Identity processing style and sex-role identity predict attachment style and psychosocial balance.

Differences in relationship style scores (secure, fearful, preoccupied, dismissing) and psychosocial balance scale scores (basic trust, autonomy, identity, intimacy, generativity) were examined as a function of identity style (informational, normative, diffuse/avoidant), sex-role identity (feminine, masculine, androgynous, undifferentiated), age (young adult, middle adult, late adult), and gender. Three hundred and eighty-eight participants (166 men and 222 women) completed self-report questionnaires designed to measure the relevant constructs. Results indicated that identity processing style did not prove to be significantly related to relationship style or psychosocial balance scores. However, differences in sex-role identity were predictive of different patterns of scores on the relationship style measure and the psychosocial balance measure. In addition, the secure relationship style was positively predictive of all five psychosocial balance scale scores. These findings suggest that identity processing style may play a lesser role than sex-role identity classification in determining patterns of differences in relationship styles and psychosocial adjustment.