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Adolescents’ Identity Formation: Linking the Narrative and the Dual-Cycle Approach

The narrative and dual-cycle approach conceptualize and operationalize adolescents’ identity formation in different ways. While the narrative approach focuses on the construction of an autobiographical life story, the dual-cycle approach focuses on the formation of identity commitments. Although the...

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Autores principales: van Doeselaar, Lotte, McLean, Kate C., Meeus, Wim, Denissen, Jaap J. A., Klimstra, Theo A.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Springer US 2019
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7105420/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31407186
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10964-019-01096-x
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author van Doeselaar, Lotte
McLean, Kate C.
Meeus, Wim
Denissen, Jaap J. A.
Klimstra, Theo A.
author_facet van Doeselaar, Lotte
McLean, Kate C.
Meeus, Wim
Denissen, Jaap J. A.
Klimstra, Theo A.
author_sort van Doeselaar, Lotte
collection PubMed
description The narrative and dual-cycle approach conceptualize and operationalize adolescents’ identity formation in different ways. While the narrative approach focuses on the construction of an autobiographical life story, the dual-cycle approach focuses on the formation of identity commitments. Although these approaches have different emphases, they are conceptually complementary. Yet, their empirical links and distinctions have only scarcely been investigated. Empirical knowledge on these links in adolescence and across time has been especially lacking. In the present research, it was therefore examined whether key characteristics of adolescents’ narration (autobiographical reasoning and agency) were concurrently and prospectively related to engagement in the dual-cycle processes of commitment making, identification with commitment, exploration in breadth, exploration in depth, and ruminative exploration. The findings from a cross-sectional sample of 1,580 Dutch adolescents (M(age) = 14.7 years, 56% female) demonstrated that autobiographical reasoning was significantly positively associated with the commitment and more adaptive exploration processes (i.e., in breadth and in depth). In addition, agency was significantly positively associated with the commitment processes and exploration in depth. Yet, these associations between the narrative characteristics and dual-cycle processes were only weak. Subsequently, the findings from a two-year longitudinal subsample (n = 242, M(age) = 14.7 years, 62% female) indicated that on average commitment strength remained stable but exploration increased across middle adolescence. A stronger increase in identification with commitment and adaptive exploration (i.e., in breadth and in depth) was predicted by a higher degree of agency in adolescents’ narratives. Overall, these findings indicate that both approaches to identity formation are associated, but the small size of these associations suggests that they predominantly capture unique aspects of identity formation. Both approaches could thus complement and inform each other.
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spelling pubmed-71054202020-04-03 Adolescents’ Identity Formation: Linking the Narrative and the Dual-Cycle Approach van Doeselaar, Lotte McLean, Kate C. Meeus, Wim Denissen, Jaap J. A. Klimstra, Theo A. J Youth Adolesc Empirical Research The narrative and dual-cycle approach conceptualize and operationalize adolescents’ identity formation in different ways. While the narrative approach focuses on the construction of an autobiographical life story, the dual-cycle approach focuses on the formation of identity commitments. Although these approaches have different emphases, they are conceptually complementary. Yet, their empirical links and distinctions have only scarcely been investigated. Empirical knowledge on these links in adolescence and across time has been especially lacking. In the present research, it was therefore examined whether key characteristics of adolescents’ narration (autobiographical reasoning and agency) were concurrently and prospectively related to engagement in the dual-cycle processes of commitment making, identification with commitment, exploration in breadth, exploration in depth, and ruminative exploration. The findings from a cross-sectional sample of 1,580 Dutch adolescents (M(age) = 14.7 years, 56% female) demonstrated that autobiographical reasoning was significantly positively associated with the commitment and more adaptive exploration processes (i.e., in breadth and in depth). In addition, agency was significantly positively associated with the commitment processes and exploration in depth. Yet, these associations between the narrative characteristics and dual-cycle processes were only weak. Subsequently, the findings from a two-year longitudinal subsample (n = 242, M(age) = 14.7 years, 62% female) indicated that on average commitment strength remained stable but exploration increased across middle adolescence. A stronger increase in identification with commitment and adaptive exploration (i.e., in breadth and in depth) was predicted by a higher degree of agency in adolescents’ narratives. Overall, these findings indicate that both approaches to identity formation are associated, but the small size of these associations suggests that they predominantly capture unique aspects of identity formation. Both approaches could thus complement and inform each other. Springer US 2019-08-12 2020 /pmc/articles/PMC7105420/ /pubmed/31407186 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10964-019-01096-x Text en © The Author(s) 2019 Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.
spellingShingle Empirical Research
van Doeselaar, Lotte
McLean, Kate C.
Meeus, Wim
Denissen, Jaap J. A.
Klimstra, Theo A.
Adolescents’ Identity Formation: Linking the Narrative and the Dual-Cycle Approach
title Adolescents’ Identity Formation: Linking the Narrative and the Dual-Cycle Approach
title_full Adolescents’ Identity Formation: Linking the Narrative and the Dual-Cycle Approach
title_fullStr Adolescents’ Identity Formation: Linking the Narrative and the Dual-Cycle Approach
title_full_unstemmed Adolescents’ Identity Formation: Linking the Narrative and the Dual-Cycle Approach
title_short Adolescents’ Identity Formation: Linking the Narrative and the Dual-Cycle Approach
title_sort adolescents’ identity formation: linking the narrative and the dual-cycle approach
topic Empirical Research
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7105420/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31407186
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10964-019-01096-x
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