Four Types of Individuation: Further Evidence From Two Central-European Countries

Abstract

This study employed the Individuation Test for Emerging Adults-Short (ITEA-S) to identify groups of emerging adults sharing similar individuation profiles (types) in relation to mother and father separately. Two-step clustering procedures of self-report data of Slovenian and Austrian participants suggested four internally replicable types of individuation across parents and countries: dependent, anxious, individuated-related, and individuated-independent. We revealed a moderate cross-parent structural consistency of the types and a fair cross-parent consistency of the participants’ type membership within each country. The structural consistency across countries was moderate for the types in relation to mother, but almost perfect in relation to father. Overall, individuals assigned to the anxious type scored the lowest and those classified as individuated-related scored the highest on emotional and psychological well-being (PWB. The results suggest the robustness of the ITEA-S types across parents in the two countries, and their associations with positive outcomes, supporting the validity of the types.

Self-disclosure of body image, eating, and emotional concerns by female collegiate athletes: Associations with body image pressure, social media, and emotional distress.

“…This suggests that university athletes experiencing distress may try to self-manage their internal conflicts in the service of developing individuation (Blos, 1967), to protect their team role and scholarship, and to demonstrate their maturity, strength, and resilience to teammates and others. Interestingly, emotional distress most strongly predicted difficulty with self-disclosure to parents, perhaps due to the nature of the period of emerging adulthood, when individuals (especially in Western cultures) generally increase their autonomy vis-a-vis their parents (Zupančič et al, 2022). However, recent evidence indicates that Gen Z emerging adults are more dependent upon their parents and may be less resilient in response to normal challenges and stress than previous generations (Twenge, 2017).…”