Exploring Exploration: Identity Exploration in Real-Time Interactions among Peers

Abstract

In this short-term longitudinal study, we examine specific examples of identity exploration in real-time interactions among peers. The participants included 12 first-year students majoring in literature, social sciences, and humanities at a national university in Japan (M age = 18.2; SD = 0.39; 83.3% female). They were divided into four triads that participated in weekly 20-minute discussions for nine successive weeks around three identity domains: learning, romantic relationships, and career. Transcripts were analyzed using a grounded theory approach. Seven characteristics of exploration were identified in real-time interactions: support, open disclosure, meta-exploration, investigating, creating an idea, conflict, and demotivating. In addition, these characteristics generated three major overarching patterns that advanced exploration: creating a safe environment for exploration, clarification and elaboration of the idea embedded in support essential for promoting exploration, and a combination of finding a keyword and repeating it on the border between exploration and discovering an aspect of identity. Overall, our results reveal that exploration in real-time interactions among peers did not involve a fixed sequence of characteristics; rather, it was vitalized by mutual affirmation, going back and forth among different characteristics of exploration while taking small steps. KEYWORDSIdentity development; young adulthood; real-time interactions; peers; grounded theory approach In this article, we address how identity exploration (hereafter, exploration) manifests itself in the real-time interactions among youth. Exploration refers to an individual's active engagement in searching for and investigating meaningful alternatives in important life areas (Marcia, 1966). Previous longitudinal studies have examined exploration using two different time scales: long-term exploration assessed on a yearly or monthly basis (e.g., Meeus et al., 2012) and short-term exploration assessed on a weekly or daily basis (e.g., Klimstra et al., 2010). Short-term exploration is extremely important in understanding the process of identity formation (Bosma & Kunnen, 2001). However, less is known about how exploration herein is expressed in individuals' ongoing actions that last minutes or seconds, namely exploration in real-time.A focus on exploration in real-time allows one to capture mechanisms of identity formation, because it consists of concrete actions unfolding in real-time that result in long-term developmental outcomes (Granic, 2005;Lichtwarck-Aschoff et al., 2008). Moreover, although exploration occurs in relational contexts, particularly peer relationships (e.g., Sugimura & Shimizu, 2010), studies on exploration in realtime interactions are still scarce. Therefore, in this study, we examine specific examples of exploration in real-time interactions among peers and identify these characteristics using qualitative data from young adults. In doing so, we provide a detailed portrayal of the Erikson's (1968) tenet that identity pri...

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