Identity Structures and Psychological Well-Being: Gender and Marital Status Comparisons

Abstract

Identities refer to self-conceptions in terms of individuals' roles. The salience or importance of various identities should differ systematically by gender and marital status; highly salient identities should have greater impacts on psychological symptoms than less salient identities; and identities that are more salient to particular gender-by-marital status subgroups should benefit those subgroups more than other subgroups. Data come from structured interviews with a stratified random sample of 700 married and divorced urban adults. Contrary to expectations, the identity hierarchies of married and divorced men and women were remarkably similar