Identity Styles and Religiosity: Examining the Role of Identity Commitment

This study observed the role of identity styles, identity commitment, and identity statuses in predicting religiosity in a sample of undergraduate students attending a Seventh-day Adventist university (N = 138). Two structural models were evaluated via path analysis. Results revealed two strong models for the prediction of religiosity. Identity styles explained 24% of the variance in religiosity, with the relationship mediated by identity commitment. Religious identity status explained 56% of the variance in religiosity, with the relationship not mediated by identity commitment. Implications of these interactions for understanding religious identity development are discussed.     

Researching Identity Styles In Pakistan: Confirmatory Factor Analysis and Associations With Commitment and Value Priorities

Identity styles—informational, normative, and diffuse-avoidant—have been studied widely across North America and Europe but infrequently in “non-Western” cultures. We tested the factorial structure of the Identity Styles Inventory-5 (ISI-5) among 479 young adults in Pakistan. Findings supported the predicted three-factor solution, but only when numerous poorly performing items were deleted. We further tested associations among identity styles, identity commitment, and value priorities. As expected, informational and normative styles were associated with higher commitment, whereas diffuse-avoidant style was associated with lower commitment. The three identity styles showed a pattern of divergent associations with value priorities that mostly, but not entirely, replicated the pattern of associations previously found among U.S. and European samples. We conclude that Berzonsky’s three identity styles can be detected in a Pakistani cultural context but that the ISI-5 may not fully capture the breadth and complexity of identity formation processes among Pakistani youth.     

Identity styles in the Georgian context and associations with parenting dimensions

Abstract

Information-oriented, normative, and diffuse-avoidant identity styles represent social-cognitive approaches used by young people to seek and process self-relevant information. The present study is a first investigation of identity styles and their association with parenting dimensions in Georgia – a context that is considerably understudied in identity research. Previous research has indicated that identity styles, along with identity commitment, are linked with maternal and paternal parenting dimensions. In the present investigation we used SEM analysis to study this relationship. We used data from 650 Georgian emerging adults between the ages of 17–30 (46.6% male) using the Identity Style Inventory-5 (ISI-5) and scales for parental support, behaviour control, and psychological control. Findings indicated that the normative and diffuse-avoidant identity styles are positively correlated with each other and negatively correlated with the information-oriented style and with commitment. Only the information-oriented style was positively associated with commitment. Perceived parental support and maternal behavioural control were positively associated with the information-oriented style, whereas both parents’ behavioural and psychological control were more highly correlated with the normative style. Both parents’ psychological control was positively correlated with the diffuse-avoidant style. These results, which indicated considerable differences from the research results in other countries, are discussed in the light of the Georgian context.     

A cluster-analytic approach to identity style classification: Four seems to be better than three

Abstract

In their previous study Crocetti, Berzonsky, and Meeus evaluated the usefulness of empirically-based methods of classification in the process of distinguishing subgroups characterized by different identity styles. They suggested that the four-cluster solution best reflected intra-individual differentiation. One of these groups had not been predicted in Berzonsky’s identity style theory – the group of individuals high in both the normative and the informational style. The aim of this study was to replicate this observation and to expand the perspective of Crocetti et al. to include the emotional functioning of individuals from the different clusters. We were interested in the differences between individuals who predominately used particular identity styles with respect to the personal identity processes (exploration and commitment), the proneness to experience the negative emotions of shame and guilt, and the more general difficulty in regulation of negative emotional states. The participants of the study were 202 Polish university students between the age of 19 and 27. The obtained results showed that the four-cluster solution was the most optimal one. The differences between individuals with different identity styles are presented and discussed.     

