Ethnic and Racial Identity
• Most of the different theories that offer
psychological explanations for ethnic and
racial identity use the writings of Erik
Erikson and James Marcia on ego
development as their point origin,
warranting an understanding of their
theoretical formulations.
Erikson and Ego Psychology
• Erikson was greatly influenced by Freud
and generally stayed closer to Freud's
theory
Some distinctions between Erikson
and classical psychoanalysis
• determinism. Erikson believes we evaluate what
we have done in the past and can use these
experiences to continue to grow
• conflict. Erikson believed that social and
interpersonal forces and the culture at large were
equally as important in shaping our personality.
• the unconscious: Erikson also believes in
conscious awareness and decision making
processes.
Erikson’s theory is heavily
influenced by Ego Psychologists
• place less importance on the Id and more on
the ego
• Ego psychology emphasized the existence
of the ego prior to birth
• the ego has other functions rather than
defense mechanisms
• One main function of the ego is to maintain
our sense of identity.
Erikson suggests that our
identity is made up of four parts:
• individuality or a sense of uniqueness;
• synthesis, or the coming together of all the parts of our
"selves";
• continuity, or the idea that you are the same person
today that you were yesterday. This also includes the
function of maintaining our self-image consistent.
• social acceptance, this basically relates to being part of
and similar to others of the group we belong to or
identify with. It also includes being accepted and
valued by the group members.
One of Erikson's most important
concept is the epigenetic principle.
• The development of our brain and other physical
organs occurs according to a predetermined
genetic blue print.
• Erikson suggests that psychosexual development
proceeds in a similar manner and advances
according to the epigenetic principle.
• Development is a result of the interaction of
biological, environmental, and psychological
factors
Erikson conceptualized
personality development as
having eight psychosocial stages
• Each stage develops from and builds upon
the previous stage so that our progress is in
part determined by our success, or lack of
success, in all the previous stages.
• Every stage includes a specific problem or
crisis that we must resolve in order to move
on.
Crisis
• The term "crisis" is used in the sense of a
critical turning point that can either lead to
progress or stagnation rather than an
upcoming calamity.
• The crisis involves a conflict between two
opposing elements.
• The best resolution involves a balance
(although not necessarily an equal balance)
between the two.
Each stage has a certain optimal
time as well
• so we generally cannot speed things up or slow
things down. However, the outcomes of each stage
are not necessarily permanent.
• For example, the outcomes of a later crisis may counteract
either previous successes or failures.
• If a crisis is favorably resolved, we gain a certain
virtue or ego strength which will help us through
the rest of the stages of our lives.
• On the other hand, if we don't do so well, we may
develop maladaptations and malignancies, as well
as endanger all our future development.
• A malignancy is the worse of the two, and
involves too little of the positive and too
much of the negative aspect of the task such
as a person who can't trust others.
• A maladaptation is not quite as bad and
involves too much of the positive and too
little of the negative, such as a person who
trusts too much.
Erikson’s Psychosocial Stages
Infancy: first year (similar to oral
stage)
• Ego Crisis: Trust vs. Mistrust.
• Major problem is dependency. Is the adult
to be trusted?
• Significant Task: Mutual affirmation of
mother and child - a big emphasis on visual
contact.
• Trust gives capacity for faith.
• Basic Strength: Hope. A basic confidence in
the future.
Ritualization for Infancy:
Numinous.
• Ritualizations are recurring patterns of behavior
characteristic of a particular society (kissing,
hugging, shaking hands, etc.).
• Numinous means "profound emotional
experience".
• The first ritualization is the greeting of the mother
- the touch, smile, and eye-to-eye contact which
assures "separateness transcended, yet
distinctiveness confirmed".
Ritualism for Infancy: Idolism
(idolatry).
• Ritualisms are exaggerated, rigid,
inappropriate ritualizations.
• Idolism is a distortion of the numinous
reverence into adulation which gives an
illusory image of perfection.
