Bulgarian Journal of Psychiatry, 2025; 10(3):11-20
Psycholinguistic features of self-narrative experience of identity crisis in adolescents
Oksana Kraieva1, Nataliia Starynska2, Inna Mykhailyuk3, Nataliia Hoha4, Tetiana Klibais2
1G. S. Kostiuk Institute of Psychology of the National Academy of Educational Sciences of Ukraine – Kyiv, Ukraine
2Borys Grinchenko Kyiv Metropolitan University – Kyiv, Ukraine
3Interregional Academy of Personnel Management – Kyiv, Ukraine
4Kharkiv University of Humanities “People’s Ukrainian Academy” – Kharkiv, Ukraine
Abstract. Background. The research examines how adolescent self-narratives’ psycholinguistic features influence identity crises amid social changes from the COVID-19 pandemic. Objective. The aim of the study was achieved through empirical determination of psycholinguistic features of individual adolescent self-narrative and identification of its possible impact on the development of identity crisis in the context of statistically significant links between self-narrative and identity indicators. Materials and methods. Content analysis of self-narrative, Osgood’s semantic differential, applied psychodiagnostics techniques with the allocation of identity indicators, and relevant statistical analysis, are used. Results. It is found that most subjects use psycholinguistic characteristics of individual self-narrative by emphasizing positive modalities in their self-descriptions. One third of the respondents operates mainly with negative psycholinguistic characteristics of self-narrative, which may indicate a preliminary or pre-actual stage of the identity crisis. It is determined that the status of the achieved positive identity (high consistency of identity) corresponds to the positive characteristics of self-description in the time continuum, adequate self-esteem, balanced personality type, and positive valence of identity. Diffuse identity (low identity coherence) indicates a state of identity crisis in adolescents and is closely associated with very low and unstable self-esteem, emotionally polar and unstable personality type, and neutral or negative valence of identity. Conclusion. The influence of psycholinguistic features of self-narrative on the development of the process of the crisis of adolescent identity was demonstrated. It is noted that the harmonization of psycholinguistic characteristics of individual self-narrative can play a significant role in the formation of a holistic identity at the stage of the identity crisis.
Key words: identity valence, pseudo-identity, psycholinguistic characteristics, self-esteem, personality type, holistic identity