The influence of theoretically prominent family processes on late adolescent college student identity development was the focus of this study. The primary purpose was to test a model of adolescent identity development. This model proposed that family health variables would predict identity development, and that attachment and separation-individuation would each make unique and additive contributions to identity development. The second purpose was to identify instruments which discretely measured the family processes. The third purpose was to better understand family influences by measuring the processes of exploration and commitment. Participants were 150 male and 150 female college students, between the ages of 18 and 23, and from intact families. Questionnaires completed measured family functioning and identity development. Family functioning measures covered three domains (family health, attachment to parents, and separation-individuation) which formed the set of independent variables. The identity measures (ego identity status and identity process) comprised the dependent variables. A hierarchical regression design was employed where family health variables were entered first, followed by attachment variables, then separation-individuation variables. The results indicated mixed support of the model. First, the proposed model was statistically supported for females as all domains predicted identity achievement and diffusion. For males, only family health predicted identity achievement, and only separation-individuation predicted identity diffusion. Other important findings were that the attachment and separation-individuation domains both assessed forms of connectedness, suggesting only one domain. Thus, the separation-individuation component of the model was not supported. Second, similarity of attitudes consistently predicted identity achievement, diffusion, exploration, and commitment. Third, despite the use of rigorous criteria to obtain discrete scales representative of the theoretical constructs, overlap was discovered within and across domains. The roles of similarity of attitudes between adolescent and parent, and the family environments associated with identity achievement, diffusion, exploration, and commitment are discussed. In addition, methodological and measurement issues, limitations of the study, and implications for future research are examined.

M.A. / This study looks at how our identities are communally formed and shaped within various contexts. It considers how such interaction can create a sense of self that could potentially shift, remain the same or become "stuck" in our experiences of connectiondisconnection. Modernism and postmodernism as two of the main ways of understanding our world/s are considered in positioning this research instance. Furthermore, the field of community psychology and some community psychological models are discussed along with the underlying principles of each. This study looks at identity-formation from a post-modern perspective and assumptions are based on ideas from the field of social constructionism. Such assumptions include the following notions: That our sense of self are manifestations of relationships; that we have multiple possible selves relative to the context; that our identities are evolving products of history and that our sense of belonging and of being separate are elements of identity. Ideas around "mental illness", the treatment system and the labelling of the "mentally ill" are also considered in the processes of identity formation. The aim of this study is to look at all the abovementioned elements in the process of coconstructing a healing community with chronic psychiatric patients, so that, the ways in which we look at ourselves as well as others in the world, could include wider healing self-definitions.

Faculty of Humanities Department of Psychology Date: 29 May 2017 / The transition to higher education is a complex period for most youth that challenges them to constantly negotiate their identities. In the university campus, students interact and socialize with students from diverse cultural backgrounds and they are confronted with reflecting on their existing attitudes, beliefs, values and behaviours. The current study aims to understand how different cultural values and beliefs may influence the personal identity of students in a multicultural university. This study employed a qualitative research approach. The study employed an interpretive research design which entailed conducting semi-structured, individual interviews to collect data. The participants were 6 second year students enrolled in the Humanities faculty, who were purposely selected at the University of the Witwatersrand. Thematic analysis was employed in analysing the data. The specific thematic analysis method employed was interpretative phenomenological analysis, in which the focus was on understanding how students make sense of the experience regarding being in contact with other students from diverse backgrounds. The findings of the study show that students identify with different social structures, thus maintaining multiple identities in diverse setting of the university. These identities are found to be dominant in contexts in which they are established. The findings show that students maintain a positive self-concept, which is contributory to how they adjust and find belonging in the university environment. Belonging was found to occur within the student cultures inherent in the university setting, such as leisure activities, religious involvement, and other activities of entertainment on campus. Religion emerged as the dominant influence on the personal identity of the majority of the participants; however, other students highlighted other social structures as contributory factors as compared to religion. Parental involvement and childhood experiences continue to influence students' negotiation of a personal identity in the university campus. In conclusion, based on the findings of the study, it is clear that students embrace the diversity within the university campus, while maintaining connections with identities that existed prior their time spent in university. This is a clear demonstration of the continuity in identity formation and belonging in the social setting of Higher Education. / MT2018

