The promise of leveraging social identities in interventions to enhance the well-being and lives of adolescents

Abstract

Identity development is theorized to be a cornerstone of adolescence. An abundance of evidence has documented the significance of specific social identities (e.g., ethnic-racial or sexual identity) in the adjustment of adolescents. Research has found that youth who have explored their social identities and have more positive views of their social groups are likely to adjust more successfully across many developmental outcomes. Given evidence documenting the importance of social identities, in this article, we argue that identities should be leveraged to promote positive adjustment, particularly among youth experiencing marginalization. We present a theoretically driven rationale for why social identities should be considered assets that provide opportunities for intervention to improve youth's lives. We also describe two interventions that efficaciously targeted social identity development and demonstrated positive effects on adjustment. We close with directions for research and implementation and a call to invest in this important work.