A model of self-transformative identity development in troubled adolescent youth

Within the Stage II program evaluation of the Miami Youth Development Project's (YDP) Changing Lives Program (CLP), this study evaluated CLP intervention effectiveness in promoting positive change in emotion-focused identity exploration (i.e. feelings of personal expressiveness; PE) and a "negative" symptom of identity development (i.e. identity distress; ID) as a first step toward the investigation of a self-transformative model of identity development in adolescent youth. Using structural equation modeling techniques, this study found that participation in the CLP is associated with positive changes in PE (path = .841, p < .002), but not changes in ID. Increase in ID scores was found to be associated with increases in PE (path = .229, p < .002), as well. Intervention effects were not moderated by age/stage, gender, or ethnicity, though differences were found in the degree to which participating subgroups (African- American/Hispanic, male/female, 14-16 years old/17-19 years old) experience change in PE and ID. Findings also suggest that moderate levels of ID may not be deleterious to identity exploration and may be associated with active exploration.