Ego Development at the Crossroads: Identity and Intimacy Among Black Men and White Women in Cross-Racial Relationships

Abstract

This study addressed the ego development of White women and Black men who were in cross-racial relationships. Twenty-one participants completed in-depth, individual interviews, focus group inquiries, and the Sentence Completion Test (SCT). The results indicate that a majority of the participants scored at the higher levels of ego development: 50% of the Black males and 67% of the White females were at the conscientious stage of ego development, 25% of the Black males and 22% of the White females were at the individuated stage. The results from the interviews and the focus groups substantiated the participants' scores on the SCT, exemplifying the complexity in which Black men and White women perceive themselves as individuals and others in relationships. Loevinger (1976, Ego development: Conceptions and theories. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.) contends that these higher stages represent a complex means of understanding oneself and of interacting in intimate relationships.

Does Identity Precede Intimacy? Testing Erikson’s Theory on Romantic Development in Emerging Adults of the 21st Century

“…To the best of our knowledge, none of the existing studies on ego development using Loevinger's (1987Loevinger's ( , 1998 model and measure revealed such far reaching consequences. Moreover, our findings add to a number of studies showing the adaptive outcomes of ego development (e.g., Hauser, 1991;Lindfors, Elovainio, Sinkkonen, Aalberg, & Vuorinen, 2005) and its impact on partnership quality (Bakken & Huber, 2005;Kerpelman, Pittman, & Adler-Baeder, 2008). Thus, also in this new millennium, ego development in adolescence strongly predicts intimacy in emerging adulthood.…”

“…This study has been conducted on a sample of German participants. Although, as mentioned, the findings on ego development, identity status, and intimacy development are very much in line with North American findings, future studies should include ethnic diverse samples, as there is some support for the notion of cultural differences in intimacy (Marshall, 2008), ego development (Bakken & Huber, 2005), and identity development (Côté, 1997). Furthermore, during recent years, progress has been made in conceptualizing the commitment and exploration components of identity more thoroughly, identifying, for example, different types of adaptive and less adaptive moratorium states (Crocetti et al, 2008).…”

“…According to this theory, ego development serves as a mechanism to maintain coherence in one's identity, for instance, by mature impulse control, understanding oneself in relation to others, and experiencing oneself as a coherent self over time. Bakken and Huber (2005), using Loevinger's Sentence Completion Test (SCT; Hy & Loevinger, 1996), showed that strong ego development was associated with better interaction in intimate relationships. Montgomery (2005), using the Erikson Psychosocial Index (Rosenthal, Gurney, & Moore, 1981), added that strong identity development is an independent predictor of psychosocial intimacy, after controlling for a series of background variables.…”

“…Studies conducted over the past two decades increasingly note that ethnicity plays an important role in foregoing psychosocial development (Bakken & Huber, 2005). This study has been conducted on a sample of German participants.…”

Continuity and Change from Adolescence to Emerging Adulthood: Adolescence-limited vs. Life-course-persistent Profound Ego Development Arrests

“…reviews by Hauser 1976, 1993; Noam et al 2006; Westenberg et al 2004) investigating Loevinger’s construct is based on assessments of ego development stages on a single occasion, examining how they both correlate with and predict concurrent and subsequent functioning. Some recent studies in this tradition have substantiated positive, hypothesized relations between ego development and emotion differentiation (Kang and Shaver 2004), complexity of romantic relationship perceptions (Bakken and Huber 2005), adolescent academic locus of control and learning orientations (Bursik and Martin 2006), and the endorsement of developmentally-appropriate identity statuses during emerging adulthood (Billings and Bursik 2008). …”