The Role of Emotional Experiences in Commitment Development in Internship Students

In this study I address the relation between real-time experiences and vocational identity development in psychology students during their practical internship. By means of a multi-method approach I aimed to shed light on the role of salient emotional experiences in commitment development, and on the characteristics of these experiences. In a diary study internship students reported every week about their most relevant experience. For each student the most salient positive and negative emotional experience was selected. Most positive and negative experiences concerned competence-related issues. Salient emotional experiences were related to commitment change for a prolonged period of time. In line with the theoretical models, salient positive emotional experiences enhance the commitment strength, and salient negative emotional experiences reduce the strength. However, many experiences include different characteristics. In particular, negative emotional experiences are characterized by a diversity of both positive and negative characteristics.</p

The relation between vocational commitment and need fulfillment in real time experiences in clinical internships

This study concerns the question how specific characteristics of real-time experiences relate to commitment change. The focus is on the real-time fulfillment of the basic needs: the need for competence, for relatedness and for autonomy. The research question was: “What is the relation between real time need fulfillment and commitment in psychology students during their practical internships?” The participants were 56 master students who did a five-month clinical internship in psychology. The participants wrote at least 19 weekly diary reports (in a period of 5 months) about the most important experience in their internship in that week, and in addition they filled in a short questionnaire. With a linear mixed model analysis, the relation was analyzed between need fulfillment and commitment on an individual and on a group level. The basic needs were found to be a relevant characteristic of experiences: need fulfillment or need frustration was described in by far most experiences. Experiences with a positive need fulfillment were related to higher levels of commitment strength than experiences that concerned frustration of need fulfillment, or that did not report need fulfillment. This pattern of relations was found in 90% of the individual participants. The experiences of the atypical 10% of the participants reflected a non-optimal relationship with their internship or supervisor

Iterative Micro-Identity Content Analysis:Studying Identity Development within and across Real-Time Interactions

Identity development occurs in the context of real-time interactions. However, existing research on interactions has focused on identity processes and little is known about identity content development within interactions. We define real-time identity as claims about selves, formulated in the service of an interactional “social business.” The aim of this methodological paper is to introduce Iterative Micro-Content Analysis (IMICA) as an approach to studying the changes and consistencies in real-time identity content. We outline four key principles of IMICA and offer a step by step guide to its analytic stages. We provide two worked examples for illustration: a video-recorded conversation between two young women on the topic of “love and desire,” and audio-recorded speed-dating conversations between young same-sex attracted men. The worked examples demonstrate how IMICA can be used to study how identity claims change within a single interaction as well as across multiple interactions. We argue that IMICA’s empirical insights into the concrete mechanisms through which social interactions shape identities are of both theoretical and practical relevance. We discuss how IMICA may allow for a micro-level operationalization of macro-level concepts (e.g., exploration or identity centrality), outline how it may be combined with quantitative analyses, and discuss its limitations

Le développement de l’identité : un processus relationnel et dynamique

Cet article présente l’application du modèle relationnel des systèmes dynamiques au développement de l’identité que nous définissons en termes d’engagements. Au départ, nous considérons que les engagements ne sont pas une caractéristique interne à l’individu, mais qu’ils sont des construits relationnels. Nous décrivons le processus développemental comme une longue série d’interactions entre la personne et le contexte, et nous proposons un modèle qui rend compte de ces interactions. Des différences dans l’individu et dans le contexte, et spécialement leur combinaison spécifique, déterminent le développement de l’identité à long terme. Ce modèle a des implications pour la théorie, la recherche et les interventions : il appelle une approche centrée sur les émotions, les interactions et les trajectoires individuelles, plutôt que sur des caractéristiques internes statiques.In this paper we present a relational dynamic systems model of commitment development. Firstly, we argue that commitments are not an internal characteristic of individuals, but that they are relational constructs. Secondly, we describe the developmental process as a long series of interactions between the person and the context, and present a model which describes an interaction. Differences in individual and context, and especially their specific combination, determine the long term development of identity. This model has theoretical, research and intervention implications: it calls for an approach that focuses on emotions, interactions and individual trajectories, instead of on static internal characteristics

A quantitative dynamic systems model of health-related quality of life among older adults

Health-related quality of life (HRQOL) is a person-centered concept. The analysis of HRQOL is highly relevant in the aged population, which is generally suffering from health decline. Starting from a conceptual dynamic systems model that describes the development of HRQOL in individuals over time, this study aims to develop and test a quantitative dynamic systems model, in order to reveal the possible dynamic trends of HRQOL among older adults. The model is tested in different ways: first, with a calibration procedure to test whether the model produces theoretically plausible results, and second, with a preliminary validation procedure using empirical data of 194 older adults. This first validation tested the prediction that given a particular starting point (first empirical data point), the model will generate dynamic trajectories that lead to the observed endpoint (second empirical data point). The analyses reveal that the quantitative model produces theoretically plausible trajectories, thus providing support for the calibration procedure. Furthermore, the analyses of validation show a good fit between empirical and simulated data. In fact, no differences were found in the comparison between empirical and simulated final data for the same subgroup of participants, whereas the comparison between different subgroups of people resulted in significant differences. These data provide an initial basis of evidence for the dynamic nature of HRQOL during the aging process. Therefore, these data may give new theoretical and applied insights into the study of HRQOL and its development with time in the aging population

The Landscape of Identity Model:An Integration of Qualitative and Quantitative Aspects of Identity Development

The landscape of identity model views identity as a constellation of commitments with different levels of strength and integration, showing how this constellation emerges from everyday life experiences. Drawing on key principles from the complex dynamic systems approach, our model further describes this conceptualization, as well as the mechanisms underlying the development of an identity landscape. We show that the model solves current conceptual issues within identity theory, specifies how Marcia’s four identity statuses can be viewed as particular types of identity landscapes, and helps to further develop the identity field by generating predictions regarding how individuals with different types of identity landscapes would respond to major life events

Exploring Exploration:Identity Exploration in Real-Time Interactions among Peers

In this short-term longitudinal study, we examine specific examples of identity exploration in real-time interactions among peers. The participants included 12 first-year students majoring in literature, social sciences, and humanities at a national university in Japan (M age = 18.2; SD = 0.39; 83.3% female). They were divided into four triads that participated in weekly 20-minute discussions for nine successive weeks around three identity domains: learning, romantic relationships, and career. Transcripts were analyzed using a grounded theory approach. Seven characteristics of exploration were identified in real-time interactions: support, open disclosure, meta-exploration, investigating, creating an idea, conflict, and demotivating. In addition, these characteristics generated three major overarching patterns that advanced exploration: creating a safe environment for exploration, clarification and elaboration of the idea embedded in support essential for promoting exploration, and a combination of finding a keyword and repeating it on the border between exploration and discovering an aspect of identity. Overall, our results reveal that exploration in real-time interactions among peers did not involve a fixed sequence of characteristics; rather, it was vitalized by mutual affirmation, going back and forth among different characteristics of exploration while taking small steps