Identity Statuses by James Marcia’s

James Marcia explains four identity statuses. He differentiated these statuses by classifying individuals based on the extent of their crisis/exploration or commitment. these four statuses of identity are: identity diffusion, identity foreclosure, identity moratorium, and identity achievement.

What distinguishes one status from another is how each status is described. Identity diffusion is a status of a person who has not yet experienced a crisis or made any commitment. They are undecided about occupational and ideological choices and they're not very interested about making any decisions about it. Diffusion is different from the others because they haven't experienced crisis or commitments and have no interest in deciding their occupations or ideological choices. Identity foreclosure is the status of the person who's made a commitment but have not yet experienced a crisis. People in this status usually have parents who hand down the commitment to them in usually a authoritarian way. because of this adolescents don't have the chance to explore different approaches ideologies, and vocations on their own. Foreclosure differs from the other three because they have a commitment but haven't experienced crises because many choices have already been made for the person and embedded in them. identity Moratorium is when the person is in the midst of a crisis but their commitments are either absent or vaguely define. Moratorium differs from the other three because they are in crisis with a with a absent commitment defined. Identity achievement is the status of the person who has fully gone through the crisis and has made a commitment. Achievement differs from the others because the individual has already experienced crisis and made a commitment.
All four statuses of identity depends on the absence or presence of a crises/exploration of alternatives and a commitment to