Identity Processing Styles and Psychosocial Balance during Early and Middle Adulthood: The Role of Identity in Intimacy and Generativity

Identity styles and Eriksonian psychosocial balance were examined in young adults (N = 163; 64.4% women) and middle-aged adults (N = 132; 51.5% women). Participants completed self-report measures of identity styles (informational, normative, and diffuse-avoidant), identity commitment, and psychosocial balance (identity, intimacy, and generativity). Different patterns of psychosocial balance were found for each identity style, with largely consistent findings across age groups. The diffuse-avoidant style was negatively associated with all forms of psychosocial balance, the normative style was positively associated with identity and intimacy balance, and the informational style was positively associated with intimacy and generativity. Structural equation modeling revealed that identity balance predicted both intimacy and generativity for the diffuse-avoidant style (negative prediction) and normative style (positive prediction), whereas the informational style provided direct positive prediction of intimacy and generativity. The importance of an informational identity style for psychosocial balance during both early and middle adulthood is discussed.     

Personal (Non-)Religiosity and Policing

ABSTRACT

In many professions, personal religiosity can have a direct bearing on day-to-day practice and the implementation of policy. This article reviews fieldwork data from interviews with members of the Metropolitan Police Service in London, UK, and identifies the role that personal religiosity, or negative attitudes towards religion, can play in attitudes, practice, and expectations. Reflecting on debates about the nature of religious identity, the authors argue that in an arena where religion is increasingly seen to influence policy and practice, the personal religious or non-religious identity of the individual should not be seen as ‘outside’ the area of work but may require careful negotiation and articulation to avoid normative constructions of religion being applied inappropriately to local communities.     

Intergenerational associations linking identity styles and processes in adolescents and their parents

Identity formation is a lifelong task, yet much research focuses on adolescence and emerging adulthood. Little is known about whether parents' identities are related to their adolescent children's identities. The present studies were designed to examine intergenerational associations. Specifically, we focused on identity styles (Study 1 with 191 mother–adolescent and 170 father–adolescent dyads) and exploration and commitment processes (Study 2 with 230 mother–adolescent and 214 father–adolescent dyads). In Study 1, the information-oriented and normative styles, especially among mothers, were positively associated with these same styles among adolescents. Fathers' use of the normative and diffuse-avoidant style was positively associated with adolescents' use of these same styles. In Study 2, parental identification with commitment was positively associated with adolescent commitment making and negatively with adolescent ruminative exploration. Maternal exploration in depth was positively associated with adolescent exploration in depth and ruminative exploration. In sum, parents may function as role models for adolescent identity formation, although longitudinal research is needed to support more authoritative claims.     

Conviction,character and coping: religiosity and personality are both uniquely associated with optimism and positive reappraising

ABSTRACT

Optimism and positive reappraising seemingly mediate religiosity’s association with well-being. Yet past studies linking religiosity and cognitive coping typically use a bivariate design; thereby ignoring rival explanations. Given previous evidence that agreeableness and conscientiousness (personality traits that co-vary with optimism, positive reappraisal usage and religiosity) largely nullify the association between religiosity and social support, hierarchical regression modelling of cross-sectional survey data – Australia (N?=?195), Japan (N?=?931) and the USA (N?=?5999) – is employed to incrementally validate religiosity’s association with optimism and also positive reappraisals. Although religiosity remains a statistically significant predictor of these coping styles, including agreeableness and conscientiousness typically reduces the strength of association. These cross-cultural results lend weight to the hypothesis that religiosity is a potential, albeit small, influence on cognitive coping styles. Prospective research is now needed to establish whether changes in religiosity precede changes in coping as theorised.     

The mediating role of values between personality and religiosity

The aim of this work was to examine the relationships between Eysenck’s personality traits (psychoticism, extraversion and neuroticism), Schwartz’s values, and religiosity. To this purpose a sample of Italian teenagers (N = 343; mean age 15.43, SD = 1.023) were asked to fill out a battery of questionnaires and, a structural equation model was tested, where the mediating role of Schwartz’s values between personality traits, and religiosity was accurately analysed. Results showed that all personality traits considered had relevant direct and/or indirect effects on religious experience, mediated by values.     