Maldevelopment for Infancy:
Withdrawal.
• Maldevelopment is a basic weaknesses
resulting from poor resolution of the ego
crisis.
• Withdrawal is "detaching" from others,
similar to the problems of schizophrenia.
Significant Relations for Infancy:
Maternal parent
Early Childhood: 2 to 3.
Autonomy vs. Shame & Doubt
• Significant Task: Differentiate right and
wrong & to establish psychosocial
independence.
• Primitive independence comes by saying
"No".
• Strength: Will, courage - the ability to
exercise both freedom of choice and selfrestraint.
• Ritualization: Judicious - forms basis of
legal system.
• Ritualism: Legalism - being more
concerned with the letter of the law rather
than the spirit of the law.
• Maldevelopment: Compulsion
• Significant Relations: Parents
Play Age: 3 to 5: Initiative vs.
Guilt
• Significant Task: Role experimentation
• Strength: to identify with proper role
models
• Ritualization: Authenticity - assume
culturally accepted roles.
• Ritualism: Impersonation - trying to be
something that you are not.
• Maldevelopment: Inhibition
• Significant Relations: Basic family
School Age: 6 to 11: Industry vs.
Inferiority
• Significant Task: Skill learning
• Strength: Competence (craftsmanship). At
this age, children know who is good at
everything.
• Ritualization: Formality. There are
appropriate ways of doing things above
being simply right or wrong.
• Ritualism: Formalism (perfectionism)
• Maldevelopment: Inertia
• Significant Relations: School, neighborhood
Adolescence: 12 to 18: Identity
vs. Role confusion.
• In the search for identity, many adolescents
go into a period of withdrawing from
responsibilities which Erikson called a
"moratorium"
• Significant Task: Establish philosophy of
life. Adolescents think in terms of ideals.
Problem is that they don't have much
experience.
• Strength: Fidelity & devotion
• Ritualization: Ideology. Adolescents tend to
substitute ideals for experience. Ideals are
different from reality because they are conflict
free.
• Ritualism: Totalism. Extremely rigid, unbinding
set of ideal - cults, or merely totally dropping out.
• Maldevelopment: Repudiation - by indifference or
defiance.
• Significant Relations: Peer groups
Young Adulthood: 18 to 35:
Intimacy vs. Isolation
• Significant Task: Establish mutually
satisfying relationships - primarily marriage
& friends.
• Strength: Love and Affiliation
• Ritualization: Affiliation
• Ritualism: elitism - status symbols
• Maldevelopment: Exclusivity - world
begins to shrink
• Significant Relations: Marital partner,
friends.
James Marcia
• Following Erik Erikson, Marcia posits that
adolescence and young adulthood is a time
of "identity formation".
Definition of Identity Josselson
(1996)
•
"Identity is what integrates our own diversity, gives
meaning to the disparate parts of ourselves, and relates
them to one another. Identity is how we interpret our
own existence and understand who we are in our
world" (p. 30).
• For the emerging adult, the task is to find a personally
"owned" identity in a variety of areas. This involves
distancing oneself from others such as parents and
significant adult role models so that the identity is
critically adopted and unique to the person.
Marcia’s Typology of Identity
• Using the concepts of "crisis" and
"commitment", Marcia creates a four fold
typology depending on whether or not the
person has
– made a commitment to an identity in the
particular area and
– whether or not this commitment has come
because of some sort of "crisis".
Marcia's Identity Statuses Related to
Crisis and Commitment
No commitment
Commitment
No crisis
Identity
diffusion
Identity
foreclosure
Crisis
Identity
moratorium
Identity
achievement
Identity Diffusion
• Persons who are diffuse do not have strong
commitments and do not appear to have
engaged in any significant exploration of
alternatives.
• They do not "own" any beliefs and a
particular area.
Identity Foreclosure
• The foreclosed student is one who has
uncritically adopted their identity from
either parents or other significant authority
figures.
• They have not considered alternatives and
are likely to speak of themselves as one
with the parent (e.g., "We are Methodists).
