Identity in adolescence: Present and future self-concepts.

This paper reports an investigation to test the hypothesis that anxiety concerning a concept of the self in the future will increase with age during adolescence, while anxiety relating to the self in the present will not. Subjects included a total of 80 adolescent boys from schools in a working class area of London, divided into three groups of 12-year-olds, 14-year-olds and 16-year-olds. The results strongly substantiated the hypothesis, and are discussed in relation to Erikson's theory of an adolescent identity crisis.