Contributions of Family Relationship Factors to the Identity Formation Process

Abstract

This study tested the proposition that family relationship variables would be related in predictable ways to ego identity status. The authors administered measures of parental attachment, psychological separation, and ego identity status to 174 students from a large northeastern state university. The results indicated that women who experience greater parental attitudinal dependence and attachment and a modest degree of conflictual independence from mother tend to evidence more identity foreclosure and identity achievement and less diffusion. In addition, women who experience some degree of attachment to mother and attitudinal independence from mother are most likely to avoid diffusion, foreclosure, and moratorium. Men who experience parental attitudinal independence are likely to be in the diffusion or moratorium statuses and not in the identity‐achieved and foreclosure statuses.