Abstract
Future advances in identity research will depend on integration across major theoretical traditions. Developmental-contextualism has established essential criteria to guide this effort, including specifying the context of identity development, its timing over the life course, and its content. This article assesses four major traditions of identity research - identify status, eudaimonic identity, sociocultural theory, and narrative identity - in light of these criteria, and describes the contribution of each tradition to the broader enterprise of developmental-contextual research. This article proposes dialectical integration of the four traditions, for the purpose of generating new questions when the tensions and contradictions among theoretical traditions are acknowledged. We provide examples from existing literature of the kinds of research that could address these questions and consider ways of addressing the validity issues involved in developmental-contextual identity research.
Department
Kinesiology, Education, Family Studies
Publication Date
2017
Journal Title
Developmental Psychology
Publisher
American Psychological Association
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
Document Type
Article
Recommended Citation
Seaman, J., Sharp, E. H., & Coppens, A. D. (2017). A dialectical approach to theoretical integration in developmental-contextual identity research. Developmental Psychology, 53(11), 2023-2035. doi:10.1037/dev0000383
Comments
©APA, 2017. This paper is not the copy of record and may not exactly replicate the authoritative document published in the APA journal. Please do not copy or cite without author's permission. The final article is available, In Developmental Psychology, ISSN 1939-0599, https://dx.doi.org/10.1037/dev0000383.