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Mediational Role of Identity Commitment in Relationships Between Identity Processing Style and Psychological Well-Being

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Abstract

The present study evaluated the hypothesis that relationships between identity processing styles and Ryff’s (J Pers Soc Psychol 57:1069–1081, 1989) six dimensions of psychological well-being would be mediated by strength of identity commitment. Theoretically predicted relationships were found in a sample of Polish late adolescents (N = 654). The informational identity style was positively associated with five well-being dimensions, the diffuse-avoidant style was negatively associated with all six dimensions, and the normative style was positively associated with self-acceptance, life purpose, and environmental mastery, but negatively associated with autonomy and personal growth. As hypothesized, 14 of these relationships were at least partially mediated by strength of commitment. Identity style and commitment combined accounted for from 18 % (positive interpersonal relations) to 60 % (life purpose) of the variation in the Ryff well-being dimensions (M = 35 %). The pattern of relationships was not moderated by the sex of the participants. The implications of the findings for the role that informed self-exploration and identity commitment may play in psychological well-being are discussed.

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Notes

  1. An anonymous reviewer questioned whether the structural relationships would be moderated by age. Although the participants represented a narrow age range (18–22 years), an analysis was performed to evaluate whether the relationships in the partial-mediation model were invariant for younger (ages 18–20) and older (ages 21–22) university students. A model in which all the path coefficients were constrained to be equal for younger and older participants was compared to an unconstrained one in which the path coefficients were free to vary across levels of age. No significant differences were found indicating that the partially mediated model fit equally well for younger and older participants (Δχ2 [25] = 26.36, p = .389).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. SUNY at Cortland, Cortland, NY, USA

    Michael D. Berzonsky

  2. Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński University in Warsaw, Warsaw, Poland

    Jan Cieciuch

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  1. Michael D. Berzonsky
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  2. Jan Cieciuch
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Correspondence to Michael D. Berzonsky.

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The work of the second author was supported by Grants DEC-2011/01/D/HS6/04077 from the Polish National Science Centre.

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Berzonsky, M.D., Cieciuch, J. Mediational Role of Identity Commitment in Relationships Between Identity Processing Style and Psychological Well-Being. J Happiness Stud 17, 145–162 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10902-014-9588-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10902-014-9588-2

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