The relationship component of women's identity formation within two cultures: The relation between identity and general attachment in adult women

Abstract

The main purpose of this study was to investigate the relation between women's identity orientation and commitment and dimensions of attachment styles within non-Hispanic White and in Mexican Americans college women. It was speculated that due to the commonalties between the two theoretical frameworks and characteristics of the identity statuses and attachment styles, there would be a relation between the scores on identity formation and attachment. The instruments used for this study were General Attachment Questionnaire (Collins & Read. 1990) and the Identity Style Inventory (ISI. Berzonsky. 1992). Canonical correlation analyses were conducted to investigate this relation. This study found that relations exist between identity and attachment dimension for non-Hispanic White college women, but none was found for the Mexican American college women and difference between dimension on identity but not for attachment between the women in the two groups.