U-MICS

Elisabetta Crocetti & Wim Meeus

The Utrecht-Management of Identity Commitments Scale (U-MICS) is a self-report measure developed by Wim Meeus in 2001 on the basis of the Utrecht-Groningen Identity Development Scale (U-GIDS; Meeus, 1996).

The U-MICS aims to assess the identity processes included in the three-factor identity model (Crocetti, Rubini, & Meeus, 2008):

• Commitment refers to firm choices that adolescents have enacted, and to the self-confidence they derive from these choices.
• In-depth exploration represents the extent to which adolescents reflect on their current commitments, search for additional information, and talk with others about their choices.
• Reconsideration of commitment refers to comparing one’s present commitments with possible alternative commitments when one’s existing goals, values, and beliefs are no longer satisfactory. Thus, reconsideration of commitment combines loosening existing commitments with broad exploration of new possibilities.

Two theoretical notions guided the conceptualization of the instrument:

(1) The need for a measure that is suitable to show identity development. Earlier identity measures tended to be mostly individual difference instruments. To test the developmental sensitivity of the U-MICS the measure was included in the CONAMORE longitudinal study that started in 2001 at Utrecht University, the Netherlands. 

(2) The need to distinguish between identity formation and identity maintenance. The interplay between commitment and reconsideration of commitment captures the process of identity formation, whereas the interplay between commitment and in-depth exploration captures the process of identity maintenance. The U-MICS, therefore, assesses a so-called dual-cycle model of identity formation (Meeus, 2011).

The U-MICS includes 13 items: 5 items measure commitment (items 1-5), 5 items tap in-depth exploration (items 6-10), and 3 items assess reconsideration of commitment (items 11-13). Each item is rated on a 5-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (completely untrue) to 5 (completely true).

Identity domains

The U-MICS can be used to assess identity processes in different identity domains. Originally, the scale has been developed to assess educational identity and interpersonal identity (i.e., friendship) (Crocetti, Rubini, & Meeus, 2008). Then, the items have been adapted to measure several other domains, such as: 

• Career identity (Stringer & Kerpelman, 2010; 2014)
• Cultural identity (Kranz & Goedderz, 2020)
• Home and Host identity (Greischel et al., 2018; 2019)
• Job identity (Crocetti et al., 2014)
• Parental identity (Piotrowski, 2018)
• Regional identity (Schubach et al., 2017)
• Religious identity (Dudas, in preparation)
• Romantic identity (Schubach et al., 2017; Vosylis et al., 2018)
• Sexual identity (Kranz & Pierrard, 2018)

Thus the U-MICS can be employed to assess identity processes in one specific domain or to measure global identity, obtained combining at least one ideological domain (e.g., educational or job identity) and one relational domain (e.g., peer or romantic relationship).

U-MICS available in several languages

The U-MICS, originally developed in Dutch (Crocetti, Rubini, & Meeus, 2008), has been translated and tested in several languages. Validation studies conducted with different samples (e.g., Crocetti et al., 2015; Dimitrova et al., 2016) indicated that the three-factor model (including commitment, in-depth exploration, and reconsideration of commitment) provided a significantly better fit to the data compared to alternative one-factor (in which all identity processes were collapsed on the same latent variable) and two-factor (consisting of commitment and global exploration, combining in-depth exploration and reconsideration of commitment) models. Furthermore, the three-factor model fitted equal well for different groups (e.g., early and middle adolescents, boys and girls, and autochthons and ethnic minority adolescents).

All the versions available so far are listed here. For ease of consistency, all these versions include the items for educational and interpersonal identity. 

