"I know I'm unique, but a lot of things have an influence on me." This statement, made by our subject, tells us a great deal about where he is in his life. It seems as though he has figured out at this point in his life, a large number of things that most young adults have yet to learn. Our subject, a 17 year old boy, who we will term SX for our purposes, has grown up in a stable family environment in a suburb of Detroit. This particular adolescent is quite involved and has a 'good head on his shoulders'. Even at this age, SX manages to maintain his status in accelerated classes, hold a part-time job, and be an active and integral part of the school swim team. While this may not seem unusual for most teenagers, it seems especially interesting that his outward appearance gives off the impression of the type of student who will skip classes, be involved in drugs and rarely concern himself with any school related organization. With his overly casual attire and black nail polish, SX without really knowing it, told me a lot about who he is just by answering a short questionnaire. As I will discuss, SX has reached a point where he, as Marcia and Erikson would define, has achieved his identity. Although there are some aspects of our SX's life that are still undetermined, he seems to fit best and most often into this status. .
Researcher James Marcia has broken adolescent identity development into four different categories based don their relationships, their job, and their beliefs, the most stable of them being "identity achievement." What this basically means in terms of our subject is that he has a firm grasp of who he is and has passed through the stage of adolescent "crisis" and emerged on the other side ready to commit to certain things in his life. In particular, SX discussed how he had finally achieved his short term goal of being accepted into an accelerated track at school. Although this track is more than just a college prep one.
