Developmental Trajectories of Women's Identity Development

A substantial amount of identity development scholarship has drawn on the work of Erik Erikson to argue that women resolve stages of identity and intimacy simultaneously, whereas men follow the trajectory originally proposed by Erikson, first resolving the identity stage, then the intimacy stage. Some research has shown that for some women, the identity and intimacy stages appear to be fused; however, other research has shown that many women do follow the traditional Eriksonian progression. We propose a model of identity development for women that maps a trajectory for women who follow Erikson's traditional stages and a relational-identity trajectory characterized by simultaneous resolution of the identity and intimacy stages. Our model synthesizes work by Josselson (1987), Dyk and Adams's (1990) recognition of sex-role identification, Kerpelman and Pittman's (2018) infusion of attachment theory and identity, and Berzonsky's (1990) identity styles. Future research directions are also presented.