• U-MICS – Albanian (Kosovan) version (Dimitrova et al., 2016)
• U-MICS – Arabic version (Crocetti et al., 2020)
• U-MICS – Bulgarian version (Dimitrova et al., 2016)
• U-MICS – Chinese version (Crocetti et al., 2015)
• U-MICS – Czech version (Dimitrova et al., 2016)
• U-MICS – Dutch version (Crocetti, Rubini & Meeus, 2008)
• U-MICS – English version (Crocetti et al., 2010)
• U-MICS – French version (Zimmermann et al., 2012)
• U-MICS – German version (Greischel et al., 2018)
• U-MICS – Greek version (Mastrotheodoros et al., 2020)
• U-MICS – Hebrew version (Crocetti et al., 2020)
• U-MICS – Indonesian version (Muttaqin, 2017)
• U-MICS – Italian version (Crocetti et al., 2010)
• U-MICS – Japanese version (Crocetti et al., 2015; Hatano & Sugimura, 2014)
• U-MICS – Lithuanian version (Vosylis et al., 2018)
• U-MICS – Polish version (Crocetti et al., 2015; Karaś et al., 2015)
• U-MICS – Portuguese version (Crocetti et al., 2015)
• U-MICS – Romanian version (Crocetti et al., 2015; Dimitrova et al., 2016)
• U-MICS – Serbian version (Rokvic et al., 2022)
• U-MICS – Spanish version (Llorent & Alamo, 2018)
• U-MICS – Swedish version (Schumann, 2018)
• U-MICS – Traditional Chinese Version (Crocetti et al., 2015)
• U-MICS – Turkish version (Morsünbül et al., 2014)

Identity statuses

The U-MICS can be used also for obtaining identity statuses. In this case, from the respondent scores on commitment, in-depth exploration, and reconsideration of commitment is possible to obtain, by using data-driven methods of classification (e.g., cluster analysis, latent class analysis), five identity statuses (e.g., Crocetti, Rubini, Luyckx, & Meeus, 2008):

• the achievement status consists of individuals who score high on commitment and in-depth exploration, but low on reconsideration of commitment;
• the early closure status includes individuals with moderately high scores on commitment and low scores on both in-depth exploration and reconsideration of commitment;
• the searching moratorium status comprises individuals high on commitment, in-depth exploration, and reconsideration of commitment.
• the moratorium status consists of individuals who score low on commitment, medium on in-depth exploration, and high on reconsideration of commitment;
• the diffusion status includes individuals with low scores on commitment, in-depth exploration, and reconsideration of commitment;

These five identity statuses expand the original Marcia’s (1966) identity status paradigm differentiating between two types of moratorium. The two moratorium statuses differ in terms of the base from which reconsideration is attempted. Adolescents in the moratorium cluster have few commitments and are evaluating alternatives in order to find satisfying identity-related commitments. Conversely, their peers in the searching moratorium cluster are seeking to revise commitments that have already been enacted, and they are able to do so from the secure base provided by their current commitments.

As noted above, the U-MICS was designed to capture identity development. Various developmental processes have been demonstrated applying this measure: mean-level change, rank-order and profile stability (Klimstra et al., 2010a); change and stability of identity statuses over time (Meeus et al., 2010; Hatano et al., 2020). Importantly, Meeus et al. (2010) revealed that the identity statuses achievement and closure are quite stable over time, whereas the statuses diffusion, moratorium and searching moratorium are relatively instable over time. These findings support the distinction between identity formation and maintenance.

Daily measures of identity

To capture day-to-day development of identity a single item version of the instrument has been designed by Wim Meeus in 2005. Each of the U-MICS dimensions can be measured with one item (Becht et al., 2016; Klimstra et al., 2010b).

• “Today, I felt confident about myself because of my best friend/education” (interpersonal/educational commitment)
• “Today, I often thought about my best friend/education” (interpersonal/educational exploration in depth)
• “Today, I felt that I could better look for a different best friend/education” (interpersonal/educational reconsideration).

Each item is rated on a 5-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (completely untrue) to 5 (completely true).

Info and updates

• If you need more information about the U-MICS you can contact me (info@elisabettacrocetti.com).
• If you have validated the U-MICS in a new language you can fill this template, attach the publication, and send it to me, so that I can update the webpage with your version
• Please inform me also if you have adapted the U-MICS to a new domain and send the related publication. 