Identity Moratorium
• One who is in moratorium is actively
seeking alternatives and considering what
the merits of various commitments might
be.
• Their identity in this area is suspended (e.g.,
a moratorium has been declared) until they
can figure out to what they will commit
themselves.
Identity Achievement
• The person who has come to adopt a particular
commitment after active consideration of alternatives is
said to have achieved an identity.
• To have a achieved identity in the area of religion
means that one knows what other viewpoints might
involve and can offer reasons for adopting one view
over another.
• One can see the advantages and disadvantages of
competing positions and is able to summarize the
factors weighing on the side of what they are personally
committed to.
Ethnic Identity (Jean Phinney)
• the study of ethnic identity involves an emphasis
on how group members themselves understand
and interpret their own ethnicity.
• Group members differ in the degree to which they
have joined the American mainstream or remained
in ethnic enclaves.
• In addition, increasing numbers of individuals
from mixed ethnic backgrounds cannot be
assigned to a single group and thus blur the
boundaries of ethnic groups
• Within these groups, terminology varies
considerably, with some writers, particularly those
studying African Americans, using the term racial
identity rather than ethnic identity (Cross, 1991;
Helms, 1990).
• Although both ethnicity and race can form the
basis of group identity, ethnic and racial identity
have been studied within different research
traditions, encompassing different theoretical and
methodological approaches
ETHNIC IDENTITY
DEVELOPMENT (Phinney, 1990).
• Ethnic identity has been conceptualized as a
complex construct including a commitment
and sense of belonging to one's ethnic
group, positive evaluation of the group,
interest in and knowledge about the group,
and involvement in activities and traditions
of the group
• However, both conceptual and empirical
writings acknowledge that ethnic identity is
a dynamic construct that changes over time
and context and varies across individuals.
• Developmental approaches focus on the
process by which an ethnic identity is
formed, typically during adolescence and
young adulthood.
• for the domain of ethnicity, models of
ethnic, racial, or minority identity
development (Atkinson, Morten & Sue,
1993; Cross, 1991; Phinney, 1989) have all
emphasized the importance for minority
group members of examining and
questioning preexisting attitudes and
assumptions about ethnicity, as a necessary
step toward identity achievement.
• There is evidence that individuals progress
with age to higher levels, but throughout
life they may reexamine aspects of their
ethnicity and return to earlier stages .
• Development of ethnic identity is clearly
influenced by many experiences, at the
family, community, and societal level, but
specific factors that bring about transitions
have not been documented empirically.
The initial stage is described as a period
when ethnicity is not salient and has
been given little conscious thought.
• The individual, typically a child or young adolescent,
accepts the values and attitudes present in his or her
environment.
• When the family and community present a strong
positive image of the group for the minority child, the
child is likely to have a positive identification with the
group, even though it has not been consciously
examined and hence may be vague and inarticulate.
• However, children may also internalize negative images
and stereotypes from the wider society, including those
from mainstream institutions and the media.
There has been little research specifically
associating ethnic identity stages with
attitudes toward other groups.
• Helms (1990) and others (Atkinson et al.,1993;
Cross,1991) argue that minority group members at
the initial stage are likely to show a preference for
the White majority culture and, in turn, may be
deprecating or rejecting of their own culture.
• However, it is not clear how widespread this
attitude is, for not all minority youths experience
White preference
The second stage is seen as a
period of search or immersion
• individuals become deeply interested in knowing
more about their group.
• Initiation of the exploration process may be
stimulated in part by the developmental issues that
influence ego identity more generally
• However, experience probably plays a more
important role, as adolescents move into a larger
world, encounter more people from backgrounds
different from their own, and are increasingly
exposed to discrimination.
• As minority group members explore the
history of their group within the larger
society, they become increasingly aware of
racism and discrimination.
• This knowledge is often accompanied by
feelings of anger toward the dominant
group for past and present wrongs.
