Marcia's Statuses of Identity

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James Marcia, an Eriksonian researcher, broke down Erikson’s theory of identity. Marcia believes that individuals can be classified with the identity statuses such as identity diffusion, identity foreclosure, identity moratorium, and identity achievement. In short, Marcia found that an individual’s identity is not “set” and is quite fluid. Before an individual’s identity is chosen, individuals go through some kind of process called a crisis where the individual will go through a lot of different phases until they find what they are trying to do or what they are trying to accomplish. Then that individual will have made a commitment towards that accomplishment which will have led them into what they want to do in their life. Sure there may be a crisis that an individual may go through that might alter their identity, but a commitment can be made throughout one’s life that determines “who” that individual will be. In the research assignment of Marcia’s statuses of identity, the goal was to determine the identity given by college students male or female from the ages of 18 to 20 years of age. The research consisted of interviewing the five male and female college students with a survey using four different statements. The four statements were represented from (a) to (d) in which they reflected the identities of foreclosure, diffusion, moratorium, and also achievement. Identity achievement is one that has made a commitment in their life (a), identity moratorium is one that has not yet made a commitment, but are still trying to figure out their life goals (b), identity foreclosure is one that knows what commitments they want to make in their life however they just do not know how to go about doing so (c), and identity diffusion is one who hasn’t made a commitment nor have they went through a crisis in their life (d). The college students I picked were by

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