The Structure of Identity: Commentary on Jane Kroger's View of Identity Status Transition

Kroger's (this issue) view that Marcia's (1966) identity statuses constitute an invariant sequence of "soft," structural developmental stages is evaluated. I argue that the reliable status differences found along a number of social, personality, and cognitive dimensions, do not reflect a common underlying identity structure. First, the amount of intrastatus variability found is incompatible with a structural hypothesis. Second, the amount of regression found in longitudinal studies (especially from an achieved to foreclosed status) is inconsistent with an invariant, developmental-stage sequence. An alternative perspective of identity structure is proposed. Identity is conceptualized as a self-theory that influences what information people attend to, how it is encoded, and how it is interpreted. Possible elements from which self-theories are constructed and analytic strategies that could be used to investigate their structural architecture are considered.