A sample of 467 college freshmen attending a comprehensive, medium size, public institution on the mid-Atlantic coast was studied to examine the relationship between the development of identity and the development of cognition in traditional college freshmen. The sample was predominantly white (88.3%) and of the total number, 51 percent were male and 49 percent female. The Erwin Identity Scale (EIS) and the Scale of Intellectual Development were used in the assessment. The results of the investigation suggest that identity and cognitive development are related and that this relationship is a negative one. It was found that the higher a student's level of cognitive development the lower his or her development of identity; conversely, the lower a student's level of cognitive development, the higher his or her development of identity. Contains 26 references. (GLR)