How do Lithuanian adolescents address identity questions? A four-wave longitudinal study on change and stability in identity styles

Abstract

The present investigation evaluated multiple patterns of change and stability in Berzonsky’s identity styles (informational, normative, and diffuse-avoidant) in a four-annual-wave longitudinal study with 468 adolescent boys and girls from Lithuania. A combination of mean level changes, high rank-order stability, and high profile stability has been found in this study. First, levels of informational and normative identity styles remained stable for girls, but decreased significantly for boys; levels of diffuse-avoidant identity styles remained stable for girls and boys. Second, the rank-order stability of the normative and diffuse-avoidant styles was lower for boys, than for girls. Third, the mean profile stability was high for girls and moderate for boys. In general, our findings highlighted substantial gender differences in multiple indices of change and stability of identity styles.     

Mediational Role of Identity Commitment in Relationships Between Identity Processing Style and Psychological Well-Being

The present study evaluated the hypothesis that relationships between identity processing styles and Ryff’s (J Pers Soc Psychol 57:1069–1081, 1989) six dimensions of psychological well-being would be mediated by strength of identity commitment. Theoretically predicted relationships were found in a sample of Polish late adolescents (N = 654). The informational identity style was positively associated with five well-being dimensions, the diffuse-avoidant style was negatively associated with all six dimensions, and the normative style was positively associated with self-acceptance, life purpose, and environmental mastery, but negatively associated with autonomy and personal growth. As hypothesized, 14 of these relationships were at least partially mediated by strength of commitment. Identity style and commitment combined accounted for from 18 % (positive interpersonal relations) to 60 % (life purpose) of the variation in the Ryff well-being dimensions (M = 35 %). The pattern of relationships was not moderated by the sex of the participants. The implications of the findings for the role that informed self-exploration and identity commitment may play in psychological well-being are discussed.     

Identity styles,dimensions, statuses,and functions: Making connections among identity conceptualizations

IntroductionIdentity styles (Berzonsky, 1989), identity dimensions and statuses (Marcia, 1966, Crocetti et al., 2008a), and identity functions (Adams & Marshall, 1996) represent important identity conceptualizations. However, the interrelationships among these constructs are not well understood.ObjectiveThe purpose of this study was to examine the connections between these identity conceptualizations.MethodParticipants were 1158 Italian youth (38% males), aged 17 to 22 years. These participants completed self-report identity measures.ResultsFindings indicated that informational and normative styles, and commitment and in-depth exploration were positively associated with identity functions; whereas diffuse-avoidant style and reconsideration of commitment were negatively related to identity functions. Finally, meaningful differences on identity functions between the statuses were detected.DiscussionIdentity is a multi-faceted construct that has to be studied integrating various conceptualizations.     

DO FEMINIST IDENTITY STYLES MODERATE THE RELATION BETWEEN PERCEIVED SEXIST EVENTS AND DISORDERED EATING?

Feminist consciousness is theorized to be a powerful resource against the detrimental effects of sexism. The present study examined whether feminist identity styles moderated the relation of perceived lifetime and recent sexist events to disordered eating for 256 college women. Using hierarchical moderated regression, we found two styles of feminist identity (i.e., synthesis and active commitment) buffered the relation between perceived sexist events and disordered eating; the three remaining styles of feminist identity did not moderate this relationship. For women low on synthesis and active commitment, both perceived lifetime and recent sexist events positively predicted disordered eating. In contrast, for women high on synthesis and active commitment, neither perceived lifetime nor recent sexist events predicted disordered eating. Our results substantiate extant theory that sexist events contribute more to the psychological distress of nonfeminist women than of feminist women.     

Leadership laissez-faire,menace identitaire et engagement organisationnel

Research on the impact of supervisors’ laissez-faire leadership, a frequent form of passive leadership, is still in its infancy. In the present study, we explore the possibility that laissez-faire leadership by supervisors engenders a feeling of threat among employees regarding their organizational identity. In other words, the lack of attention given to employees by supervisors would create the feeling among employees that their identity as members of the organization is devalued. This perceived identity threat would result in reduced affective, normative, and continuance commitment. We examined these hypotheses in a study using three measurement times, with a time interval of three months. Based on a final sample of 300 participants and latent variable structural equation modeling analyses, the results indicate that supervisors’ laissez-faire leadership engenders a perceived identity threat among employees, which then contributes to reduce affective, normative, and continuance commitment. Finally, laissez-faire leadership was also directly and negatively related to continuance commitment. We discuss how these findings contribute to enhance our understanding of the effects of laissez-faire practices by supervisors.     

