The average person encounters more than 60,000 words of new information every day. That’s about the length of a novel, says Businessweek. The depth and breadth of information available, especially through the Internet, is greater than ever before.
Youth growing up in this flood of information face the perpetual challenge of determining the ways in which it will inform and impact their understanding of who they are. Identity formation during the adolescent years involves sorting through various sources of influence and identification, negotiating which sources are to be disregarded and which help solidify their sense of who they want to become.
A similar process is involved in forming a spiritual identity. Our culture is awash in spiritual information, much of it conflicting. Creation of a healthy spiritual identity requires processing and evaluating this flood of spiritual information.
Identity theorists have provided helpful concepts and classifications that can assist adults as we help youth develop a healthy spiritual identity. Developmental psychologist James Marcia identified four identity statuses that characterize various stages of the journey toward identity development. (For more, see Andrew Evans’ article, “The Search for Identity: Understanding and Applying Theories on Identity and Faith Development.”)
In this article, we want to consider how these four identity statuses are impacted by another key facet of Marcia’s research, the two characteristics of identity development: exploration and commitment.
To Seek or Commit?
Marcia’s four identity statuses (diffusion, moratorium, foreclosure and achievement) have been supported by other research by Berzonsky and Adams (1999), while some researchers have focused on spiritual identity, such as Hunsberger, Pratt and Pancer (2001). Kiesling, et all (2008) confirmed that identity statuses apply to spiritual identity.
Let’s see how we can deepen our understanding of the four identity statuses by focusing on the two characteristics of identity development: exploration (the need to search out new sources of information and influence) and commitment (the ability to choose one influence over another).
The diffused identity status is characterized by lack of exploration and lack of commitment. The diffused individual avoids or procrastinates on the important task of identity construction. Anxiety, childhood wounding or a felt lack of competence may cause an adolescent to default on identity work, yielding easily to identity manipulation or defaulting in growing any faith convictions they might call their own. Hence, identity diffusion has been associated with decreased personal adjustment. Youth with a diffused spiritual identity status are largely uninterested in spiritual topics.
The foreclosed identity status is associated with commitment, but without any exploration. In foreclosure, the individual often has accepted and committed himself or herself to an identity defined by others. Foreclosed individuals have borrowed a commitment to particular spiritual beliefs, generally the beliefs of their parents, without critically evaluating those beliefs or exploring beyond the boundaries of those beliefs.
Youth with a foreclosed identity can appear highly committed to their faith, enjoying the approval of significant authority figures. However, not yet having arrived at a truly owned faith, the foreclosed may feel unstable or become rigid when thrust beyond a context that validates identity beliefs and lifestyle.
Moratorium, in contrast to foreclosure, is linked with increased exploration, but lacking commitment. Youth in moratorium have not yet made a firm commitment to any particular identity, including spiritual identity. If all truth claims come to be relativized, this may play out in the active exploration of other faiths and spiritual possibilities. In general, individuals in moratorium demonstrate less personal adjustment, coupled with increased doubt. This identity status often is associated with spiritual seeking.
The identity achievement status is characterized by exploration and commitment. Achieved individuals tend to demonstrate differentiation and integration. Spiritually, individuals with an achieved identity status know what they believe and why they believe it. They have wrestled with their faith, and have made a mature commitment. Achieved identity is associated with the highest levels of functioning and personal adjustment, exhibiting greater optimism, less depression and higher self-esteem.
The Search for Confirming and Disconfirming Information
Researchers have discovered a relationship between people’s identity status and their use of confirming and disconfirming information, predicting particular patterns in the way youth relate to spirituality.
For instance, youth in a diffused status avoid seeking any kind of information related to spirituality. Because there is neither exploration nor commitment, diffused youth’s attention is focused elsewhere. No real spiritual formation that would give shape to religious beliefs occurs in a diffused youth, and any spiritual practices they are exposed to remain external.
Not surprisingly, youth in a foreclosed identity status seek information, but only information that confirms their previously held spiritual beliefs. Meanwhile, foreclosed individuals actively avoid any information that might prove threatening to their spiritual beliefs. This can result in an unwillingness to learn from anyone outside their tribe, manifesting in an arrogance that offers little respect to those who differ. This may be indicative of a fear that such information may threaten their spiritual identity.
Moratorium is associated with the opposite pattern. Youth in moratorium seek information that challenges or disconfirms cherished religious beliefs, sometimes avoiding information that sounds too conventional, too traditional or too much like what someone else is telling them to believe. Youth in moratorium often disassociate from organized religion, elevating instead the importance of their own personal opinion, while not yet arriving on a coherent view or consistency in any particular practices.
Practically, we see moratorium acted out in the fascination many youth have for other faiths and spiritual activities, particularly in New Age and paranormal practices. Youth often will esteem information related to New Age beliefs over orthodox Christian beliefs. This can be seen, for instance, in teens who self-identify as Christian while also defending beliefs in karma or reincarnation.
Finally, youth with an achieved identity status report consulting confirming and disconfirming information. Achieved individuals have been willing to wrestle with information that confirms their beliefs, as well as evaluate information that threatens their beliefs. This willingness to engage the full range of possible information in the development of their spiritual identities and engage those who differ in their beliefs and lifestyle ultimately leads to an identity that is stronger and more resilient than youth who limit themselves to confirming information or who privilege information that is disconfirming primarily because it is not conventional.
