The student mental health crisis: Assessing psychiatric and developmental explanatory models.

INTRODUCTION: Student mental health problems are now commonly understood using a psychiatric model in which diagnosed anxiety and mood disorders are viewed to be so widespread as to constitute a crisis. Less attention is given to the role of developmental processes, such as identity formation and purpose, in understanding the types of distress current university students can experience. We fill this void by simultaneously assessing the effectiveness of both psychiatric and developmental variables in predicting how often students feel emotional distress in the form of frequently feeling too anxious, depressed, or overwhelmed to study. METHODS: Binary logit models were fitted to online survey data collected from a cross-sectional, nation-wide sample of 1010 Canadian full-time university students aged 18 to 24 (63% female). RESULTS: Our findings confirm that the psychiatric and developmental models both explain variance in academic distress. We also found that a developmental model operationalized using key measures of identity formation and purpose significantly accounted for academic distress, over and above variance explained by psychiatric diagnoses. In other words, not only do many students with a psychiatric diagnosis experience distress linked to problems with identity/purpose that interferes with studying, but so do a considerable proportion of students without any diagnosis. This impact persists after controlling for a host of variables assessing demographic/family background, academic preparation and performance, and a number of factors believed to aggravate emotional distress. CONCLUSIONS: Universities can respond to the mental health crisis by approaching some forms of distress as developmental problems associated with identity and purpose.

Manifesto for new directions in developmental science.

Although developmental science has always been evolving, these times of fast-paced and profound social and scientific changes easily lead to disorienting fragmentation rather than coherent scientific advances. What directions should developmental science pursue to meaningfully address real-world problems that impact human development throughout the lifespan? What conceptual or policy shifts are needed to steer the field in these directions? The present manifesto is proposed by a group of scholars from various disciplines and perspectives within developmental science to spark conversations and action plans in response to these questions. After highlighting four critical content domains that merit concentrated and often urgent research efforts, two issues regarding "how" we do developmental science and "what for" are outlined. This manifesto concludes with five proposals, calling for integrative, inclusive, transdisciplinary, transparent, and actionable developmental science. Specific recommendations, prospects, pitfalls, and challenges to reach this goal are discussed.

An examination of the cross-cultural validity of the Identity Capital Model: American and Japanese students compared.

The Identity Capital Model proposes that forms of personal agency are associated with identity development as part of the transition to adulthood. This model was examined in two cultural contexts, taking into account age and gender, among college and university students aged 18 to 24 (N = 995). Confirmatory Factor Analyses verified cultural, age, and gender invariance of the two key operationalizations of the model. A Structural Equation Model path analysis confirmed that the model applies in both cultures with minor variations-types of personal agency are associated with the formation of adult- and societal-identities as part of the resolution of the identity stage. It was concluded that forms of personal agency providing the most effective ways of dealing with "individualization" (e.g., internal locus of control) are more important in the transition to adulthood among American students, whereas types of personal agency most effective in dealing with "individualistic collectivism" (e.g., ego strength) are more important among Japanese students.

Comparing psychological and sociological approaches to identity: identity status, identity capital, and the individualization process.

Psychologists have been studying identity processes at the intrapsychic level that resemble what sociologists have noted at the macro-societal level. Specifically, using the identity capital model introduced in previous issues of this journal (Côté, Journal of Adolescence, 19, 419-430; 20, 421-437), we explore a link between the psychologically oriented identity status paradigm, and the sociologically oriented individualization theory. The primary link between these two disciplinary approaches appears to be that the individualization process can be operationalized in terms of agency in identity formation. The relationship between agency and identity formation has been recognized by identity status researchers for some time, but primarily in terminology referring to the intrapsychic level; hence, in some respects, identity status researchers anticipated individualization theory. This link was empirically investigated in three studies of ethnically diverse samples. It was concluded, with a high degree of replication, that the identity statuses representing identity confusion (Diffusion) and identity synthesis (Achievement) appear to represent forms of default and developmental individualization, respectively. This comparison of similar elements between psychological and sociological perspectives may yield a richer understanding of identity formation processes, and help to pave the way for future interdisciplinary research..