Page No.337-344
Rituparna Basak and Anjali Ghosh
Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata
Identity formation is the primary developmental task that occurs during the period
of adolescence. The adolescent period consists of the exploration of various
identities and culminates with the commitment to one final identity. The objective
of the present paper is to study the relationship between different types of egoidentity statuses with self-esteem in different groups of male and female late
adolescents. The study also wants to see whether gender and location (ruralurban) has significant effect on identity status of late adolescents. The study
was conducted on college students selected from different districts of West
Bengal. Two measures have been used in this study namely, Extended Objective
Measure of Ego-identity Status and Rosenberg Self-esteem Scale. The correlation
analysis conducted between self-esteem and different types of identity statuses
revealed that those having high identity achievement status have high self-esteem,
especially in the areas of occupation and ideological belief for religion. On the
other hand, adolescents who are in crisis and not made commitment have low
self-esteem. The analysis also indicated that ego-identity status of students
differed with respect to gender and rural-urban location. This study contributed
to adolescent literature by exploring identity status and self-esteem in Indian
adolescents with emphasis to those living in West Bengal.