Identity Between Options and Decisions (2/3)

“We live in a world of endless possibilities. Endless degree programs. Endless YouTube videos. Endless dating matches. And every moment we actively choose something, we automatically choose against countless other possibilities too. It goes so far that we’re even afraid of making decisions. […] I hate decisions.”¹ (Valentina Vapaux)

That’s how the influencer Valentina Vapaux puts it in her book about Generation Z, and in doing so she sums up the dilemma of today’s New Adults.

Identity between options and decisions

Developing your own identity takes both, as the psychologist James E. Marcia showed: options and decisions. The two belong together:

• Exploration: according to Marcia, this means exploring a particular area of life with the goal of getting your bearings and making decisions,
• and commitment: this means engagement and attachment in that very area of life.²

To put it a bit more simply:

A New Adult has to engage with their options and explore them. And they have to commit to one of them, that is, make a decision. Only when both happen can identity be found. Only then can a New Adult come to the conclusion, in the middle of this world full of possibilities: This is me!

What it takes

Options aren’t really a problem in our world. Our multi-option society offers us more options than we would like, and New Adults are quite often hopelessly overwhelmed by them, as the quote at the beginning makes clear.
That’s why at this point I’ll look at what it takes to handle options well:

1. It takes a goal in sight.
Recent research has found that there are two ways of dealing with the options available to us: goal-directed exploration and ruminative exploration.

Goal-directed exploration expresses a natural, forward-looking search that unfolds as a process.³ You explore, that is, you survey and investigate your options. And you have a goal: at some point to make a decision, at some point to commit to one of the many options, at some point to arrive.

Ruminative (that is, brooding) exploration, on the other hand, is like running in place. The person explores but finds no answer, or at least no satisfying answer, to their identity questions.⁴

What’s interesting is this: Those who have a goal in sight approach their options with openness and curiosity; they are positive and simply have fun doing it. Ruminative exploration, by contrast, goes hand in hand with anxious and depressive symptoms.⁵

Many a New Adult is caught, as it were, in a never-ending ruminative exploration marked by repetition and passivity, which ultimately leads to a sense of hopelessness and loss of control.⁶

The latter, ruminative exploration, is on the rise among New Adults.⁷

So a good way of dealing with the many options is exploration that is goal-directed and looks ahead. Exploration that serves orientation and decision-making, and so also has the ultimate goal of making a commitment: choosing a particular option, settling on a particular version of who you are.⁸

Not all exploring is the same.
It depends on perspective. On whether someone has one.

2. It takes decisions.
Point 2 comes with point 1: To be able to handle options well, you need the goal of actually wanting to make a decision after a period of exploring.

Making a decision can be challenging, even to the point of the “I hate decisions!” quoted at the beginning.

After all, a “yes” to one thing also means a “no” to many other options. The fear of missing out is real. But, and this point is worth stressing:

With a “yes,” by making a decision, you also gain so much: With every decision that affects your own life, your own being and becoming, you find a little piece of identity.

Making a decision is not first and foremost the loss it can sometimes feel like, but the way out of the dilemma. It’s the path to your own identity.

The bottom line

Finding identity takes both: It takes options, different paths you can take. And it takes decisions, actual steps in one particular direction.

So the challenge for New Adults in their search for identity is to survey the possibilities, engage with different opinions and test alternatives AND then to commit, make a decision and identify with one of these options.

When that happens, identity is formed.

How can you support New Adults in their search for identity?

• Exploring works best from a place of safety. You can create programs that are a kind of “safe haven” for New Adults, for example your youth group or small groups. New Adults need relationships in which they feel safe.
• Make the question “How do I make decisions?” a topic! Talk with New Adults about it and find answers together. Important: Not every area of life has to be explored at once, and not every decision has to be made at the same time.
• Through mentoring and other opportunities to talk, you can help New Adults get out of ruminative exploration: to develop a perspective and to take steps.

1. Vapaux, Valentina (2021: 12): Generation Z. Zwischen Selbstverwirklichung, Insta-Einsamkeit und der Hoffnung auf eine bessere Welt, Munich: Gräfe und Unzer Verlag (in German).
2. Cf. Marcia 1980; cited in: Oerter, Rolf; Dreher, Eva (1998: 351 f.): Jugendalter. In: Oerter, Rolf; Montada, Leo (eds.): Entwicklungspsychologie, 4th ed. (1st ed. 1982), Weinheim: Beltz Psychologie Verlags Union, pp. 310-395 (in German).
3. Cf. Luyckx, Koen; Schwartz, Seth J.; Berzonsky, Michael D.; Soenens, Bart; Vansteenkiste, Maarten; Smits, Ilse; Goossens, Luc (2008: 61): Capturing ruminative exploration: Extending the four-dimensional model of identity formation in late adolescence. Journal of Research in Personality, 42 (1), pp. 58-82; online at: researchgate.net/publication/222419114 [accessed Feb. 9, 2022]. And: Seiffge-Krenke, Inge (2012: 28): Therapieziel Identität. Veränderte Beziehungen, Krankheitsbilder und Therapie, Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta (in German).
4. Cf. Seiffge-Krenke, Inge (2012: 28): Therapieziel Identität. Veränderte Beziehungen, Krankheitsbilder und Therapie, Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta (in German).
5. Cf. Seiffge-Krenke, Inge (2015: 501): Identität und Beziehungen. Herausforderungen für die Versorgung. Deutsches Ärzteblatt PP, 13 (11), pp. 500-503 (in German).
6. Cf. Luyckx, Koen; Schwartz, Seth J.; Berzonsky, Michael D.; Soenens, Bart; Vansteenkiste, Maarten; Smits, Ilse; Goossens, Luc (2008: 60 f.): Capturing ruminative exploration: Extending the four-dimensional model of identity formation in late adolescence. Journal of Research in Personality, 42 (1), pp. 58-82; online at: researchgate.net/publication/222419114 [accessed Feb. 9, 2022].
7. Cf. Seiffge-Krenke, Inge (2015: 501): Identität und Beziehungen. Herausforderungen für die Versorgung. Deutsches Ärzteblatt PP, 13 (11), pp. 500-503 (in German). And: Keller, Birgit Ulrika (2019: 54): “Emerging Adulthood”: Eine Lebensphase zwischen Instabilität und maximaler Freiheit, Weinheim and Basel: Beltz Juventa (in German).
8. Cf. Marcia 1980; cited in: Oerter, Rolf; Dreher, Eva (1998: 35): Jugendalter. In: Oerter, Rolf; Montada, Leo (eds.): Entwicklungspsychologie, 4th ed. (1st ed. 1982), Weinheim: Beltz Psychologie Verlags Union, pp. 310-395 (in German).