QUALITY OF FAMILY INTERACTIONS AND ADOLES- CENTS' PERSONALITY TRAITS

Abstract

Family as the basic social unit is the primary environment of the development of an individual. In the family setting an individual satisfies (or should satisfy) the basic human needs such as the need for safety and love. In the studies of patterns of unadapted behavior of children and adolescents, temperament is most often stated as the key human characteristic feature that is the most important predictor in the development of unadapted and antisocial forms of behavior. The survey of dispositional empirically identified and inheritance-determined characteristics has been described in detail by Eysenck’s dimensional model of personality through mutually orthogonal and bipolar characteristics: Neuroticism, Extraversion and Psychoticism. The formation of these dispositional characteristics is closely related to parents’ sensitivity to child’s needs and the level of parents’ engagement in their parental role. Therefore, the aim of this research was to examine to what extent the assessment of the quality of the relationship with parents is an important predictor for explaining the basic dimensions of adolescents’ personalities. The research was conducted on an appropriate sample of 135 adolescents, students of the Faculty of Philosophy in Tuzla. The results confirm that the aspects of negative relationships with mother and father are important predictors for explaining dimensions of Neuroticism and Psychoticism, which are very significant correlations of unadapted and antisocial behavior. Also, the results indicate less significant importance of positive relations with mother and father for explaining dependent research variables since it is presumed that positive relations act more as a protective factor whereas the assessment of negative relationships with parents is certainly more important, especially for the dimensions related to bad adaptation of adolescents. The results also indicate equal importance of mother and father in the upbringing process for explaining the basic personality dimensions of adolescents since negative relationships with both mother and father appear as equally important predictors for explaining the dimensions of Neuroticism and Psychoticism in adolescents.