Story Sharing and Female Adolescent Faith Development :: Essays Papers

Story Sharing and Female Adolescent Faith DevelopmentAdolescence Women in Crisis According to developmental psychologist Erik Erikson, the defining psychological crisis of adolescence is indistinguishability formation versus identity confusion (Erikson 1982). This involves defining what is most important to the individual in terms of ethics, long-term goals, and especially personal and interpersonal commitments. Erikson proposes three elements necessary for this formation an make out of inner sameness or consistency between values and self-determined actions, a historical continuity of such decisions, and a community of important others who serve to formalise that integrated self (1968). Ideally, self-confidence is evident for both genders during this period. However, the contrast between male and female commitments indicates that many females are non successful in forming a strong identity at this phase. To examine the varying commitments adolescents make during the identity fo rmation crisis period, a team of adolescent psychologists interviewed hundreds of middle and high school antique people of both sexes. Each participant was asked to record a few things that were most important in their lives (i.e. family, career goals, life philosophy), then the interviewers asked them to say to a greater extent round these themes. While the men mentioned subjects most pertinent to their own interests (school, political issues, and their futures), women focused mainly on interpersonal relationships. This alone whitethorn or may not indicate a gap in identity development, but the study indicated that women did not exclude talk of themselves and their lives, but rather spoke negatively about both Many older female subjects mentioned problems and ambivalence with regard to themselves (being uncertain and so on) and difficulties in committing themselves to the different aspects of their own personalities(Bosma 100). Why are they not committed to themselves? Perhaps they cannot not commit because they do not know to what they are committing. Neither are they committed to certain life philosophies that might tell their characters. In fact, religion was ranked one of the weakest commitments for older adolescent women. Do they honestly not care, or do they not know what to care about without the immediate feedback of others? In this light, the volatile nature of a womans attention to her own character may not be moodiness, then, but a deeper sense of despair at choosing to commit to something that might elicit a damaging critique from others. It is much safer to focus on something highly valued in the social world, like ones friends, than something that could be construed as selfish, like schoolwork or faith.