During adolescence, however, the teen begins to use the morals he now possesses to directly effect the role these forces will have. Once the happening of the identity crisis enters a teen's life, in an ideal world, he/she will then be able to deal with the lack of external input, and from then on will have a semi- permanent identity from which to draw upon the morals and desires that all future decisions will rely upon. While Erikson say, "Only individuals who succeed in resolving the crisis will be ready to face future challenges in life," he also admits that, "The identity crisis may well be recurring, as the changing world demands us to constantly redefine ourselves" (Wu). He mentions "redefining" to push the fact that individuals undergoing this developmental stage, do indeed take outside forces in order to reflect on themselves, and who they are. Adding to his argument, Erikson also discusses parts of identity which come purely from the individual himself, without any regard to the outside world. For example, body type, temperament, and gifted-ness are all characteristics which are buried into DNA; they are hereditary. While this means they were acquired from parents, the ways in which each separate parent's DNA joins with that of the other, the resulting DNA in the child is unique to that one child. Reactions to events, friends made, future occupations, and eventually, spouses and children will all rely, at least partially, on such hereditary things, all separate from social forces. In such cases the individual will look inside himself on how to respond rather than outward. .
Amin Maalouf discusses identity in a way that relates greatly to Erikson. He talks of the many different elements that form an identity, like: religion, nationality, profession, sex, connection with: a sport, group of friends, union, company, parish, community. Some of the above elements are delivered to a person at birth, and, therefore, the individual cannot adopt the allegiances or connections from a social group.
