The Development Of Autonomy And Connectedness In Adolescence And Their Relations With Social Adaptation

Autonomy and connectedness have long been recognized as human basic mental needs in different theoretical perspectives in psychology ranging from psychoanalytic thinking to evolutionary psychology. Adolescence is a special period in which great changes take place in individuals'physical body, cognition, emotion and behaviors. Adolescent will again turn their attention to themselves and their inner world. Their care more about their own thought, feeling, need, dignity and so on. Apart from these, adolescent establish new intimate relationship outside their family and peer influence more than before. Thus remarkable changes in autonomy and connectedness can be found in this stage.Based on previous studies on autonomy and connectedness, this article means to discuss:(1) what kind of relationship between autonomy and connectedness can be recognized as ideal status? (2) which personal antecedents may influence the relationship? (3) will the relationship affect adolescents'various developmental outcomes? and how? (4) how do autonomy and connectedness vary in different developmental stages? are there any complex interations between autonomy and connectedness? In this study, a sample of 424 adolescents ranging from grade 7 to grade 11 took part in the investigation. Multiple methods such as questionnaires, observation, interviews, thematic analysis and experiments were used here.As to the development of autonomy and connectedness, each grader has its own charateristics. In grade 7, the level of behavioral autonomy and connectedness are the highest, accompanied by the lowest emotional autonomy. Most students in Grade 7 are classified as high self-governance/high connectedness. In grade 9, the level of behavioral autonomy, cognitive autonomy and connectedness are the lowest, while emotional autonomy reaches the highest. This grade mainly contains the type of low autonomy/low connectedness. Adolescents reach their highest level of cognitive autonomy in grade 11, in which stage idividualization type are totaled most. Remarkable gender differnce has not been found in the adolescents'autonomy, but this is not the case as in their connectedness. Girls'connectedness develop higher than that of boys. More boys can be ranked into individualization, while more girls belongs to high self-governance/high connectedness.In the analysis of cluster results and students' composition, the high self-governance/high connectedness show more emphasis on intimacy, love and harmony in family conflict, with highest behavioral autonomy and connectedness, lowest emotional autonomy. The individuals of low autonomy/low connectedness express less need for autonomy or intimacy in family conflict, with lowest behavioral autonomy, cognitive autonomy and connectedness. Compared with these two, more individualization adolescents possess their own different opinions and judgement standards, who show more need for autonomy and separation. Their distance with parents are furthest among the three.The results of this study indicate that various developmental outcomes can be predicted by autonomy and connectedness respectively. Behavioral autonomy and connectedness can positively predict these outcomes, while emotional autonomy has negative prediction function. The type of autonomy-connectedness can predict the outcomes in almost the same way. Among all the three types, high self-governance/high connectedness is the most ideal one that maintains the healthiest mental status and best adaptation. On the contrary, low autonomy/low connectedness is the worst in both mental status and adaptation. This difference model remains the same no matter which grade is. In addition, the regression analysis show that only behavioral autonomy can positively predict adolescents'school achievement.Temperament and cognition charateristics can affect adolescence autonomy and connectedness. First, effort control is the most important factor in temperament that affect autonomy and connectedness. It can predict positively behavioral autonomy and connectedness and negatively emotional autonomy. Affinity and negative emotion can predict autonomy and connectedness either. Second, whether adolescents can understand parental behaviors from their parents' perspectives is another key factor that influence their autonomy and connectedness. The ability of role-taking in high self-governance/high connectedness are higher than that of low autonomy/low connectedness. Besides personal charateristics, parental control and adolescent-parent communication are also important antecedents. With comparison, the parents of high self-governance/ high connectedness can communicate with their children more effctively. They will take more methods to promote children's autonomy and connectedness, such as reasoning, negotiation, empathy and so on, leaving more chances of self-determination and self management for their children.As a whole, it can be concluded that there is some kind of relationship between autonomy and connectedness. Not only is autonomy related to connectedness, but also behavioral, cognitive autonomy can positively predict connectedness and emotional negatively predict it. When adolescents'emotional autonomy is at the top, and their connectedness is the lowest, their self-governance autonomy will be at the bottom. It seems that in collectivism countries which emphasizes more interpersonal connectedness, the most ideal development status is seeking autonomy while maintaining connectedness with important others, not detaching from them.