OBJECTIVE To examine longitudinal associations among stressful life events and identity processess in emerging adults while accounting for within-person and between-person effects. BACKGROUND Theoretical perspectives suggest that stressful life events may impact one's identity (i.e., coherent sense of self), but few studies have considered how changes in stressful life events are associated with changes within an individual's identity development over time (within-person effects). METHODS Recent stressful life events (i.e., academic problems, friendship problems, romantic problems, and time pressure) and the processes through which identity develops (e.g., exploring in breadth and depth) were examined longitudinally (T1-T3) in a sample of emerging adults (N = 1125, Mage = 17.96 years). RESULTS Random-intercept cross-lagged modeling demonstrated that at the between-person level, emerging adults with greater academic and friendship problems, as well as more time pressures (relative to their counterparts), tended to engage in greater ruminative exploration. Further, those with more academic problems tended to demonstrate weaker commitment-making and exploration in breadth and depth (relative to their counterparts). Within-person increases in romantic problems predicted lower commitment-making and higher ruminative exploration over time. CONCLUSION Findings suggest that romantic problems may predict within-person changes in identity processes, whereas academic problems, friendship problems, and time pressure may be more concurrently related to identity development.

中文翻译：

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新兴成年人最近的压力生活事件和身份发展：对人内影响的检查。


目的 研究新兴成年人的压力生活事件和身份过程之间的纵向关联，同时考虑人内和人与人之间的影响。背景理论观点表明，压力生活事件可能会影响一个人的身份（即连贯的自我意识），但很少有研究考虑压力生活事件的变化如何与个人身份发展随时间的变化（人内效应）相关。方法 在新兴群体样本中纵向（T1-T3）检查最近的压力生活事件（即学业问题、友谊问题、浪漫问题和时间压力）以及身份发展的过程（例如，广度和深度的探索）。成人（N = 1125，法师 = 17.96 岁）。结果随机截取交叉滞后模型表明，在人与人之间的层面上，具有更大学术和友谊问题以及更多时间压力（相对于同龄人）的新兴成年人往往会进行更多的沉思探索。此外，那些学术问题较多的人往往在广度和深度上表现出较弱的承诺和探索（相对于他们的同行）。随着时间的推移，人体内浪漫问题的增加预示着承诺的减少和沉思探索的增加。结论 研究结果表明，浪漫问题可能预示着身份过程中的个人内部变化，而学业问题、友谊问题和时间压力可能更同时与身份发展相关。