SELF-IDENTITY - THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN PROCESS AND CONTENT

Prior research has demonstrated that individuals differ in the ways in which they approach or manage to avoid the tasks of self-construction and reconstruction. This study was designed to investigate hypothesized relationships between identity processing styles and the nature of the self-attributes in terms of which self-identity is defined. Findings revealed that self-definitional emphases were associated with identity processing styles: informational subjects highlighted private self-elements, normative types emphasized collective self-content, and diffuse/avoiders focused on public self-components. The results are discussed in terms of a process view of identity development. (C) 1994 Academic Press, Inc.