Longitudinal study of changes in ego identity status from the freshman to the senior year at college.

Abstract

Ego identity status interviews were conducted with 53 male college seniors who hadparticipated in a previous study of identity development during the freshman year.As hypothesized, significant increases in the frequency of students in the identityachiever status were observed for both occupational and ideological identity. Also,as predicted, the achiever status was found to be the most stable status from the endof the freshman year to the senior year, while the moratorium status was the leaststable. While the general developmental trend was positive, a substantial propor-tion of the subjects were completing their college years in the identity diffusionstatus.The college years are generally viewed as atime of major psychosocial growth. Ac-cording to Erikson (1959, 1968), the per-sonality component that is most likely to bethe focus of such growth is ego identity.There is an extensive body of research find-ings that provides descriptions of character-istic changes in the content of identity ele-ments (e.g., vocational plans and religiousand political beliefs) during the college years(see Feldman & Newcomb, 1969). However,a change in the content of a student's viewsdoes not, in itself, constitute evidence of psy-chosocial growth, even when the change is inthe direction of views generally held by col-lege seniors. With respect to the develop-ment of ego identity, the distinction be-tween change and growth can be made interms of the process by which identity ele-ments are altered with growth entailing theuse of more mature modes of functioning.