1. the process of associating the self closely with other individuals and their characteristics or views. This process takes many forms: The infant feels part of his or her mother; the child gradually adopts the attitudes, standards, and personality traits of the parents; the adolescent takes on the characteristics of the peer group; the adult identifies with a particular profession or political party. Identification operates largely on a nonconscious or preconscious level.

2. in psychoanalytic theory, a defense mechanism in which the individual incorporates aspects of his or her objects inside the ego to alleviate the anxiety associated with object loss or to reduce hostility between himself or herself and the object.

3. in confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling, a situation in which the model contains a sufficient number of both fixed and free parameters to result in unique estimates from the observed data. A model is said to be identified or identifiable if a unique set of its parameter values can be determined from observations. Overidentification occurs when there are more knowns than free parameters, and underidentification occurs when it is not possible to estimate all of the model’s parameters.