Identity diffusion
Low exploration and low commitment: no firm direction in work, values or relationships, and no active search for one.
What drives it
Avoids the anxiety of choosing and the risk of failing at something chosen. Often follows a chaotic or uninvolved upbringing in which there was nothing stable to identify with or push against.
How it shows
Work
Drifts between roles; "I'm open to anything"; takes on the identity of the current team or boss; can't state career goals; disengages when not directed. Feedback is accepted without much effect because there is no standard it lands against.
Relationships
Relationships shape them more than they shape relationships: adopts a partner's tastes, friends and plans; vague about what they want.
Self
When asked what you want, the honest answer is "I don't know and I'm not really looking", followed by relief when someone else decides.
What tells it apart
Identity moratorium: Moratorium is an active, often anxious search with research, trials and talk; diffusion is not searching.
Levels of personality organisation (Kernberg): Kernberg's 'identity diffusion' in borderline organisation means contradictory, split images of self and others; Marcia's diffusion is uncommitted but can be internally consistent.
Major depression: Depression drains energy from goals the person used to hold; diffusion never formed them, and mood may be fine.
A test
Ask what they have tried, considered and rejected in the last few years; little exploration and no commitment indicates diffusion.
Questions to carry
- Over the last few years, what has the person tried, weighed up and turned down, if anything?
- Where in my life have I left a choice unmade because choosing would mean I could fail at it?
How strong the research is
moderate. Marcia's statuses are well measured by interview and questionnaire; they are less stage-like than first proposed and people move between them, including back.
Where it comes from
James Marcia, 1966, building on Erik Erikson
On the family tree: James Marcia
Sources
- Erik H. Erikson, Childhood and Society (1950)