Identity status and emotion regulation in adolescence and early adulthood

Abstract

The article presents the results of a study investigating the links between emotion regulation and identity. The aim of this study was to explore the relationship between the two variables. On the basis of neo-eriksonian theories, an attempt to specify the role of emotion regulation in the process of identity formation was made. The study involved 849 people (544 women, 304 men) aged 14-25. The participants attended six types of schools: lower secondary school, basic vocational school, technical upper secondary school, general upper secondary school, post-secondary school, and university. The research was conducted with the use of two questionnaires: Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS) and Dimensions of Identity Development Scale (DIDS). The analysis of the results points to a partial confirmation of the assumed hypotheses about the differences between people with different identity statuses in respect of the six investigated dimensions of emotion regulation. Also, the hypotheses about the links between the dimensions of emotion regulation and dimensions of identity in the subgroups with different identity statuses were partially confirmed.