The Study Of Montemayor And Eisen Study

The study of Montemayor and Eisen studied the development of individuals pre-adolescence and post-adolescence. It was hypothesized that young children will only describe themselves with concrete and physical characteristics. However, they believed that older individuals will use more physiological and interpersonal traits. There were significant increases among children and adolescents in seven categories: occupational role, interpersonal descriptions, existential living, ideological living and beliefs, sense of self-determination, sense of unity, individual style. There were significant decreases among children and adolescents in three categories: territorially possessions, citizenship, physical self/body image. Furthermore, Marcia’s categories …show more content…
The individuals who are pre adolescence were ages 9, 11, and 12. The individuals who were post adolescence were ages 16, 17, and 17. In general, it was more difficult for the subjects who were post adolescence to answer 20 questions about themselves. The children who were pre adolescence took approximately 5-7 minutes to write 20 things about themselves. However, the older kids took approximately 12-15 minutes to write 20 things about themselves. The older kids would ask, “What do I write?”. The younger children had no problem sitting down and writing about themselves freely. The older people have the idea that I (the interviewer) may judge them or think differently of them by what they chose to write …show more content…
There were some crossover results where younger individuals used older individuals categories and older individuals used younger individual categories. For example, Isabella (Subject #1) wrote that she would like to be a doctor when she gets older. That would fall under an older individual category because it uses an occupational role. Also, Matthew (Subject #3) wrote that he lives in Bloomingdale and he goes to Morris Tech (Morris County School of Technology). This would fall under the younger individual category of territorially possessions. All of the individuals who were older wrote that they were a boy/girl (physical self/body image). All of the older individuals also wrote under the category of territorially possessions. All of them wrote something to the effect of having a dog, having siblings, having a boyfriend, etc. There were a lot of statements that lined up with the results of the Montemayor and Eisen experiment. For example, Dominic (Subject #2) was in line perfectally of what he was hypothesized to write. He used possessions, physical self, and likes/dislikes in every statement. There was no abstract thinking in his statements, they were all physical characteristics or things he has. Additionally, all of the older individuals mentioned their beliefs in their statements. All of them mentioned being straight and 1 of them mentioned believing in God. All of the older