Supported by a major grant from the National Institute of Mental Health, this project generated an in-depth look at 715 families who adopted infants between 1974 and 1980. The sample of families was randomly selected from the records of 42 public and private adoption agencies in the four states of Colorado, Illinois, Minnesota, and Wisconsin. The participants completed extensive and confidential survey instruments containing a wide range of psychological and family measures, including many scales that were specially developed for this study. On a series of measures about the formation of identity, we find little evidence that adopted adolescents are particularly vulnerable. Some are, of course, but at rates no more pronounced than for other adolescents.
Adopted adolescents are as likely to report positive identity as their non-adopted siblings.
When asked to compare themselves to others their age, adopted adolescents report satisfactory resolution of identity concerns at rates as high or higher than their peers. For most adopted adolescents in this study, adoption is seen as a fact of life that is accepted with relative ease. Overall, we see that adoption does not typically complicate the period of adolescence. This finding runs counter to the classical understanding of adopted adolescents. The classical view is based to a considerable extent on clinical samples and a wider spectrum of adoptions, including those that occur after infancy.