University of the Witwatersrand A dissertation submitted in fulfillment of the requirements for the award of the degree of Master of Arts by Coursework in the Department of Social Anthropology July 5, 2016 / There is a culture arising among young people in Swaziland that believes that to be young and Swazi is an ephemeral, temporary, and directionless existence, and having sex and ‘partying like a Swazi’ is desired, celebrated and the fashion. I illustrate that this construction is a reaction to the banal, routine and regulation of their social spaces. Furthermore, in addition to the spaces being limited in number, imbued within each are structures and routines that reproduce discourses that privilege performances surrounding their normative behaviour and development (including the development of their sexualities). As a result, Swazi society has excluded young people from being active agents in the very discourses that govern and inform their lives, status, agency and citizenship. Drawing from a phenomenological analysis of WhatsApp conversations combined with fieldwork in Swaziland, this dissertation explores the locality of digital space via WhatsApp in the landscape of the lives of Swazi young. The data illustrated that digital space is residual and resistive, as a reaction to the regulated and restricted spaces in their lives, in digital space young people enact performances of masculinity, secrecy and morality. As well as determined values systems and currencies around sex (and sexual status), vis a vis the exchange of social capital (nude and semi nude photos)- all of which are inherently self destructive. Lastly, in their resistance, Swazi young people are the local agents of their self-destruction / MT2017

Only The Body Remembers is a collection of poems, lyric essays, and short stories that explore several subjects, including love (both romantic and familial), loss, grief, sexuality, identity, and obsession. The primary thematic thread that binds this collection together is somatic memory -- the way the body records experiences, and the strong emotional charge these recorded experiences carry. / Includes bibliography. / Thesis (M.F.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2017. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

This mixed methods sequential research study was performed to explore the role of identity in posttraumatic growth and psychological adjustment for adults with cancer. One hundred nineteen individuals participated in an online survey which included items from Brief COPE, Mini-Mental Adjustment to Cancer (Mini-MAC), Brief Illness Perception Questionnaire (BIPQ), Sense of Coherence Scale - 3 items (SOC-3), Posttraumatic Growth Inventory (PTGI), Illness Intrusiveness Ratings Scale (IIRS), and Centrality of Event Scale (CES). A two-step cluster analysis divided the sample into two clusters based on the integration of cancer into identity: High Cancer Identity Cluster (cancer identity scores above M) with strong cancer identity and Low Cancer Identity Cluster (scores below the M) with a weak or absent cancer identity. HCIC yielded positive and negative subgroups. A discriminant analysis revealed which variables are significant predictors of group membership: PTG factor New Possibilities (Wilks'l = .781, F (1, 119) = 32.834, p = .000), Psychological Adjustment factor Anxious Preoccupation (Wilks' l= .863, F (1, 119) = 18.612, p = .000), Illness Intrusiveness factor Intimate Relationships (Wilks' l= .794, F (1, 119) = 30.348, p = .000), and Illness Perception factor Perceived Life Impact of Cancer (Wilks' l= .783, F (1, 119) = 32.412, p = .000). From the sample, 17 individuals and spouses/partners were interviewed to obtain a deeper understanding of the lived experience of cancer. Qualitative themes of suffering, woundedness, and uncertainty were found. Narrative data corroborated the quantitative data and contributed depth to the analysis. A new Cancer Identity Process Model was offered in which assimilative and accommodative efforts are informed by identity structures. / Performing Normalcy is an assimilative process in which stressful life events such as cancer activate automatic behaviors guided by existing identity structures with the goal of reg As dissonance grows over the inability to re-establish valued former identities, negative affect and intrusive rumination prevails. Individuals then utilize accommodative strategies in a process of Constructing Survivorship to either regain valuable aspect of former identities or to create equally valued new ones. / by Barbara E. Abernathy. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2009. / Includes bibliography. / Electronic reproduction. Boca Raton, Fla., 2009. Mode of access: World Wide Web.