Regulatory foci and organizational commitment

We use regulatory focus theory to derive specific predictions regarding the differential relationships between regulatory focus and commitment. We estimated a structural equation model using a sample of 520 private and public sector employees and found in line with our hypotheses that (a) promotion focus related more strongly to affective commitment than prevention focus, (b) prevention focus related more strongly to continuance commitment than promotion focus, (c) promotion and prevention focus had equally strong effects on normative commitment. Implications of these findings for the three-component model of commitment, especially the ‘dual nature’ of normative commitment, as well as implications for human resources management and leadership are discussed.     

教师职业认同与情感承诺的关系：工作满意度的中介作用

基于社会认同理论,采用教师职业认同量表、工作满意度量表和情感承诺问卷对234名中学教师进行调查,考察教师职业认同与情感承诺的关系,以及工作满意度在这一关系中的中介作用。结果表明：（1）职业认同、工作满意度和情感承诺均呈显著正相关;（2）职业认同可以正向显著地直接预测情感承诺,同时又通过工作满意度的中介作用对情感承诺产生间接的预测作用。     

National disidentification and minority identity: A study among Muslims in Western Europe

Host national disidentification in which immigrants explicitly distance themselves from society is problematic for a cohesive national community and is likely to hamper immigrants’ successful host society integration. Among Sunni Muslim immigrants of Turkish origin living in Germany and the Netherlands we tested whether (a) an empirical distinction between national disidentification and identification can be made, (b) whether higher perceived group discrimination of Muslims (“reactive religiosity path”) and (c) stronger Muslim self-centrality (“intrinsic religiosity path”) are associated with stronger host national disidentification, to the extent that they are associated with a stronger commitment to religious identity content. Disidentification was found to be a separate construct and both the reactive religiosity path and the intrinsic religiosity path were found to be related to higher levels of disidentification, mediated by religious identity.     

Problem Behaviors in Adolescence: The Opposite Role Played by Insecure Attachment and Commitment Strength

In this study we examined the relations between insecure attachment styles, commitment and behavioral problems, focusing on the unique and common contribution that avoidant and anxious styles and commitment made to internalizing and externalizing problems. 535 adolescents, 267 boys and 268 girls, aged from 16 to 18 years, completed self-report measures of attachment, identity and problem behaviors. The data showed that both internalizing and externalizing problems were positively related to insecure attachment styles and negatively to commitment. Results supported a unique contribution of both insecure styles to the prediction of internalizing and externalizing problems, whereas commitment negatively predicted only internalizing behaviors. The data supported a joint effect of avoidant attachment and commitment such that commitment contributed to moderate the display of internalizing and externalizing problems among avoidant adolescents.     

Relating Identity Processing Styles to Commitment and Self-esteem among College Students

The role that identity processing styles may play in commitment and self-esteem were investigated. Measures of identity processing styles, commitment and self-esteem were administered to 112 psychology students (mean age = 18.77 years, SD = 1.3 years, males = 33, females = 79). Results revealed a statistically significant difference between Informational and Diffuse-avoidant identity processing styles on commitment. There was also a significant difference between Normative and Diffuse-avoidant processing styles on commitment. Students with Informational and Normative identity styles may be better adjusted to higher education learning than those with a different profile.     

Family Climate and Identity Style During Late Adolescence

This study explored the association between family environment, parent-adolescent relationships, and identity style in late adolescence. A sample of 351 first year students at the University of Guelph completed a survey in 1994. A modest association was found between family environment and identity style. Adolescents from cohesive families tended to have normative identity styles and adolescents from expressive families were less likely to have diffuse/avoidant identity styles. Parent-adolescent relationships were not associated with identity style. These findings provide partial support for the theory that family relationships are an important predictor of individual differences in identity style during adolescence.