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MINI REVIEW article
Front. Psychol.
Sec. Developmental Psychology
Volume 15 - 2024 |
doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1467280
This article is part of the Research Topic Resources for Developmental Ecological Psychology: Organicism, Epigenetics, Relational Development, Dynamic Systems View all 7 articles
Understanding identity development in context: comparing reflective and situated approaches to identity
Provisionally accepted- University of Groningen, Groningen, Netherlands
Many recent approaches to identity share a foundational similarity with ecological psychology, namely, to place identity in its context. That is, they explicitly place identity in its physical and socialenvironments. Yet, we can distinguish at least two different approaches that diverge fundamentally with regards to the role that this 'context' has in identity. We refer to these approaches as 'reflective identity-' and 'situated identity-' approaches. While the reflective-identity approach views context and individual as separate entities with a bi-directional relationship, the situated-identity approach views context and individual as inherently intertwined and inseparable. While these approaches have emerged as independent from each other, we see potential for these two approaches to become comprehensively coordinated. To set the stage for such a coordination in future research, we provide a short overview of these different approaches to identity and describe where they align and diverge with regards to viewing identity as contextualized. After providing an overview of the key differences and similarities, we outline a possibility for integration and offer ideas for future lines of research that we see as fruitful for developing a comprehensive and coordinated approach to identity that takes context seriously.
Keywords: Identity, context, reflective identity, situated identity, Complex dynamic system
Received: 19 Jul 2024; Accepted: 18 Dec 2024.
Copyright: © 2024 Van Der Gaag, Gmelin and De Ruiter. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Mandy A. E. Van Der Gaag, University of Groningen, Groningen, Netherlands
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