Young People Feel Alienated From Their Families Function, And Peer Acceptance

Alienation,which is a concept causing much debate, has various aspects of meaning in different fields including sociology, political philosophy, psychoanalysis, existential philosophy, etc. According to developmental psychology, alienation, to a great extent, can directly reflect individual impotence in social communication, i.e. impotence in dealing with others and establishing an effective communion with relevant social communities such as family, school and the peer group. The teenagers, emotionally fragile and sensitive in the transitional phase of physical and psychological development, are faced with the highest risk of alienation (Calabrese, 1987). A certain degree of alienation is positive in helping the individual reflect on and explore his or her self-identity, but long-time intense alienation can negatively influence the establishment of close communion of friendship with peer groups and is prone to cause problem behaviors and even criminal acts. Adolescent alienation has become the focus of attention in recent years. The relationship between alienation and individual psychological health, problem behaviors, and criminal acts has already been studied in previous research, with discussion on the factors that affect alienation provided. This thesis studies the development of adolescent alienation from the approach of microsystem of individual life, i.e. family environment and peer groups. This thesis starts with a relatively detailed description about research on the development of adolescent alienation both at home and abroad and about important works and theories on alienation, family function, peer relationship and the development of self-identity; at the same time it gives an analysis of the current research situation and existing problems. On that basis, the research is done by means of Adolescent Alienation Scale, Family Assessment Device and Peer Rating on a sample of 1080 adolescents (472 boys and 403 girls) ranging from Grade One in Junior High School to Grade Two in Senior High School selected from five middle schools in Jinan. It studies general characteristics of the development of adolescent alienation, and discusses the relationship between family function, peer acceptance and adolescent alienation.Conclusions drawn in this thesis are as follows:(1) In the first hierarchy, adolescent environmental alienation is higher than social alienation, while interpersonal alienation is the lowest. In the second hierarchy, alienation of living environment and self-alienation are above the middle score with social isolation being the lowest.(2) The development of adolescent alienation varies a lot in different ages. Students from Senior High School get higher scores on different dimensions of alienation than those from Junior High School. However, gender differences in adolescent alienation development are not significant.(3) The dimensions of family function such as affection involvement, roles, communication, emotional responses positively predict adolescent alienation on different levels. But predicting of problem solving and behavioral control are not significant.(4) Gender differences exist in the relationship between educational level of parents, peer acceptance and adolescent alienation. Adolescent girls'alienation is influenced by educational level of parents through family functioning. Peer refusal has a direct effect on adolescent girls'interpersonal and social alienation, and peer acceptance has both direct and indirect influence on adolescent boys'alienation.