The purpose of this study is to understand the emotional characteristics and socio-psychological adaptation of delinquent adolescents and to investigate how their emotional experience in childhood affects their developmental adaptation through the ex...
The purpose of this study is to understand the emotional characteristics and socio-psychological adaptation of delinquent adolescents and to investigate how their emotional experience in childhood affects their developmental adaptation through the examination of the patterns of their attachment and defense mechanism. The method of study is to compare with the attachment styles and the pattern of defense mechanism by developmental stages between the delinquent adolescents and the normal adolescents, and to divide their styles of attachment into secure and insecure groups to compare with their defense mechanisms.
The following are the results of this study.
First, delinquent adolescents have more insecure attachment style than normal adolescents, especially most of them have dismissive/avoidant attachment.
Second, delinquent adolescents use the defense mechanism of immature more than normal adolescents. However, the two groups have no significant difference on the defense mechanism of neurotic stage.
Third, the group of secure attachment usually use the defense mechanism of mature stage and insecure group usually make use of maladjusted defense mechanism.
The results of this study show that delinquent adolescents have dismissive/avoidant attachment, and they use the defense mechanism of immature stage. Besides, the attachment to breeder formed in childhood has great impact on individual emotional security and socio-psychological adaptation. These show that attachment security has the important influence on individual socio-psychological adaptation and delinquency of adolescent in developmental stages.