Creativity as Identity Skill? Late Adolescents' Management of Identity, Complexity and Risk-Taking

The link between identity and creativity has received surprisingly little attention from developmental psychology researchers, although flexibility and the ability to generate multiple solutions to problems are key competences for contemporary society based on continuous innovation and de-standardization of development trajectories. These competences are critical for identity formation processes, mainly during late adolescence when young people have to explore and commit to defining themselves. This study was concerned with exploring the relationships between creative and identity processes to identify typologies of ‘creativity-identity interplay’ in late adolescence. The participants comprised 315 late adolescents attending the last 2 years of Italian high schools. Two self-report measures were used: Utrecht-Management of Identity Commitments Scale and Test of Divergent Feeling. Participation was voluntary and anonymity was guaranteed. Our findings confirm the relationship between identity and creativity, identify six identity statuses (moratorium, critical exploration, achievement, early closure, diffusion, and searching moratorium), and they describe differences in terms of creativity processes involved in identity formation. Suggestions for future research and limitations are discussed.