Identity and Psychological Distress in Emerging Adulthood in Sweden: Is It Always Distressing Not to Know Who to Be and What to Do?

Abstract

The purpose of this study was twofold. The first aim was to explore the relationships between identity status, identity distress, and psychological symptoms. The second was to test a mediational model where identity distress was hypothesized to mediate a relationship between identity status and psychological symptoms. The study group comprised 136 emerging adults from Sweden (68 women, 68 men) of between 24 and 26 years of age. The results showed that experiencing moratorium was related to higher levels of identity distress as well as psychological symptoms. Measures of identity distress were associated with higher levels of psychological symptoms. Thus, there was support for the proposed mediational model. The results of this study indicate that, for some young people, the identity explorations of emerging adulthood can be accompanied by increased psychological symptoms, mediated by the experience of identity distress. However, for these emerging adults in Sweden, identity diffusion was not associated with identity distress and psychological symptoms.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Grants from the Swedish Council for Working Life and Social Research financed this research. The authors thank Peter Breife, Helena Sjöberg, Emma Salander, and Anna Sjölin for assistance with the data collection. They also thank all participants who enabled this research.

Notes

Note. IDS = Identity Distress Survey; IID = identity issues distress; SCL-90 = Symptom Checklist–90.

Note. Means having different superscripts differed by at least p < .05. IDS = Identity Distress Survey; IID = identity issues distress; SCL-90 = Symptom Checklist–90; GSI = Global Severity Index.

*p < .05. ***p < .001.

Note. Means having different superscripts differed by at least p < .05. SCL-90 = Symptom Checklist–90.

*p < .05. **p = .01.

Note. Correlations for women (n = 67) are presented above the diagonal, and correlations for men (n = 68) are presented below the diagonal. IDS = Identity Distress Survey; SCL-90 = Symptom Checklist–90.

*p = .05. **p = .01.