The instability of possible selves: identity processes within late adolescents' close peer relationships

Understanding how identities emerge and stabilize within the context of interpersonal relationships is an important issue in identity research. Seventy-six late adolescents and their peer partners participated in a laboratory study that focused on the possible selves tied to anticipated career, marriage, and parenthood roles. Control theory (people work to maintain existing identities) and the concept of psychosocial moratorium (identity exploration involves actively "trying on" different selves) were integrated to explain identity construction processes. Consistent with notions of exploration and commitment, emerging self-definitions for highly desired possible selves were unstable. Consistent with control theory, stable self-definitions for anticipated selves occurred when adolescents were committed to avoiding the role. The relationship context mattered only minimally for the adolescents' exploration activities. The behavior of peer partners, however, made it more likely that adolescents would engage in identity exploration of highly important possible selves. The integration of control theory with the concept of psychosocial moratorium offers explanations for the emergence of new identities and their ultimate stabilization.