Explaining Differences in Identity Styles: Possible Roles of Personality and Family Functioning

There are stylistic differences in the manner in which late adolescents approach or manage to avoid the tasks of constructing and revising their sense of identity. This study investigated the role that family functioning and personality variables may play in explaining variation in the adoption of these identity processing styles among late adolescent college students. The findings indicated that personality, but not family functioning, variables accounted for significant unique variation in informational and diffuse-avoidant identity style scores. Although personality variables accounted for variation in normative identity style scores, family functioning variables also made a significant contribution even after the variance explained by personality was controlled. The possible roles of personality and family functioning in identity style formation are discussed.