Psychosocial and Identity Development Theories: Josselson and Racial/Ethnic Development

Josselson’s Theory of Identity Development in Women
Based on Erik Erikson’s eight stages of identity development over the life span; Stage 1 (basic trust v. mistrust); Stage 2 (autonomy v. shame and doubt); Stage 3 (initiative v. guilt); Stage 4 (industry v. inferiority); Stage 5 (identity v. identity diffusion); Stage 6 (intimacy v. isolation); Stage 7 (generativity v. stagnation); Stage 8 (integrity v. despair); then James Marcia’s identity resolution process: Exploration (questioning values and goals defined by parents); commitment (attaching ownership to pronounced values and goals); idea of crisis and commitment
1.    Foreclosures: Purveyors of the Heritage – graduate from college with identity commitment but never experienced a crisis; childhood ideas serve as basis for direction and confidence in their lives; tend to adopt parents’ attitudes on sexual morality and choose occupation and religion that model parents’ beliefs and preferences; seek security in relationships, not work
2.    Identity Achievements: Pavers of the Way – break psychological ties to childhood and form separate, distinct identities; separation = painful; possibly giving up what is known to unknown; experience extreme identity crisis when breaking from parental ideas; what matters to these women is feeling pride in themselves, not seeking others’ pride to affirm their self-worth; make decisions against parental expectations when younger; have capacity to construct their own identity; forever becoming
3.    Moratoriums: Daughters of the Crisis – unstable time of experimenting and searching for new identities; occurs when woman realizes there are many ways “to be right;” tend to be the ones surrounded by overprotective mothers who indulge and overvalue them; most do not consciously want to be like mothers; possibly idealize father; daydream of huge magnitude
4.    Identity Diffusions: Lost and Sometimes Found – lack of crisis and commitment; lowest on ego development, difficulty establishing relationships, high anxiety, field dependency (making decisions based on external stimuli), and undifferentiated in sex-role orientation; tendency to withdraw from situations;

~ This is also not what I plan on coming up with. These stages are fairly concrete and you fit into one pretty much forever. Mine will be much more dynamic and incorporate more than just one category of person (women).

Racial and Ethnic Identity Development

The Cross Model of Psychological Nigrescence – “resocializing experience” in which an individual’s     identity is changed from being non-Afrocentered to Afrocentrism to multiculturalism; most prevalent     model made by Cross
1.    Stage 1: Preencounter – people view race as unimportant and prefer to all to be human beings; Eurocentric perspective; thoughts and actions are pro-white and anti-black; revised modeal ranges from low-salience (race-neutral) to anti-black; anti-black see blackness through racial stereotypes and prefer whiteness
2.    Stage 2: Encounter – involves an encounter that shatters person’s current identity and worldview; possibly multiple smaller encounters; makes a sense of disequilibrium causes vulnerability to new interpretation of identity; occurs in 2 steps (1) undergoing the encounter and  (2) being affected by it in a major way; step 2 has person personalize encounter and interpret world through new view; positive or negative encounter; period of anger at whites and anxiety over  “kind” of black person to become
3.    Stage 3: Immersion-Emersion – person lets go of old identity and commits to personal change; two phases: (1) total immersion into blackness while withdrawing from other groups, especially whites, go through rage, guilt, pride, (2) progression of a dualistic, reactionary mode into a more critical analysis of new black identity; greater control over emotional state
4.    Stage 4: Internalization – anti-white feelings give way to a nonracist perspective; sense of inner security and self-confidence in being black
5.    Stage 5: Internalization-Commitment – new person starts meaningful activities that address concerns and problems shared by African Americans and other oppressed people

~ Again, also not what I am planning on making. These stages do come through some sort of dissonance occurring that moves a person from one stage to another. That is a characteristic I plan on incorporating, because I feel as though that is typically how people grow, change, and develop.
From: Student Development in College.