The aim of this study is effect of gender on the development of identity and also to find out the positive or negative correlation between identity confusion and psychiatric symptoms.
Adolescent mean that significant development in the biology, psychology and sociology area. During these periods, adolescent has to be adapting this development and has to find meaningful identities for them. Shaping of identities actually continue during the end of life but most critical period is the puberty .Make a decision about identities is the difficult for the person, Marcia mentioned that adolescent has to choose statuses for their identity (identity diffusion, foreclosure, moratorium, and achievement)
Until this time, there are many researches about effects of gender on developing identity. In some findings, the result is not significant (Koker 1997, Varan 1992), on the other hand in some findings the result was significant (Erikson 1968, Baflkan 2000). Developing of the identity has the many functions, but the most important one is the gender (Erikson 1968). Jones and Streitmatter (1987) believed that boy has the more frequent identity diffusion than the girls. In contrast Koker (1997) and Varan (1992) said that there is no difference between the genders while they are developing the identities.
There were 138 male adolescents from vocational high school and 76 female adolescents from vocational high school. A socio-demographic questionnaire, the Symptom Check List, and the Sense of Identity Assessment Form were given to participants. In this sample, girls had 23.7% identity confusion and the boys 12.3% identity confusion, so that total scores in girls were significantly higher than boys.
There are some limitations in this research. Firstly, we selected the participants who are at the late adolescent, the ending of these period changes from person the person that is the problem. Other limitation was about the culture. The culture has a big impact on identities, we chose the participant only from Turkey so we cannot generalize for all late adolescent, and finally they did not care effect of family on the identity.
As a conclusion, psychiatric problems in girls were significantly higher than boys. This study suggests that female adolescents are more likely to have identity confusion and psychiatric symptoms than male adolescents. Moreover, it is also suggested that there can be a positive correlation between psychiatric symptoms and identity confusion.
Türkbay, T., Özcan, C., Doruk, A., Sekmen, K., Ergenlerde Kimlik Bocalaması Üzerine Cinsiyetin Etkisi, Ankara Çocuk ve Gençlik Ruh Sağlığı Dergisi, 12 (2), 2005
Makaleyi özetleyen: Betül Uzun
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