Extension Models of Marcia’s Identity Status Paradigm

Abstract

 Within the field of psychology, the nature and the process of development of identity and other related concepts like self and self-identity have attracted many researchers over decades. Studies began with Freud’s early writings and they were popularised by Erikson’s (1950, 1968) theoretical expositions. The work of Marcia (1966, 1980) was the first neo-Eriksonian identity model that operationalises Erikson’s work. Both Cote and Levine (1988) and van Hoof (1999) construed identity status model as an excessively narrow conceptualisation of identity and called for the extension as well as expansion of identity status model. Consequently, a number of alternative models of identity have begun to come forth since 1987. The alternative identity models are divided into two categories: The extension models and the expansion models. Extension models are those models that largely complement identity status paradigm model rather than diverging from it or reconceptualising it. Expansion models are those models that may include identity status framework as a component, but go far beyond Marcia’s identity status paradigm in their scope and coverage. Using these definitions, in the current paper extension models proposed by Berzonsky (1989a), Grotevant (1987; with extensions by Kerpelman, Pittman, and Lamke, 1997), and Waterman (1990) have been discussed.