The Groningen Identity Development Scale Updated: Theoretical Foundations and Preliminary Evidence for the Validity of the GIDS-L3

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

The Groningen Identity Development Scale (GIDS) is a semi-structured identity interview that combines qualitative assessment of personally articulated commitments with standardized questionnaires. Since its introduction nearly four decades ago, the GIDS has generated a substantial body of research, but advances in identity theory have highlighted the need for an update. This paper presents the GIDS Landscape series and reports two studies that optimized its questionnaire component. The updated instrument incorporates contemporary identity constructs, including exploration in breadth and depth, identity-relevant emotions and introduces commitment utility, defined as the extent to which commitments guide daily behavior and experience. Study 1 examined inter-item correlations and reliability of the initial GIDS-L questionnaire, leading to item removal and subscale restructuring. Study 2 (N = 137) combined inter-item correlation analyses with confirmatory factor analyses across six identity domains, resulting in the GIDS-L3, a concise 20-item questionnaire comprising six factors: commitment strength, commitment utility, broad exploration, in-depth exploration, positive emotions, and negative emotions. These final subscales showed good reliability and theoretically meaningful discriminant validity patterns. These findings indicate that the GIDS-L3 provides a psychometrically robust update of the original GIDS, while preserving its unique integration of qualitative and quantitative assessment of identity development.