October 5, 2014 - 14:44
One page of statistics from the ACHA fact sheet that struck me was the set of statistics--or, rather, expected statistics--pertaining to drug and alcohol use (on pages 6-7; section E). I was given several such surveys like the ones mentioned, in both college and high school, and without fail, students overestimate on all accounts. With this in mind, I look at Erikson's stage of Identity vs. Role Confusion. I see this discrepancy in answers as indicative of a tendency towards a wavering identity at the start of college; such insecurity, however, seems to me to present a different sort of mental health issue: in addition to the high prevalence of mental illness among college students, mental health is at stake because the lack of stability present due to a changing environment threatens the development of a secure identity.
Participants' perceptions of others' substance usage habits reflects that they are out of touch with their peers and with what they believe to be considered "normal." Indeed, abuse of drugs and alcohol is frequently depicted in popular culture, creating expectations of what college "should" be like that clearly hit off the mark. That these surveys function as a way to try to erase preconceptions about what college should be is indicative that, at least to whoever is utilizing them, young people at this point in their lives still lack confidence in how they should be living. And the uncertainties in behavior habits evident in the consistent overestimations of behavioral habits deemed acceptable and even "cool" by popular culture are, perhaps, manifestations of uncertainty of identity--not knowing what is expected of them or how they should act.
For being just on the periphery of the Identity vs. Role Confusion stage, having so little clarity in identity should be beyond the norm, as a more defined identity should have emerged. However, this survey indicates it is possible that college functions as a way of extending the identity/role confusion stage. Erikson (1968: 161 qtd. in Kroger 2004:11) writes, “The final identity, then…includes all significant identifications, but it also alters them in order to make a unique and reasonably coherent whole of them.” Most “significant identifications” may have been developed by the end of adolescence, but, during the time when they should become solidified, adolescents are now often thrown into a new and different environment that threatens or even diminishes security in identity by adding another identification into the bundle that is already being altered in an attempt at coherency. When an unstable identity is coupled with a higher pressure environment that forces a greater level of independence, students have little to fall back on when faced with insecurities or insurmountable challenges. It is possible that these conditions are contributing to deteriorating mental health among college students; at this point in their lives, what might have been a secure identity is being threatened along with the mental resources that are essential to skillfully cope with the pressures of college.