SI0036 Human Development Spring Semester Seminar 3: Possible selves

Contact: Higginscf@cardiff.ac.uk

Read the following: Kerpelman, J. L. & Pittman, J. F. 2001. The instability of possible selves: Identity processes within late adolescents’ close peer relationships. Journal of Adolescence. 24. Pp. 491-512. Available: Learning Central. This paper explores the stability of three possible selves associated with the major roles of adulthood: career, marriage and parenthood. With this in mind, answer the following questions:

1. How do they define ‘possible selves’ in the paper? (Anticipated identities of career, marriage, and parenthood). Although they are not true, they are developing. They consist of organised self-views and perceived expectations from others. They also emerge in affectively significant relationships. Identity exploration and construction are involved. As adolescents explore their possible selves and set goals for attaining them, they are engaging in the work of identity construction.

2. What was the purpose of the study? The main purpose of the study was to examine a set of micro-processes that affect the exploration of possible selves and the relevance of interpersonal relationships as a context for their development into identities.

3. Describe a control theory approach to identity maintenance and modification. This approach helps us understand a person’s sense of identity stability over time. Model emphasises self-definition within a context of social expectations and feedback. Identity standard (self-meanings tied to an identity) as compared with a self-perception (one’s interpretation of social feedback relevant to the self). Some comparison processes may induce identity disruption. This is followed by self-verification. E.g. I’ll do better, they are messed up, I wasn’t at my best, etc., in order to restore the predisrupted identity. Although initiated by discrepant input, the amount of self-verification varies with the importance of the identity and the certainty with which it is regarded. Control theory asserts that important identities and identities self-defined with high certainty will be maintained more than their counterparts.

4. What is your understanding of psychosocial moratorium? (Identity exploration involves actively ‘trying on’ different selves). Identity formation involves exploration and commitment, the making of relatively permanent, but changeable, choices about the contents of identities. This exploration/commitment process provides a model for the emergence and initial stabilization of novel (new) identities.

5. What are the limitations of both these approaches? Control theory is more suited to describing stability rather than change and development. PM does not account as well for the simultaneous stability and conditional changeability of these identities OVER TIME.

6. At the bottom of page 493, Kerpelman and Pittman argue that the impact of identity feedback depends on what the feedback says, the importance of the identity, and the participant’s certainty about the extent of the identity’s importance. Why is this the case?

7. Why were partners included in the study, and why are partners, regardless of their relationship type, expected to affect identity stability?

8. How do identities emerge and stabilize within the context of interpersonal relationships? The paper suggests that importance and certainty, as well as adolescent and partner behaviour indicate the salience of an emerging identity. Findings suggest that processes resulting in identity stability first require a period of instability. Therefore, adolescents cannot be truly certain about possible selves.