References

Becht, A., Branje, S., Vollebergh, W., Maciejewski, D., Van Lier, P., Koot, H., Denissen, J., & Meeus, W. (2016).  Assessment of identity during adolescence using daily diary methods: Measurement invariance across time and sex. Psychological Assessment, 28, 660-672. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/pas0000204

Crocetti, E., Avanzi, L., Hawk, S. T., Fraccaroli, F., & Meeus, W. (2014). Personal and social facets of job identity: A person-centered approach. Journal of Business and Psychology, 29, 281-300. doi:10.1007/s10869-013-9313-x

Crocetti, E., Benish-Weisman, M., & McDonald, K. (2020). Validation of the Arabic and Hebrew Versions of the Utrecht-Management of Identity Commitments Scale (U-MICS). Journal of Adolescence, 79, 11-15. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.adolescence.2019.12.006

Crocetti, E., Cieciuch, J., Gao, C. H., Klimstra, T., Lin, C. L., Matos, P. M., Morsünbül, Ü., Negru, O., Sugimura, K., Zimmermann, G., & Meeus, W. (2015). National and gender measurement invariance of the Utrecht-Management of Identity Commitments Scale (U-MICS): A 10-nation study with university students. Assessment, 22, 753–768. https://doi.org/10.1177/1073191115584969

Crocetti, E., Rubini, M., Luyckx, K., & Meeus, W. (2008). Identity formation in early and middle adolescents from various ethnic groups: From three dimensions to five statuses. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 37, 983-996. doi:10.1007/s10964-007-9222-2

Crocetti, E., Rubini, M., & Meeus, W. (2008). Capturing the dynamics of identity formation in various ethnic groups: Development and validation of a three-dimensional model. Journal of Adolescence, 31(2), 207-222. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.adolescence.2007.09.002

Crocetti, E., Schwartz, S. J., Fermani, A., & Meeus, W. (2010). The Utrecht-Management of Identity Commitments Scale (U-MICS): Italian validation and cross-national comparisons. European Journal of Psychological Assessment, 26(3), 172–186. http://dx.doi.org/10.1027/1015-5759/a000024

Dimitrova, R., Crocetti, E., Buzea, C., Jordanov, V., Kosic, M., Tair, E., Taušová, J., van Cittert, N., & Uka, F. (2016). The Utrecht-Management of Identity Commitments Scale (U-MICS): Measurement invariance and cross-national comparisons of youth from seven European countries. European Journal of Psychological Assessment, 32(2), 119–127. https://doi.org/10.1027/1015-5759/a000241

Greischel, H., Noack, P., & Neyer, F. J. (2018). Oh, the places you’ll go! How international mobility challenges identity development in adolescence. Developmental Psychology, 54(11), 2152-2165. https://doi.org/10.1037/dev0000595

Greischel, H., Noack, P., & Neyer, F. J. (2019). Finding myself abroad: Adolescent identity processes and sociocultural adaptation during intercultural transitions. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 50(4), 594–614. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022022119831785

Klimstra, T. A., Hale, W. W., Raaijmakers, Q. A. W., Branje, S. J. T., & Meeus, W. (2010a). Identity formation in adolescence: Change or stability? Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 39, 150-162. doi: 10.1007/s10964-009-9401-4

Klimstra, T. A., Luyckx, K., Hale, W. W., Frijns T., Van Lier, P., & Meeus, W. (2010b). Short term fluctuations in identity: Introducing a micro-level approach to identity formation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 99, 191-202. doi: 10.1037/a0019584

Hatano, K., & Sugimura, K. (2014). Japanese version of the Utrecht-Management of Identity Commitments Scale (U-MICSJ): Factor structure, reliability, and concurrent validity in Japanese university students. Japanese Journal of Adolescent Psychology, 25(2), 125–136 (in Japanese) Retrieved from https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/jsyap/25/2/25_125/_pdf

Hatano, K., Sugimura, K., Crocetti, E., & Meeus, W. (2020). Diverse-and-dynamic pathways in educational and interpersonal identity formation during adolescence: Longitudinal links with psychosocial functioning. Child Development. Advance online publication.  https://doi.org/10.1111/cdev.13301

Karaś, D., Cieciuch, J., Negru, O., & Crocetti, E. (2015). Relationships between identity and well-being in Italian, Polish, and Romanian emerging adults. Social Indicators Research, 121(3), 727–743. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-014-0668-9

