The Role of Identity Salience and Commitment in the Stress Process

The relationship between identity and stress has been the focus of numerous studies. An assumption of much of this research is that the impact of stress on psychological distress is exacerbated when it threatens identities that are important to an individual's self-definition. In this study we investigate the moderating effect of identity in the stress process. Specifically, we examine whether identity salience and commitment influence the relationship between role-strain and depression, as well as between strain and self-evaluation (i.e., self-esteem and mastery). Using longitudinal data, we find some support that commitment moderates the relationship between strain in the student identity and both mastery and depression. Our findings indicate that the extent to which identity meaning exacerbates the effect of strain on self-evaluation and well-being depends on the type of strain, the particular identity characteristic, and the outcome variable examined.