Racial Identity Development Models - Essay Example

It is during this stage that individuals ascertain themselves with the majority crowd. They have a habit of downplaying and having negative feelings towards their own ethnic society with little salience in their individuality (Sue et al., 1982). Dissonance is evident in experiences or encounters that are not consistent with a culture’s attitudes, values in addition to beliefs from the initial stage i.e. conformity. Take the case of an individual from a minority group who is not proud of their cultural heritage encountering another person from a different ethnicity that is proud of their ethnic background.

During this stage, denial commences and there is a lot of doubt of one’s attitudes and beliefs once held in the first stage. The assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. brought about the rapid movement from passive conformity to dissonance stage by a large group of African Americans. As for the immersion and defiance juncture, a minority in society probably has feeling of anger, shame and guilt due to the oppression or racism that they previously had to withstand or tolerate. Ratification of the thoughts of the minority plus the rejection of society’s domineering values marks this stage (Sue et al., 1982). Individuals tend to focus more vivacity towards having a better understanding of them as minorities and the deeper meaning of this in the introspection phase.

As opposed to the intense reaction against prevailing cultures in the previous point, the introspection leg appears to be more pro-active in the definition and discovery of the sense of self. The last period that is the integrative awareness stage is a time of development of the knack to be grateful for both the constructive aspects of the influential culture and theirs. It also involves the adeptness to feel secure. At this point, individuals tend to have already