The purpose of this study was to examine any differences in institutionalized youth's meaning of life, body image, self-esteem, altruism, and resilience as a function of sex and age, as well as how these variables affected on resilience.Two-hundred an...
The purpose of this study was to examine any differences in institutionalized youth's meaning of life, body image, self-esteem, altruism, and resilience as a function of sex and age, as well as how these variables affected on resilience.Two-hundred and fifty five adolescents (122 males, 133 females) aged between 13 to 24 from 18 institutions across the country participated in this study.The instruments used for this study were 'Purpose In Life (Crumbaugh & Maholick, 1981)', 'Body Esteem Scale(Mendelson, Mendelson, Andrews, Balfour, & Bucholz, 1997)', 'Self-Esteem Scale(Rosenberg, 1965)', 'Altruism Scale(Lee, 1993)', 'Ego-Resiliency Scale(Block & Kremen, 1996)'. The data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, t-test, one-way ANOVA, Pearson correlation, and multiple regression.The results were as follows:First, there were significant differences in institutionalized youth's meaning of life, body image, altruism and resilience as a function of sex. That is, boys bettered in body image, meaning of life, and happiness of life than girls. However, girls had higher degree of cooperation·support and interpersonal relationships.Second, there were no statistical differences among variables as a function of adolescents' age.Third, there was a positive correlation between institutionalized youth's meaning of life, body image, self-esteem, and altruism and resilience. This means that where the meaning of life, body image, self-esteem, and altruism are high, the resilience becomes high.Fourth, the adolescents' meaning of life, self-esteem, and altruism, in the order of, influenced their resilience.