,
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I'm having a crisis" "Yay, I love
crisis." No, in psychology a crisis is
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a period of active exploration. So when
Erikson, for example, said there was a
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crisis of trust versus mistrust, you're
working through something. So Crisis is a
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period of active exploration.
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And then on this side what you've
got is "Commitment." A commitment to a
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particular course of action. So, once you
have committed to something you say "I'm
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going to major in engineering." "I'm going
to major in an animal science." That
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would be a commitment. So over here
you've got Commitment.
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Either of these things can be
high or low. So we'll make it really
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simple and we'll say it's low here and
high here.
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If Crisis is low,
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it means you're not spending any time ... so
think about a high school senior trying to
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decide what to major in, what to do next.
If crisis is low, that student is not
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doing anything. They're not thinking
about it. They're laying on the couch, they're
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watching TV, they're in the woods behind
the school chatting with their friends. Crisis
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is low. They're not ...
inwardly they might be doing something
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but it doesn't look like they're doing
anything. If you ask them, it's like "I
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haven't thought about that."
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They also haven't committed to anything,
and that identity status is called
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Diffusion. I'm going to give that one
a frowny face because you don't get out
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of that. If you're not doing any work and
you're not committing to anything, you're
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just going to stay there. You are
stagnant. There's no progress being made.
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On the other hand, if Commitment is low - you haven't decided what to do, but
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you're spending a lot of time thinking
about it, so this Crisis period, this
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active exploration is high.
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"I took some tests, I went
and visited somebody at work, I've done
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all these other things." When Crisis is
high and Commitment is low, that's
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something that we call Moratorium.
Moratorium sounds horrible. It sounds
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like something you would find at a
funeral home, but it's actually a really
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good place to be. So I'm going to give
that one a smiley face, and the reason
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for that is you're working through
things. You're trying things on, and it's
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like "Wow, you know I tried this for a
while, I took a couple of classes, it
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turns out geology is not my thing. I
thought it was going to be, I thought I
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would be a geologist and here I am,
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you know, after a couple of courses, I
need to sort of step back and do
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something else." Or I'm that high
school student who says "You know what,
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I'm just going to do my Gen Ed classes
first and see what speaks to me." So
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Moratorium is a really good place to be,
and that's where people should stay as
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long as they need to.
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So why rush through that? Life is long. You're not ... what's the rush
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You're going to be working for decades,
and so you want it to be something that
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you like, you know and not ... you don't want
to get to be in your 30s and say "I
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don't know if I like this so much."
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So that's when Commitment is low and
Crisis is high. When Commitment is high
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and Crisis is low,
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that's what we call Foreclosure. And
foreclosure means you have foreclosed on
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your other options.
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So, your mother was a nurse
your father a nurse,
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your grandparents were nurses. You'd like to go into the field of
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nursing. Or you've got
a family business and it's always been
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expected that you would go into the
family business. Or you come from a long
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line of people who do chemical
engineering, or law or, whatever it is. And
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you've decided really early in life "That's
what I want to do." That sounds like it
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would be fairly rar,e but it's not as
rare as you would think. You think about
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a child ... I know a child who had some
medical difficulties when she was young
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and she got really good nursing care. And
so as a 10-year-old people said
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"What do you want to be when you grow up?" "I want to be a nurse!" And as a
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fourteen-year-old "What do you want
to be?" "I want to be a nurse!" And
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every time you say that, you get a little
bit more of a pat on the back. People say
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"Wow, that's great that you know what
you're going to do."
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So the idea is, that high school
senior that has a has an answer, like "I'm
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going into nursing, I'm looking at
schools that have nursing, I'm going to
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major in nursing."
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That sounds awesome and that's the thing
that everybody wishes their kid did or
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wishes that they were doing, but in
fact that student is going to get to
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college and start taking courses like
statistics and chemistry and
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biochem. And it's like "Whoa! I got a C
in that, I am in no way going to get
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into the nursing program, and I don't
even like those courses!" So your
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commitment was high but you foreclosed
other options without doing enough
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exploration.
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So Foreclosure, I'm going to say it's not
a huge frowny face, it's not quite as bad
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as Diffusion
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but it's not a great place to be, because
what will happen is you get to be 40
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years old and it's like "Wow, I've been doing
this job for 20 years. I never really
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liked it, I have all of my fun after
hours.
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Well that's not great. Wouldn't you like to
have fun at your job and say "I love it.
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Even on my worst day, I'm still
glad to be there because I'm working
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things out, I'm doing things." That's what
you want, and that's where Moratorium
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might get you, but Foreclosure won't.
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So you foreclosed other options. Not a
great place to be. When Commitment is
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high, Crisis has been high and Commitment
is high, that's what we call Identity
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Achievement.
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And with Identity Achievement, that's
just what it sounds like. It's like, of
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course, that's the ideal. You want to
spend enough time - for some
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people that will be a short amount of
time. "I took this course, I loved it, I
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want to go into that field and I've
never looked back and I've never been
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sorry.
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That's great, but they explored other
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options and got there from Moratorium,
rather than these other two
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options which are not awesome.
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Now there's one last thing that I want
to say and that is ... life is long. So
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you get to be 40, and just because you
were in Achievement, and you've got this
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great career in, you know,
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underwater basket weaving and it's been
your thing and it's been your jam and
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you've loved it for the whole time. There's a cycle that's called MAMA
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that we talk about. Moratorium, Achievement, Moratorium, Achievement and
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that's that idea that you went through
moratorium initially, and then you
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achieved an identity and you you went
with that. And then at some point you're
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40, 45 years old and it's like "You know what, this has been a great run but I've
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always also been interested in
architecture.
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I'm going to go back into moratorium, I'm
going to explore other options again, I'm
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going to think about other things."
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Sometimes it looks like a midlife crisis,
but really what is happening is a
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midlife review. So a midlife crisis,
actually, in psychology - not a bad thing.
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Crisis is not a bad thing. So you go
back, you explore other options. Go back
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into moratorium and then you go back to
achievement again.
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So that's the ideal. That is James
Marcia's theory of adolescent identity
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development.