Final Stage
• At the final stage, minority individuals develop a
secure, confident sense of themselves as members
of their group.
• They feel secure in their own ethnicity and are
assumed to hold a positive but realistic view of
their own group.
• Although they are comfortable with their group
membership, ethnicity may or may not be salient
to them; other aspects of their lives may become
more important.
Racial Identity Models
• The models of minority ethnic identity and
White identity are quite different because of
the underlying fact of power differential and
the history of relations between Whites and
non-Whites.
Cross’s Model of Black Identity
Development:
– Preencounter stage—I devalue my blackness and
value White culture, I want to assimilate
– Encounter stage—caused by crisis related to above
thinking/perception, cognitive dissonance—a stage of
confusion over norms and values.
– Immersion-emersion—I withdraw from the dominant
(White) culture and immerse myself in Black culture
– Internalization—a new identity emerges—I appreciate
the good in both cultures, I’m more flexible and
tolerant, more bicultural/multicultural
Janet Helms’ Model of White
Racial Identity Development
– Contact: simple knowledge that there are black people
– Disintegration: awareness of the differences in
experiences for black and white people.
– Reintegration: acknowledging that one has a white
identity. It becomes important at this stage to define the
importance of this identity.
– Pseudo-Independent: acknowledging the harm of
white racism and one’s role in perpetuating it
– Emersion/Immersion: efforts are made to re-define
being white to change the white culture
The final stage is called
Autonomy
• this stage reflects no longer using group
membership to judge others and seeks an
opportunity to learn more from other
perspectives as a way of enhancing one’s
own personal development.
• Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have a Dream”
speech reflects this perspective.
Acculturation Models
• As stated before,
– Acculturation refers to any cultural adaptation
when one culture comes into contact with
another
– Assimilation is the adoption of one culture,
which is usually dominant, at the expense of
eliminating another culture
Uni-Dimensional Models:
Gordon (1964, 1978)
• Gordon proposed a unidimensional
assimilation model to describe the cultural
changes undergone by members of a
minority group.
• In his model, acculturation is presented as a
sub-process of assimilation, with
biculturalism representing only a transitory
phase of the process from complete
segregation to total assimilation.
• The underlying assumption is that a member of
one culture loses his or her original cultural
identity as he or she acquires a new identity in a
second
• Moreover, in this model, problems of
acculturation experienced by immigrants are
attributed to the members of the minority group
themselves, who are held responsible for their
failure in assimilating into the host society.
Bidimensional Models of
Acculturation
• Criticism of the unidimensional models have led to the
development of bidimensional models of acculturation,
in which immigrants' identification with two cultures is
assessed on two independent dimensions
• change is measured along each dimension.
• Essentially, it was proposed that immigrant heritage
and host cultural identities do not fall at either extreme
of one bipolar dimension, but are orthogonal and
independent of each other
John Berry
• the best-known acculturation model of this type is
the one proposed within cross-cultural psychology
by John Berry and his colleagues.
• According to Berry, immigrants settled in the host
society must confront two basic issues:
• (1) "Is it considered to be of value to maintain
one's identity and characteristics?"
• (2) "Is it considered to be of value to maintain
relationships with the larger society?"
these two dimensions of cultural change
are crossed, resulting in four
acculturation attitudes which immigrants
can adopt
• also referred to as acculturation strategies.
• This model explicitly distinguishes between
the cultural and the social dimensions, and
acknowledges their relative independence
of each other.
The four models are:
• Assimilation: the desire of the immigrants
to adopt the culture of the host society while
rejecting their own cultural identity
• Integration: a desire to maintain key
features of the immigrant cultural identity
while having relationships with members of
the host society.
• Separation: Immigrants who adopt the separation
strategy try to maintain all features of their own
cultural identity while rejecting relationships with
members of the majority host culture.
• Marginalisation: characterises immigrants who
reject both their own culture (often because of
enforced cultural loss) and lose contacts with the
host majority (often because of exclusion or
discrimination).