No abstract

This study examined the relationship between identity style and strategies used to cope with stressors that potentially threaten one's sense of identity. Identity style refers to differences in the way individuals construct and revise or maintain their sense of identity. An informational style involves actively seeking out, evaluating, and utilizing self-relevant information. A normative style highlights the expectations and standards of significant others. A diffuse/avoidant style is characterized by procrastination and situation-specific reactions. Late-adolescent college subjects were administered measures of identity style, ways of coping with academic stressors, and test anxiety. Within this self-as-student context, subjects with diffuse and normative identity styles employed avoidant-oriented coping strategies (wishful thinking, distancing, and tension reduction). An informational style was associated with deliberate, problem-focused coping. Findings are discussed in terms of a process model of identity development.

No abstract

No abstract

The present study investigated the role that differences in identity orientations may play as students negotiate the transition to a university context. Measures of identity status, identity processing style, and student developmental tasks were administered to 363 entering university freshmen. Results indicated that differences in identity statuses accounted for significant variation in the students’ progress on measures of academic autonomy, educational involvement, and mature interpersonal relationships. Moreover, in most cases these associations were mediated by the students’identity processing style. In general, the findings suggest that students with an informational identity style are best prepared to effectively adapt within a university context, whereas those with a diffuse/avoidant style are most apt to encounter difficulties.