Ego identity of intellectually gifted and sport talented individuals in puberty and adolescence

Abstract

© 2020, Kazan Federal University. All rights reserved. This study examines the developmental crisis of talented individuals in puberty and adolescence during which there are personality conflicts of identity versus role confusion. The article describes how intellectually gifted and sports talented individuals experience this fundamental opposition and the needs for it to be resolved at the end of adolescence. The research examined the congruence of the structural organization and the nature of ego identity of intellectually gifted and sports talented individuals in puberty and adolescence. It was conducted in two stages (i) the development of a semantic differential for measuring participants’ ego identity (following the concepts developed by Erik H. Erikson) and undertaking factor analysis, and (ii): a comparison of the congruence of the structural organization and the nature of ego identity in comparable groups of participants. The factor analysis identified four parameters denoting the nature of ego identity in adolescence: positive identity, negative identity, confusion identity, and identity crisis. Significant differences were found in the congruence of the structural organization of ego identity in puberty and adolescence.