Ego Identity and Young Mothers Part 2

To provide insight into the importance of ego identity on the personality development of young, limited educated mothers, I turned to my research that I presented to a professional   association of therapists and school psychologists years ago. In my study, 19 never pregnant adolescents were compared to 19 pregnant adolescents. Both groups were matched according to intelligence and  level of education attained by both father and mother. In the non-pregnant group, 84% of the parents were married and 16% divorced .For the pregnant teens, 53% of their parents were married and 26% divorced. Another difference were that 88% of the mothers, of the never pregnant adolescents, were employed in non-manual occupations compared to 50% of the mothers in the mothers to be group.

Ego identity is an important component in the development of personality. According to Erich H. Erikson, the major task of adolescence was to form an identity by successfully completing [by synthesizing and integrating all previous social roles as well as by incorporating the many new identifications and additional roles] these tasks so the adolescent can develop a sense of ego identity. This means that the adolescents are expected to become increasingly clear about their commitments and values in the areas of personal relationships, career choice, morality, ideology and sex as they prepare for their adult role. If unsuccessful, the adolescent developed a sense of role diffusion instead.

The success or relative lack of success, in this ego identity stage of development, has implications for dealing with the next stage of psychosocial evolution as well. The adolescent in the next psychosocial stage was expected to master the intimacy versus isolation task.  When successful, the adolescent then should be clear about who she is and what she stands for, if she is to establish a mutually satisfying intimate relationship in preparation for marriage. Ego identity personality components follow.

The statistically significant results of my research were as follows: 1. Pregnant teenagers had higher scores associated with identity diffusion. 2. Pregnant teenager’s drawings were more feminine. 3. Non pregnant teens perceived their behavior with less distortion 4. Non pregnant youth had higher self-acceptance scores 5. Non pregnant had less maladjustment scores 6. Non-pregnant had higher dominance scores 7. Non pregnant had higher sociability scores 8. Non pregnant had higher intellectual efficiency scores.

To Be Continued