What is it about?
Many adolescents around the world face issues of identity, and ask themselves questions as who they are as students, friends, or what they want to be when they grow up. However, adolescents differ from each other in the extent to which they are occupied by these questions, or know their answers. We examined the factors that contribute to these differences between 11-year-old adolescents, and found that both environmental factors (such as friends) and genetic factors influence processes of identity formation.
Featured Image
Why is it important?
The concept of identity was previously referred to and examined from a social perspective. We show that the processes of identity formation have genetic origins as well. This should change how we think and explore identity processes during adolescents, as future studies should look for the biological mechanisms in the basis of identity processes.
Perspectives
More and more studies show us that almost any psychological trait has a significant genetic origin. We hope that this work will demonstrate that even a concept that was only thought of from a social point of view could have a biological basis. Furthermore, we hope that this will contribute to the perspective that in order to truly understand psychological traits, the biological mechanisms behind them should be studied as well.
Noam Markovitch
Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Identity exploration and commitment in early adolescence: Genetic and environmental contributions., Developmental Psychology, November 2017, American Psychological Association (APA),
DOI: 10.1037/dev0000318.
You can read the full text:
Contributors
The following have contributed to this page
