Understanding the Relationship of Identity Status, Agency, and Religiosity on the Acceptance and Use of Pornography in Christian, Undergraduate Emerging Adults

The transition to becoming an adult is becoming increasingly complex. Psychological and social forces are uniquely shaping the ways emerging adults view themselves and engage the world around them. Within this engagement, the consumption of sexualize content has become culturally normalized. The prolific use of pornographic materials by emerging adults, Christian or otherwise, has raised fundamental questions regarding how these encounters are influencing human development and social scripts. These changes spawn the development of important questions. To what degree is the level of engagement with these materials related to the identity formation process? Do individuals with higher levels of identity capital, such as agency and religiosity, make decisions regarding use that more closely match their level of acceptance of pornographic materials? This research project assesses levels of acceptance and use of pornography among Christian, undergraduate, emerging adults (n = 517) at three Christian universities in Canada and examined their relationship to identity status, sense of agency, and level of religiosity.In post-industrial society, the transition to adulthood has become prolonged and fluid endeavor. The ways that adolescents move into what has traditionally been referred to as adulthood have undergone remarkable changes (Arnett, 2004; Cote, 2002). Previously, adulthood was typically marked by milestones such as the completion of education, marriage, moving out of one's parent's home, and beginning of career (Smith, 2009). In the past, these milestones were typically in place by early twenties. Today, many of these markers are delayed well into one's twenties or even thirties. The delay in reaching these markers has overlapped with general decrease within the broader society's support of the transition to adulthood. With the concurrent de-structuring of identity formation within western society, resources that were once available from the larger society are now removed, in effect making this transition an increasingly self-directed and self-resourced process (Cote & Levine, 2002).This shift has led to what some are calling new and distinct phase of life. This phase of life is increasingly known as emerging adulthood (Arnett, 2004; Ehrsensaft et al., 2003; Hagan & Foster, 2003). Within this unique life phase, the process of identity formation is of central importance (Schwartz et al., 2010). The areas of interpersonal relationships, work, and worldview are central areas where emerging adults are blessed, or cursed, with plethora of options unavailable to previous generations (Luyckx, Schwartz, Goossens, & Pollack, 2008).Identity FormationAlthough this period of life is now experienced very differently than in past generations, the core psychosocial tension remains one of identity formation versus role confusion. The study of identity formation arose from the pioneering work of psychologist Erik Erickson in his research of life span development (Erikson, 1968, 1980). Erikson saw human development occurring in stages with each stage of human development as existing between singular, bipolar dimensions. Within his fifth stage, Erikson saw the central task as movement towards identity synthesis, vis-a-vis identity diffusion. In the identity synthesis state, the individual is able to bring the constituent parts of one's identity into collected whole. The more complete and integrated this state is, the closer one is to identity synthesis. The more disjointed these elements are, the more diffused person's identity would be, and they would experience, as Erickson (1995) put it, a loss of center (p. 212). The process of identity formation, according to Erickson, begins in earnest during adolescence and is added to the other personality structures that have been developed up to that point. Marcia (2002) describes the connection with adolescence in saying:Why is adolescence, in particular, the first life cycle era during which an initial identity can be formed? …

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