Other Areas of Identity Development

In addition to gender, sexual, and racial-ethnic identities, developmental psychologists have researched multiple other areas of identity development. Some of the main areas include:

• Vocational identity. While adolescents in earlier generations envisioned themselves as working in a particular job, and often worked as an apprentice or part-time in such occupations as teenagers, this is rarely the case today. Vocational identity takes longer to develop, as most of today’s occupations require specific skills and knowledge that will require additional education or are acquired on the job itself. In addition, many of the jobs held by teens are not in occupations that most teens will seek as adults. Rapid changes in the nature of employment, and the fact that most adults will hold multiple jobs over their working lives, also suggest that this identity may be re-negotiated several times over the lifespan.
• Religious identity. Adolescence is a time when teens normatively question their participation in religious practices. At the same time, most teens end up adopting religious views that are similar to those of their families (Kim-Spoon et al., 2012). Most teens may question specific customs, practices, or ideas in the faith of their parents, but few completely reject the religion of their families.
• Political identity. The political ideology of teens is also influenced by their parents’ political beliefs. A new trend in the 21st century is a decrease in party affiliation among adults. Many adults do not align themselves with either the Democratic or Republican parties but view themselves as more of an “independent.” Their teenage children are often following suit or become more apolitical (Côtè, 2006). Trends in voting among young adults suggest that most of them are questioning whether it is meaningful to participate in the current political system.
• Negative identity. A negative identityis the adoption of norms and values that are the opposite of one’s family and culture, and it is assumed to be one of the more problematic outcomes of identity development in young people (Hihara et al., 2019). Those with a negative identity hold dichotomous beliefs, and consequently divide the world into two categories (e.g., friend or foe, good or bad). Hihara et al. suggest that this may be because teens with a negative identity cannot integrate information and beliefs that exist in both their inner and outer world. In addition, those with a negative identity are generally hostile and cynical toward society, often because they do not trust the world around them. These beliefs may lead teens to engage in delinquent and criminal behavior and prevent them from engaging in more positive prosocial acts that could be beneficial to society
• Disability identity: Individuals with disabilities often integrate their disability into their sense of self. Gibson (2006) proposed a model of disability identity development in which children being with a passive awareness of their disability, continued by the realization that they have a disability during which time they may have negative feelings about themselves and their disabilities. In adulthood, individuals may accept their disability and rather than see it as a deficit, they integrate themselves into the able-bodied world.