Adolescence is known as the “crucible of change” because of the myriad developmental challenges and tasks associated with this age of human development. Issues of self and identity, awareness of the opinions of others, sexuality, physical growth, appearance, dress, and other challenges confront the developing adolescent. Erik Erikson’s Life Cycle Theory presents a task at each stage of development. These stages overlap one another, but each of them contains a goal or task that must be resolved by the individual in order to mature in a healthy manner. At each stage or phase of development, the individual is faced with issues and challenges that must be resolved before he or she can move onto the next phase of development in a psychologically healthy manner, Erikson labeled these “psychosocial crises” (Weiten, 1989, 411).
In Erikson’s framework, the typical adolescent is categorized in Stage Five, where Identity versus Role Confusion are the main tasks with the following psychological issues:
The adolescent is newly concerned with how they appear to others.
Ego identity is the accrued confidence that the inner sameness and continuity prepared in the past are matched by the sameness and continuity of one’s meaning for others, as evidence in the promise of a career.
The inability to settle on a school or occupational identity is confusing.
The result of not winning the battle of identity versus role confusion is to become diffuses of self. In other words, one goes around being what he perceives others expect him to be than being his own identity to all. Often, the adolescent at this age becomes confuses or settles for a negative identity such as class clown or some other negative role. In effect, this stage of development is an experimental one wherein the adolescent is experimenting with different personas in an effort to find out who he is and where he fits into the larger social structure. Family dy...