Committing to Meaningful Purpose in the Age of Identity Explorations: An Answer to the Emerging Adulthood Crisis

Abstract

The greatest amount of identity exploration takes place during the period of emerging adulthood. As such, emerging adults are engaged in the Eriksonian crisis of identity vs role confusion . This crisis is a state of internal tension that compels individuals to create a sense of continuity between their current understanding of themselves and the roles they will adopt in the future. Emerging adults who resolve this crisis successfully gain a coherent sense of identity and thereby achieve healthy, positive development into the next stage of life: adulthood. While emerging adults are provided more time for identity exploration than adolescents, to whom this psychosocial crisis was once limited, researchers have suggested that a significant proportion of them do not have a strong, committed sense of self by the time they reach 30— the age at which emerging adulthood is theoretically expected to end. Without commitment, the identity crisis is ongoing and the emerging adult’s sense of self is continually subject to change. Researchers have suggested that many emerging adults become stuck in a state of identity moratorium, which involves high levels of exploration with low levels of commitment. As a result, many emerging adults seem to be floundering, rather than flourishing, in this life stage. I propose in this dissertation that a new psychosocial crisis has been created in this developmental period, that of meaningful purpose vs aimlessness . This document explores how commitment to a sense of meaning in life and vocation seems to be the key to facilitating identity achievement.