{"id":28394,"date":"2019-03-29T16:27:19","date_gmt":"2019-03-29T20:27:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/?p=28394"},"modified":"2019-03-06T23:50:08","modified_gmt":"2019-03-07T04:50:08","slug":"study-looks-at-what-early-adulthood-can-tell-us-about-midlife-identity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/2019\/03\/study-looks-at-what-early-adulthood-can-tell-us-about-midlife-identity\/","title":{"rendered":"Study looks at what early adulthood can tell us about midlife identity"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>From the University of Jyv\u00e4skyl\u00e4 &#8211; Jyv\u00e4skyl\u00e4n yliopisto press release:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p id=\"first\" class=\"lead\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-9609\" src=\"http:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/menopause_woman.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"209\" \/><strong>Identity formation is a major developmental task in adolescence but continues throughout adulthood<\/strong>. Significant individual differences, however, emerge. The long-term role of personal styles for predicting identity stability and change during midlife at ages 36, 42 and 50 was assessed in a longitudinal study of Finnish women and men.<\/p>\n<div id=\"text\">\n<p>Personality styles identified at age 27 were defined as an organized whole of an individual&#8217;s personality characteristics, life attitudes, and everyday activities. <strong>Identity differences emerged between the personal style clusters across ages for both women and men<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p><strong>In women, the Individuated group with high intellectual interests and extensive education had consistently high identity achievement scores, while the more conventional, family-oriented female group, called Traditionals, was characterized by identity foreclosure in young adulthood.<\/strong> These differences leveled off by age 50. Identity achievement remained low throughout adulthood in the conflicted female group called the Brittles.<\/p>\n<p><strong>In men, ego resilience combined with high reflectiveness and positive life attitudes was associated with high identity achievement.<\/strong> Against expectations, at the opposite pole identity stagnation emerged in Overcontrolled men, defined as adaptive and socially well integrated at age 27.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Their high introversion and low reflectiveness seemed to be detrimental to optimal identity development,&#8221; explains Dr. P\u00e4ivi Fadjukoff from University of Jyv\u00e4skyl\u00e4.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The most ambiguous identity patterns emerged in the conflicted, the Undercontrolled male group, characterized at age 27 by externalizing problems, high exploration, and low conscientiousness.<\/strong> Their positive trend of rapid identity achievement increase up to age 42 was abruptly replaced by a sudden reverse trend toward higher diffusion by age 50.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Future research is needed to elaborate and substantiate this finding. The undercontrolled men may be specifically vulnerable to environmental changes such as economic circumstances,&#8221; Dr. Fadjukoff ponders. &#8220;Thus, our research highlights distinctive challenges in both the undercontrolled and overcontrolled groups. A strong sense of identity is an important element of wellbeing and should also be supported in adulthood.&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on the_content --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on the_content -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>From the University of Jyv\u00e4skyl\u00e4 &#8211; Jyv\u00e4skyl\u00e4n yliopisto press release: Identity formation is a major developmental task in adolescence but continues throughout adulthood. Significant individual differences, however, emerge. The long-term&#8230; <a class=\"read-more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/2019\/03\/study-looks-at-what-early-adulthood-can-tell-us-about-midlife-identity\/\">Read more &raquo;<\/a><!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[340],"tags":[32,12],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28394"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28394"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28394\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28439,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28394\/revisions\/28439"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28394"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28394"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28394"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}