Self-concept stability was tested in three studies to examine the relationship between stability in one's self-concept and the ability to adapt to changes in the social environment. Much of the literature on the topic of self-stability emphasizes the functional benefits of stability and the negative outcomes associated with instability. Dynamical systems theory purports however that stability in a dynamical system is indicative of a loss of complexity that limits the range of the systems behavior. Accordingly, this series of studies tests the idea that a stable self-system may have a more limited range of behaviors than unstable self-systems and this may have implications for adapting to changes in one's social environment. The overarching hypothesis is that compared to those with less stable self-views, those with stable self-views will demonstrate lower levels of flexibility of behavior in response to changing social demands. Study 1 assessed the dynamics of participants' evaluations by asking them to complete a self-descriptive recording and evaluate their self-descriptions using the mouse paradigm procedure. Participants also completed a series of questionnaires assessing personality factors and behavioral and cognitive flexibility. Study 2 expanded on the first study by adding a well-validated measure of self-esteem stability and a social conceptualization of behavioral flexibility. Study 3 tested participants' willingness to demonstrate behavioral flexibility in an actual social situation and examined the effects of stress on the relationship between stability and flexibility. / Results suggest that those with more stable self-concepts demonstrate less flexibility in response to their social environment than those whose self-concepts are less stable and that stress tends to amplify this relationship. Future research is also recommended to achieve a fuller understanding of stability in the self-system and its implications for social functioning. / by Susan L. Wiese. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2010. / Includes bibliography. / Electronic reproduction. Boca Raton, Fla., 2010. Mode of access: World Wide Web.

I am living in a world of strangers. Growing up, I was told to never talk to them. As an adult, I have grown self-centered, spending my days filtering the external into my own internal truths. In doing so, a boundary has been set between my brain and everything beyond it. For different reasons I have stayed quiet over the years, and formed opinions of strangers by means of observation; but now, finally, I am reaching out. I am going to places I would not normally go to, slowing down enough to notice, and trying something different. I am trying to talk to strangers, trying to get them to open up to me in a world where a lot of us have curled the focus inward. I am trying to explore, trying to overcome, approach, dig deeper, and above all, learn something that makes each one of us familiar. / Kelly Ann Gregorio. / Thesis (M.F.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2011. / Electronic reproduction. Boca Raton, Fla., 2011.

A self-discrepancy is a cognitive incompatibility between a conception of the desired self and the perception of the actual self (Higgins, 1987; Rogers & Dymond, 1954). The purpose of this dissertation is to gain a better understanding of the effects of gender self-discrepancies on the personal and social adjustment of preadolescent children. I propose that gender-related stereotypes and self-appraisals can be examined within a self-discrepancy framework. Preadolescent children (N=195) completed a variety of self- and peer-report questionnaires in the fall and spring of the school year. Children reported gender stereotypes and self-appraisals for four attributes (body image, athletics, dominance, and popularity). Measures of gender identity and of adjustment were also collected. Results suggested that children who possess a gender self discrepancy are at risk for maladjustment, especially internalizing difficulties and victimization by both girls and boys. / Includes bibliography. / Dissertation (Ph.D.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2014. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

Professional service entrepreneurs (PSEs) paradoxically practice their profession in highly institutionalized contexts which require significant socialization, while at the same time enacting their role as an entrepreneur. Some activities consistent with entrepreneurship may be unnecessary for—and possibly even contradictory with— activities consistent with professional roles. In this dissertation, I addressed the questions of how two highly central role identities (professional and entrepreneurial) related to entrepreneurial orientation (EO) in professional service practices, and how EO influences performance in the context of professional practices. Using a sample of 139 physicians, I examined the relationships between the role identity centrality of two primary roles (professional and entrepreneurial) that PSEs occupy, the EO of their firms, and firm performance. This study utilized a mixed methods design, consisting of both a questionnaire and semi-structured interviews administered to a sample of professionals who own professional practice firms in the southeastern region of Florida. Findings suggest a significant and positive relationship between entrepreneurial role identity centrality and entrepreneurial orientation and a marginally significant and negative moderation of entrepreneurial role identity centrality upon the relationship between professional role identity centrality and EO. A qualitative study served to elaborate on the findings of the quantitative study, and revealed the potential of very unique understandings of the intersection of entrepreneurship and professional practice across a selection of physicians. / Includes bibliography. / Dissertation (Ph.D.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2014. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection