Vocational and overall identity: A person-centered approach in Italian university students

• We focus on vocational and overall identity in the Italian context.
• We explore the relationship between the overall and vocational identity using a person-centered approach.
• We assess the psychometric properties of the Italian version of the Vocational Identity Status Assessment (VISA).

Establishing a vocational and overall identity involve defining life altering plans and associated commitments to pursue and achieve them and are, therefore, among the most central aspects of the developmental tasks of late adolescents and emerging adults. In the Italian context, young adults' opportunity to develop coherent and fulfilling future plans are strongly threated by the current distressed economic climate in Italy. Assuming these features of the Italian context can produce specific identity patterns, the present study aimed to contribute to the understanding of overall and vocational identity processes in Italian emerging adults and to explore the relationship between the two domains of identity using a person-centered approach. The study is composed of two parts. The first study assessed the psychometric properties of the Italian version of the Vocational Identity Status Assessment (VISA) in a sample of university students from Italy (N = 560). The second study included a cluster analytic approach in order to explore the configuration of both vocational and overall identity domains. The findings suggest that the Italian version of the VISA is a promising tool for assessing vocational identity dimensions in the Italian context. Furthermore, unlike the previous literature, we found different patterns of vocational and overall identity in Italian university students. The findings suggest that the current socio-economic Italian situation may be hindering students' progress toward achieving a vocational identity, especially for freshmen.