Forgone, but not forgotten: Toward a theory of forgone professional identities

Through an inductive, qualitative study, I developed a process model of how people deal with professional identities they have forgone by choice or constraint. I show that, when forgone professional identities are linked to unfulfilled values, people look for ways to enact them and retain them in the self-concept. I further identify three strategies that people use to enact foregone professional identities: (1) real enactment (i.e., enacting the forgone identity through real activities and social interactions either at work or during leisure time), (2) imagined enactment (i.e., enacting the forgone identity through imagined activities and interactions, either in an alternate present or in the future), and (3) vicarious enactment (i.e., enacting the forgone identity by observing and imagining close others enacting it and internalizing these experiences). These findings expand our conceptualization of professional identity beyond identities enacted through activities and interactions that are part of formal work roles, and illuminate the key role of imagination and vicarious experiences in identity construction and maintenance

The Structure of Identity Consolidation: Multiple Correlated Constructs or One Superordinate Construct?

This study examined the structure of identity consolidation and its relationship to positive and negative psychosocial functioning in emerging adulthood. An ethnically diverse sample of 234 university students completed measures of identity consolidation from identity synthesis, identity status, and identity capital perspectives, as well as measures of agency and subjective well-being, depression, anxiety, impulsivity, and tolerance for deviance. Structural equation modeling analyses suggested that a model with identity consolidation cast as separate correlated processes provided a significantly better fit to the data than did a model with identity consolidation cast as a single process with multiple components. Indexes of identity synthesis were most closely related to both positive and negative psychosocial functioning, whereas identity consolidation indexes drawn from identity status and identity capital were related primarily to positive psychosocial functioning. Implications for identity research are discussed