A Study of Adolescents’ Development of Autonomy-connectedness and its Relation with Social Adaptation

Abstract

Abstract: Adolescence is a special period in which great changes take place in individuals’ physical body, cognition, emotion and behaviors. Autonomy and connectedness have long been recognized the most remarkable changing characteristics during this period. Thus the pursuit for autonomy and connectedness becomes one of the most crucial aspects among adolescents’ psycho-social development. This study tested the development of autonomy, connectedness and adolescents’ social adaptation with a sample of 424 middle school students. Three scales which were used here to measure these developments are Adolescents’ Autonomy Scale, Social Connectedness Scale and Middle School Students’ Social Adaptation Scale. The results: (1) Cluster analysis showed that there are three different types, including high selfgovernance-connectedness, low autonomy-connectedness and individuality, all of which have their own distinguishing features. Type I is called high selfgovernance-connectedness (high SG-C), which has high level of behavioral autonomy and social connectedness, with moderate cognitive autonomy and lowest emotional autonomy. Type II can be called low autonomy-connectedness (low A-C), with the lowest level in behavioral autonomy, cognitive autonomy and connectedness. 113 adolescents belong to this type. The third type is properly called individuation (I), the number of which is 134. Adolescents of this type have more independent ideas and judgment standards, their cognitive and emotional autonomy are the highest among the three. (2) There is significant gender and grade difference in adolescents’ development of autonomy and connectedness, in which the development of low autonomy-connectedness is an upside down ‘V’ shape, the developmental trend of high selfgovernance -connectedness is from high to low, and the number of individuality increases with age. In the gender difference of three clusters, the distribution proportion of boys in three clusters is comparatively balanced, while that of girls showed great difference, with nearly half of girls being classified as high A/C. (3) The result of multivariate analysis of variance showed great difference in social adaptation and academic achievement among the three clusters. Adolescents with high selfgovernance- connectedness are the most ideal that maintain the best academic achievements and social adaptation. Students with low autonomy-connectedness are the worst in both academic achievements and social adaptation. These indicate the different influence of various combination of autonomy and connectedness may have on adolescents’ developmental outcomes. The results of present study suggest adolescents should be raised in an atmosphere which both support autonomy and maintain interpersonal connectedness. Since the demanding and understanding for autonomy and connectedness vary with countries and cultures, more cross- cultural studies could be held so that adolescents’ autonomy and connectedness could be further analyzed and compared.

Key words: Autonomy, Connectedness, Social adaptation, Individuality, Adolescence

摘要： 青春期是个体自主和联结的发展变化最为显著、最为突出的阶段。研究对424名中学生自主和联结的发展状况及其社会适应进行了调查，结果表明：（1）青少年具有高自治高联结、低自主低联结及个体化型三类不同的自主-联结发展水平；（2）三种类别随年龄增长呈现各自不同的发展态势，同时男生在三种类型上人数分布相对较为均衡，女生则较多属于高自治高联结类型；（3）高自治高联结者的社会适应和学业成绩最为理想。

关键词: 自主, 联结, 社会适应, 个体化, 青春期

Fang LU. A Study of Adolescents’ Development of Autonomy-connectedness and its Relation with Social Adaptation[J]. Psychological Science, 2012, 35(2): 328-333.

陆芳陈国鹏. 青少年自主-联结的发展及其与社会适应的关系研究[J]. 心理科学, 2012, 35(2): 328-333.

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