Kranz, D. & Goedderz, A. (2020). Coming home from a stay abroad: Associations between young people’s reentry problems and their cultural identity formation. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 74, 115-126. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijintrel.2019.11.003

Kranz, D., & Pierrard, R. (2018). Beyond coming out: Relations between lesbian and gay identity formation and psychosocial well-being in young and middle adulthood. Psychology of Sexual Orientation and Gender Diversity, 5, 283-293. https://doi.org/10.1037/sgd00002

Llorent, V. J., & Alamo, M. (2018). Utrecht-Management of Identity Commitments Scale: Validation in Spanish university students. Frontiers in Psychology, 9, 1-5. http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01364

Marcia, J. E. (1966). Development and validation of ego-identity status. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 3(5), 551-558. doi:10.1037/h0023281

Mastrotheodoros, S., Povlopoulos, V., & Motti-Stefanidi, F. (2020). Utrecht-Management of Identity Commitments Scale (U-MICS): Greek adaptation and measurement invariance across time and ethnic groups. European Journal of Developmental Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1080/17405629.2020.1852921

Meeus, W. (2005). Schoolse identiteit en relationele identiteit van dag tot dag (U-MICS daily). Unpublished manuscript, Adolescent Development, Utrecht University, the Netherlands. Available from E. Crocetti or W. Meeus.

Meeus, W. (2011). The study of adolescent identity formation 2000-2010: A review of longitudinal research. Journal of Research on Adolescence, 21(1), 75-94. doi:10.1111/j.1532-7795.2010.00716.x

Meeus, W., Van de Schoot, R., Keijsers, L., Schwartz, S. J., & Branje, S. (2010). On the progression and stability of adolescent identity formation. A five-wave longitudinal study in early-to-middle and middle-to-late adolescence. Child Development, 81, 1565-1581. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8624.2010.01492.x

Morsünbül, U., Crocetti, E., Cok, F., & Meeus, W. (2014). The Utrecht-Management of Identity Commitments Scale (U-MICS): Gender and age measurement invariance and convergent validity of the Turkish version. Journal of Adolescence, 37, 799-805. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.adolescence.2014.05.008

Muttaqin, D. (2017). Validitas Utrecht-Management of Identity Commitments Scale (U-MICS) versi Indonesia: Struktur faktor, invariansi pengukuran gender, dan usia. Jurnal Psikoogi, 44(2), 83-96. http://dx.doi.org/10.22146/jpsi.27578

Piotrowski, K. (2018). Adaptation of the Utrecht-Management of Identity Commitments Scale (U-MICS) to the measurement of the parental identity domain. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, 59(2), 157-166. https://doi.org/10.1111/sjop.12416

Schubach, E., Zimmermann, J., Noack, P., & Neyer, F. J. (2017).Short forms of the Utrecht-Management of IdentityCommitments Scale (U-MICS) with the domains of job,romantic relationship, and region. Journal of Adolescence, 54, 105-109. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.adolescence.2016.11.012

Schumann, Å. (2018). Vilken mening!? En blandad metodstudie i religionspsykologi av meningsskapandets betydelse för skolungdomar [What sense!? A mixed-method study in psychology of religion about meaning-making among school children]. Uppsala: Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis.

Stringer, K. J., & Kerpelman, J. L. (2010). Career identity development in college students: Decision-making, parental support, and work experience. Identity: An International Journal of Research and Theory, 10, 181–200.

Stringer, K. J., & Kerpelman, J. L. (2014). Career identity among community college students. Journal of Research and Practice, 38(4), 310-322. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10668926.2010.544557

Vosylis, R., Erentaitė, R., & Crocetti, E. (2018). Global versus domain-specific identity processes: Which domains are more relevant for emerging adults? Emerging Adulthood, 6(1) 32-41. https://doi.org/10.1177/2167696817694698

Zimmermann, G., Mahaim, E. B., Mantzouranis, H., Genoud, P. A., & Crocetti, E. (2012). The Identity Style Inventory (ISI-3) and the Utrecht-Management of Identity Commitments Scale (U-MICS): Factor structure, reliability, and convergent validity in French-speaking university students. Journal of Adolescence, 35, 461-465. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.adolescence.2010.11.01