2015): Future-oriented or present-focused? The role of social support and identity styles on 'futuring' in Italian late adolescents and emerging adults, Journal of Youth Studies,
This study examines the links between family and identity processes of Italian emerging adults living with their parents. Examining the impact of family is important in the countries of Mediterranean area where also emerging adults live with parents for a prolonged time. In Italy living with parents is associated with a specific “delay syndrome” in the transition to adulthood. Participants consisted of 20 Italian emerging adults attending second and last years of university, in a large Italian city (Naples). All participants were subjected to an open interview, based on the thematic life story. Our findings indicate that parents are perceived as active agents of identity, responsive and supportive of autonomy; they encourage the active involvement of young people in the work of identity formation. Despite this, parental impact produces different configurations that could shed light on the pathways of Italian emerging adults' transition to adulthood. The above configurations are discussed using exemplars.
The link between identity and creativity has received surprisingly little attention from developmental psychology researchers, although flexibility and the ability to generate multiple solutions to problems are key competences for contemporary society based on continuous innovation and de‐standardization of development trajectories. These competences are critical for identity formation processes, mainly during late adolescence when young people have to explore and commit to defining themselves. This study was concerned with exploring the relationships between creative and identity processes to identify typologies of ‘creativity‐identity interplay’ in late adolescence. The participants comprised 315 late adolescents attending the last 2 years of Italian high schools. Two self‐report measures were used: Utrecht‐Management of Identity Commitments Scale and Test of Divergent Feeling. Participation was voluntary and anonymity was guaranteed. Our findings confirm the relationship between identity and creativity, identify six identity statuses (moratorium, critical exploration, achievement, early closure, diffusion, and searching moratorium), and they describe differences in terms of creativity processes involved in identity formation. Suggestions for future research and limitations are discussed.
depth the identity formation processes in Italian\ud
university students starting from previous studies that have\ud
provided support for a “postponed Identity”. Given the particular\ud
socio-economic difficulties of the Italian context,\ud
especially occupational uncertainty, this study assumes that\ud
the years of university for Italian students are rather like\ud
a time of standby, a period when students are allowed to\ud
remain in moratorium (institutionalized) or diffusion statuses\ud
and disengage from tasks related to personal and professional\ud
identity consolidation. For this purpose, the study\ud
focuses initially on the person-centred approach by measuring\ud
identity statuses in students attending the first 2 years\ud
of university and in students attending the fourth and fifth\ud
years of university. Subsequently, it focuses on the first\ud
2 years of university through an event-focused approach,\ud
exploring narrative accounts of memorable daily life events\ud
perceived as important for identity construction, and to\ud
deepen our understanding of the subjective dimension of\ud
personal changes. Based on five identity dimensions, the\ud
cluster analysis indicated that six identity statuses could\ud
be extracted for both students groups: achievement, foreclosure,\ud
moratorium, diffused diffusion, carefree diffusion\ud
and undifferentiated. Each of these clusters revealed a distinct\ud
profile in terms of narrative universes of meanin
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