EFFECTS OF AUTHORITATIVE STRUCTURE IN THE MEASUREMENT OF IDENTITY FORMATION - INDIVIDUAL COMPUTER-MANAGED VERSUS GROUP PAPER-AND-PENCIL TESTING

A total of 113 university undergraduates completed paper-and-pencil ve rsions of the Ego Identity Process questionnaire (Balistreri, Busch-Ro ssnagel, & Geisinger, 1995) and the Identity Style Inventory (Berzonsk y, 1992b) in a group-testing format. Another 100 undergraduates from t he same university and with the same general demographic characteristi cs completed the same measures in an individually administered, comput erized form. Results show significant differences in identity status a nd style variables between the two methodologies. The individual-testi ng, computer-managed approach appeared to increase the frequency of fo reclosure and to raise reported use of all three identity processing s tyles for non-exploring participants, whereas for exploring participan ts, the mean exploration score was greater in this condition. In paper -and-pencil testing, much more diffusion was expressed. The results su ggest that the presence of authoritative structure may be important in identity measurement and identity manifestation generally. Also, indi vidual differences in identity status and style may produce differenti al response tendencies between computer-managed and paper-and-pencil m odes of administration of identity formation measures. (C) 1998 Elsevi er Science Ltd All rights reserved.