Outline Two Different Psychological Approaches To Identity

Outline two different psychological approaches to identity.
What are the strengths and weaknesses of each?

Psychosocial theory

Erik Erikson was a German psychoanalyst who devised psychosocial theory from clinical and naturalistic observation and the analysing of biographies of famous men. Erikson believed the environment that young people grow up in helps to shape their identities. This coupled with the attributes and characteristics genetically inherited from parents gives us our ‘core identity.’??????????????? There are eight stages of identity development a person must negotiate. These stages are divided into age ranges that are not rigid, and range from birth to late adulthood. Each stage is further divided into a positive
The result will hopefully be a secure feeling of who and what one is; a term named ‘ego identity.’ If this isn’t achieved the youth is said to be in a state of ‘role diffusion.’ Adolescence is also viewed as a time of psychosocial moratorium. During this period a young person can delay the transition to adulthood and experiment with different identities until they find a favourable one. It has been observed that some young people cannot progress to adulthood due to experiencing an ‘identity crisis.’ This theory also suggests that cohesion within a group is important to the development of identity. If a young person is feeling a loss of identity then they can become nasty towards members of a different group for the most arbitrary of reasons. James Marcia, a clinical psychologist, devised a method of measuring Erikson’s theory. This took the form of the Identity Status
An individual will adopt the behaviours and attitudes that they believe define the groups to which they belong. They then behave in a manner considered stereotypical of that group. Tajfel believed that we are drawn towards membership of a group that has a positive image and high status compared to other groups. If it is not possible to join such a group individuals can use ‘social mobility’ to try and improve their position. Alternatively, if changing to a particular social group is not always possible then people can opt for ‘social change.’ There are two methods of securing social change – via ‘social creativity’ and/or ‘social competition.’ Social creativity seeks to improve the status of the group by encouraging a more favourable impression or by trying to appear superior by comparing the group to one of a lower standing. Social competition strives to change the rules regarding how social groups are thought of. Tajfel used the ‘experimental method’ to test his theories. The conclusion of one of the studies, now considered a classic, was that people will feel a solidarity with others they consider to be in the same group will discriminate against members of other groups, even when the groups are explicitly random and