Abstract
The intent of the present study was to examine the associations among differentiation of self, resilience and hope. Extending Bowen’s family systems theory to adolescents in a middle eastern culture, we anticipated age and gender-based differences in the level of the constructs as well as in the associations among them. Employing a multistage cluster sampling procedure, a sample of 300 adolescents (132 girls and 168 boys) ranging in age from 14 to 19 years old (M = 16.36 years; SD = 1.24) were recruited from junior and senior high schools in Khoramabad. Data were collected through self-report measures, Differentiation of Self Inventory, Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale and Snyder Hope Scale, and analyzed via descriptive statistics, correlations and bootstrap analyses. Higher scores of differentiation were related to greater resilience and hope. Scores on I-position, emotional cutoff and fusion with others were also associated with resilience and hope. Age and gender differences emerged in certain components of differentiation. However, a moderated mediation analysis revealed no moderating effects of age and gender in the association between differentiation and resilience. Separate gender based bootstrapping results for mediation highlighted the specific indirect paths that resilience has in the relationship between I-position and hope in adolescent boys and between emotional closeness (low emotional cutoff) and hope in adolescent girls. Findings are discussed with regard to the cross-cultural validity of Bowen family systems theory.
Highlights
Adolescence, the period from age 10 to 18 years (Lo Iaconoa & Carolab, 2018), or extended to the mid-twenties (UNICEF, 2011) in humans, is a period of transition that begins with pubertal maturation and ends with independence from the caregiver (Casey, Duhoux & Cohen, 2010)
The results of the present study supported our theoretical model that high levels of differentiation of self can predict hope in adolescents through resilience
While the obtained positive associations between differentiation of self, resilience and hope are in line with previous research that has associated differentiation of self with the development of positive indices of mental health (e.g. Fredrick, 2016), these results highlight certain likely age trends in the development of differentiation of self and the strong effects, especially through specific indirect paths, that resilience has in the relationship between gender-specific components of differentiation of self and hope in adolescents
Summary
Adolescence, the period from age 10 to 18 years (Lo Iaconoa & Carolab, 2018), or extended to the mid-twenties (UNICEF, 2011) in humans, is a period of transition that begins with pubertal maturation and ends with independence from the caregiver (Casey, Duhoux & Cohen, 2010). While levels of parental involvement, warmth and support (Tubman & Lerner, 1994) and perceptions of family cohesion (Fosco, Caruthers & Dishion, 2012) are associated with the adolescent’s psychological adjustment, a mature sense of identity and well-being requires that adolescents develop autonomy while maintaining emotional relatedness in their interactions with their parents (Allen, Hauser & Eickho, 2010 as cited in Cook, Wilkinson, & Stroud, 2018) This ability of an individual to strike a balance between autonomy and connectedness is termed differentiation of the self (Peleg & Zoabi, 2014), a central concept in the Bowen’s (1978) Family Systems Theory (Sloan & Dierendonck, 2016). Expectations regarding educational and employment success are much higher for boys, risk-taking and independence is more encouraged in boys and parenting tends to be more conservative regarding girls Within such a context, it is likely that adolescent boys and girls who are faced with the first major decision regarding their educational and occupational career paths will differ in terms of differentiation of self, hope and resilience.
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