From Theory to Practice
What does all this theory mean for youth ministry? We believe youth leaders need to be sensitive to the identity statuses and the information processing styles of the youth in their care.
Identity formation can be supported by providing opportunities to diversify a teen’s information processing strategies. However, each status has differing needs and direction, requiring careful discernment on the part of the youth worker. Healthy spiritual development generally requires a mixture of support and challenge. A youth coddled with only support may not develop a tested and owned faith. A youth challenged by disconfirming information but left without support may drift into dangerous beliefs.
Diffused youth may be awakened to explore spirituality by a youth worker who helps them feel understood and is willing to tend to wounded places from their past. Joining a diffused youth in activities in which they are accustomed to being passive and gently encouraging a processing of how they felt or what they liked may begin a process of identity exploration.
Youth in moratorium need to be encouraged to engage not only disconfirming information but confirming information, as well. Rather than focusing exclusively on why Christian beliefs may be wrong, they need to be encouraged to consider why they may be right and offered substantial reasons for belief and practice.
Youth in moratorium raise irreverent questions that need to be honored rather than pathologized. Youth workers are more likely to keep them involved not by stifling their explorations, but instead accompanying them on their explorations, and offering them guidance in sifting through disconfirming information.
Foreclosed youth need to be supported in considering and wrestling with disconfirming information. Because foreclosed youth may be especially apprehensive in doing this, they need mature adults who affirm their beliefs while at the same time reducing the threat that foreclosed youth may fear in disconfirming information.
Youth workers can demonstrate a willingness to hear and evaluate disconfirming messages and they can show an humble spirit toward those who possess different beliefs. Rather than shunning those whose lifestyle does not match Christian practice, they can be gracious and seek to understand behavior that deviates from what they espouse, without compromising core beliefs.
Healthy Exploration up Close
Here’s how these concepts are applied at St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church in Las Cruces, New Mexico. At this church, confirmation classes invite youth to examine a number of theological topics such as God, Jesus, human nature, sin, and salvation, and compare them with the beliefs of other religions, including Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, New Age and atheism. Each week, a different topic is studied, and orthodox Christian beliefs are compared with the beliefs of other religions.
When St. Andrew’s youth study Jesus, they first clearly delineate the Christian belief that Jesus is the Son of God, fully divine and fully human. Once the orthodox Christian belief has been explored, the beliefs of other religions are examined. For Jews, Jesus is not the Messiah. In Islam, Jesus is a prophet but is not God. Hinduism does not generally recognize Jesus. Some Buddhists consider Him to be an enlightened teacher, but not God. New Age believers often hold a similar view. Atheists do not believe Jesus is any different than one of us.
While some may fear this approach is dangerous, in our experience explicitly engaging youth in this process helps clarify orthodox Christian beliefs and clearly delineate Christianity from other faiths. Developmentally, this approach encourages healthy spiritual exploration while encouraging a deepening of one’s own faith convictions. Because exploration is encouraged in a safe environment, foreclosed youth are exposed to information they may otherwise have discarded as potentially too threatening to their faith. Youth in moratorium, who are now in a safe place and free to talk about what intrigues them about disconfirming information, are accompanied by those who can offer rationale for remaining committed to Christianity.
Healthy exploration also can be engaged through an examination of the historic creeds. Because the creeds often grew out of a need to respond to disconfirming information, they provide an opportunity to wrestle with confirming and disconfirming information.
Another means of encouraging healthy exploration is the use of mentoring. Wise mentors provide a further means of supporting youth as they explore their faith. A mentor who is secure in his or her own faith can engage and encourage youth in an examination and evaluation of positive and negative information. A wise mentor can encourage the foreclosed youth in their investigation of negative sources while at the same time providing a safety net in that exploration. Similarly, an astute mentor can model and encourage a youth in moratorium to engage positive sources of information and to move toward mature commitment.
A Timeless Challenge
Today’s teens may be swimming in more information than earlier generations, but Christians always have had to contend with confirming and disconfirming data. Scripture attests to this: Paul challenged the early Christians in Rome to take care in accepting worldly information, saying, “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect” (
Similarly, to the church in Colossae he wrote, “See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ” (
Youth will continue to be bombarded with information related to spirituality. To grow spiritually, youth need to be encouraged in healthy exploration of this information and supported as they make healthy commitments. Youth leaders can help by modeling appropriate exploration while demonstrating mature spiritual commitment.
Sources
Berzonsky, Michael D., and Gerald R. Adams. “Reevaluating the Identity Status Paradigm: Still Useful after 35 Years.” Developmental Review 19 (1999): 557-90.
Hunsberger, Bruce, Michael Pratt, and S. Mark Pancer. “Adolescent Identity Formation: Religious Exploration and Commitment.” Identity: An International Journal of Theory and Research (2001): 365-86.
Kiesling, Chris, et al. “Identity and Spirituality: A Psychosocial Exploration of the Sense of Spiritual Self.” Psychology of Religion and Spirituality 8.1 (2008): 50-62.
Marcia, James E. “Development and Validation of Ego-Identity Status.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 3.5 (1966): 551-58.
Grace La Torra is a D.Min. candidate at Asbury Theological Seminary, where she is writing her dissertation on the spiritual identities of individuals who hold Christian and New Age or paranormal beliefs. She is a youth leader at St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church.
Chris Kiesling is a professor of Human Development and Christian Discipleship at Asbury Theological Seminary. He is an ordained minister in the United Methodist Church.
