The Relationships Among College Students' Ego Development, Family System Differentiation And Psychological Separation-individuation

The purpose of this study was to explore the relationships among college students' ego development, family system differentiation and psychological separation-individuation. This study collected data by using survey-research methods. The subjects were 400 college students from Northeast Normal University and JiLin University. The instruments used in this study included: Ego Development Scale, Family System Differentiation Scale and Psychological Separation-Individuation Scale. Discarding the incomplete questionnaires,256 ones were valid. The collected data were analyzed by Pearson-canonical correlation analysis, T-test, Multiple Regression, which were out of the statistics programming software SPSS16.0.The major findings were as follows:(1)The college students' ego development was at the upper-middle level in general.(2)In the family system differentiation, the mother-child differentiation was the best. There were significant sexual differentiation in the mother-child subsystem.(3)The college students' psychological separation-individuation was at the upper-middle level in general. There were significant sexual differentiation in the separate anxious, defy control.(4)There were significant positive correlations between family system differentiation and ego development ,and family system differentiation could predict ego development.(5)There were significant positive correlations between psychological separation-individuation and ego development, and psychological separation-individuation could predict the ego development(6)There were significant positive correlations between family system differentiation and psychological separation-individuation, and family system differentiation could predict psychological separation-individuation.(7)The relationships between college students' family system differentiation and ego development was not only direct but also indirect. Psychological separation-individuation had mediating effect between college students' family system differentiation and ego development.