The period between the age of eighteen and twenty-four is one of the most important phases of human development--the passage from adolescence into adulthood which encompasses numerous choices about personal identity. Although much of the research on which theories of development have been based has been conducted in the West it is universally recognized that culture has an enormous impact on developmental processes. Different cultures have completely different expectations and offer different ranges of choices to the emerging adult. In this period the adolescent becomes autonomous, separating gradually from her/his parents. Gender identity stabilizes, moral judgment matures as value orientations become firmer, careers are chosen, and the individual passes through a crisis of identity in which s/he either chooses an identity or remains in a state of identity confusion in which the process of experimenting with different roles is over-extended. Unfortunately, in addition to all the variables (gender, cultural expectations, opportunities) that are involved in the transition from child to adult circumstances can sometimes arise that force the crisis on the individual in a manner that calls for immediate choice and does not allow for the usual freedom to experiment or imagine oneself in a variety of roles prior to coming to a decision. A serious family crisis, for example, can force a person--as it did me--to behave like those whose identity status is called "normative" while, had circumstances permitted, this might not have been the case at all. But in adopting a normative stance my behavior was conditioned in part by social expectations, by emotional needs (mine and those of others), by gender, and, perhaps, by the relief of a potential candidate for the procrastinating diffuse/avoidant status to have things, at least temporarily, decided for her.
When I was nearly seventeen I lived with my family in Teheran--my parents and my...