Adolescence is a critical period of identity development. Since identity development occurs between an individual and the culture, we assume that there are diverse pathways of adolescent identity development across different cultural contexts. However, much of the research on adolescent identity development has been conducted in Western contexts. Research on adolescent identity development in Japan, a non‐Western country characterized as individualistic collectivism in culture and marked by prolonged adolescence in society, provides insight into how aspects of culture and society are crucial to the global study of adolescent identity development. Evidence from Japanese adolescents highlights differences from their Western peers in the developmental process of identity, including its instability and uncertainty, and similarities in the importance of identity to adolescent psychological functioning for both global and cultural indices. Going forward, researchers need to further clarify the interdependence between adolescent identity and the cultural and social context across and within cultures.

中文翻译：

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日本的青少年身份发展

青春期是身份发展的关键时期。由于身份发展发生在个人与文化之间，因此我们假设跨不同文化背景的青少年身份发展有多种途径。但是，关于青少年身份发展的许多研究都是在西方背景下进行的。对日本的青少年身份发展进行研究是一个非西方国家，其特征是文化中的个人主义集体主义，并具有长期的社会青春期特征，它提供了关于文化和社会各方面对全球青少年身份发展研究至关重要的见解。日本青少年的证据突显了与西方同龄人在认同发展过程中的差异，包括其不稳定和不确定性，在全球和文化指标上，身份认同对青少年心理功能的重要性具有相似性。展望未来，研究人员需要进一步阐明青少年身份与文化间和文化内的文化和社会背景之间的相互依赖性。