Implications of identity resolution in emerging adulthood for intimacy, generativity, and integrity across the adult lifespan.

Erikson's psychosocial stage model posits that identity formation is a key developmental task for adolescents, and that successfully resolving the identity versus role confusion crisis at this time of life has important impacts on psychosocial development through adulthood. However, little empirical work has tested the consequences of early-life identity development for progression through the subsequent psychosocial stages in Erikson's model. The purpose of the present study was to test whether identity resolution measured during emerging adulthood predicted later developmental trajectories of intimacy, generativity, and integrity across adulthood. We used data from four cohorts of participants in the Rochester Adult Longitudinal Study (RALS; N = 1,224), with up to five assessments spanning the twenties through the sixties. Latent growth curve modeling was used to estimate developmental trajectories for intimacy, generativity, and integrity, and to test the association between emerging adulthood identity resolution and growth parameters for each psychosocial outcome. Findings suggested that individuals with higher emerging adulthood identity resolution also experienced high levels of intimacy, generativity, and integrity in emerging adulthood, and these levels remained consistently high across adulthood. In contrast, those with lower identity resolution in emerging adulthood experienced lower initial levels of intimacy, generativity, and integrity, but faster growth over time. As a result, these trajectories appeared to nearly converge by the time participants were in their sixties, suggesting that one's emerging adulthood identity has less importance over time, and that individuals who struggled more with identity formation in adolescence and emerging adulthood are able to make up for it later in life. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

A randomized trial of a lab-embedded discourse intervention to improve research ethics.

We report a randomized trial of a research ethics training intervention designed to enhance ethics communication in university science and engineering laboratories, focusing specifically on authorship and data management. The intervention is a project-based research ethics curriculum that was designed to enhance the ability of science and engineering research laboratory members to engage in reason giving and interpersonal communication necessary for ethical practice. The randomized trial was fielded in active faculty-led laboratories at two US research-intensive institutions. Here, we show that laboratory members perceived improvements in the quality of discourse on research ethics within their laboratories and enhanced awareness of the relevance and reasons for that discourse for their work as measured by a survey administered over 4 mo after the intervention. This training represents a paradigm shift compared with more typical module-based or classroom ethics instruction that is divorced from the everyday workflow and practices within laboratories and is designed to cultivate a campus culture of ethical science and engineering research in the very work settings where laboratory members interact.

Lay Conceptions of Volitional Personality Change: From Strategies Pursued to Stories Told.

Recent research suggests that individuals play an active role in their own personality development. Here, we investigated lay conceptions of this volitional personality change process. In Study 1, participants (N = 602) provided open-ended descriptions of their desired personality changes as well as the strategies they were using to achieve these changes. In Study 2, participants (N = 578) completed these same measures and provided narrative descriptions of the emergence of their desires for (and previous) personality changes. Desired changes were quantified in a manner consistent with the Five-Factor Model (though desires pertinent to Openness to Experience were rare), whereas reported strategies were distinguished on the basis of cognitive and behavioral content. Desires to increase in Extraversion corresponded negatively with the use of cognitive strategies and positively with the use of behavioral strategies, whereas desires to increase in Agreeableness exhibited the opposite pattern. Finally, desires for change were typically construed as stimulated by specific events, whereas previous personality changes were attributed to shifts in social roles. Laypersons hold a diverse range of desired changes and strategies. In addition, different categories of events are recognized as catalysts of desires for (and previous) changes.