ity formation, and a study by Stein and Hoopes (1985) revealed higher ego identity scores for adoptees. Goebel and Lott (1986) found that such factors as subjects' age, sex, personality variables, family characteristics, and motivation to search for birth parents accounted more for quality of identity formation than did adoptive status. In conclusion, it is difficult to say who is right in their beliefs about adoptees and identity formation. The research I have reviewed has mostly shown that adoptees do have quite a bit a difficulty forming an identity during adolescence, and that this difficulty can be due to a number of factors. Negative parental attitudes about adoption can have a negative affect on the adoptee. The issue of open versus closed adoptions will forever be a debate, but the research does show that the more an adoptee knows about his birth family and the circumstances surrounding his adoption, the easier it will be for him to form an identity during adolescence. Most of the researchers who wrote about the family romance seemed to do so in a negative manner, when in fact I believe that the ability to fantasize about the birth family may be a healthy option for the adolescent who is the victim of a closed adoption. It allows him to construct a view of what his birth family is like, and it also allows him to relieve himself of some of the internal pain, which is caused by closed adoptions. Overall, most of the literature supported the notion that adoptees do indeed have identity formation problems....
