Identity status among adolescents and young adults in relation to self-esteem and perceived social support

Abstract

One is the most important function of identity is beside the role in self-determination process,  how ones person behave in interpersonal and social context (Baumeister, 1986). During the identity forming process the role of reference groups and significant others become to increrase. Their social support as psychosocial resources could promote the identity forming process (Kaplan, Cassel, & Gore, 1977). The identity in adolescence could influence young people future orientation, self-esteem, and could determine the attitudes towards social contexts (Szabó, 2010).

The aim of the reseach is one hand to determine the identity status of 9-10th grade adolescents and 1st year BA students, and second hand to explore the relationship between identity status, self –esteem and perceived social support. Subjects had to fill in Rosenberg Self Esteem Scale (Sallay, Martos, Földvári, Szabó & Ittzés, 2014), EOM-EIS-II- Interpersonal Subscale (Bennion & Adams, 1986, in hungarian Biegelbauer, 2003; Szabó, 2003) and Multidimensional Perceived Social Support Scale (Papp- Zipernovszky, Kékesi & Jámbori, 2017).

Our results demonstrated that the higher level of self-esteem and the higher level of support from friends and from significant others could promote identity achieving. Controversly identity diffusion correlate with lower level of self-esteem, significantly lower level of social support from friends and significant others. Our study prove convicingly the relevance of self-esteem and social support among adolescents and young adults in identity forming process and to achieve identity.