EMOTIONAL MATURITY, SELF-ESTEEM AND ATTACHMENT STYLES: PRELIMINARY COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS BETWEEN ADOLESCENTS WITH AND WITHOUT DELINQUENT STATUS*
Keywords:
juvenile delinquency, attachment, emotional maturity, self-esteemAbstract
The current article is investigating the
associations and differences between the attachment
styles, emotional maturity and self-esteem of two
adolescent groups from Romania: delinquents and nondelinquents,
aiming to further identify the predictive
value of these variables. For this purpose, the
correlation indexes between the scores to the following
instruments corresponding to the target-variables were
calculated: Questionnaire for the assessment of the
attachment style (Collins and Read, 1990), Survey for
the evaluation of Emotional Maturity Friedman
(questionnaire available online) and the Self-Esteem
Rosenberg Scale (Rosenberg, 1965). At the same time,
the mentioned dimensions where compared based on
the personal status of the participants (delinquents and
non-delinquents). The research was carried out on a
sample of 117 adolescents from Romania (Arad), boys and girls, ages between 13 – 17 years, with the average age m = 15.97, and a standard deviation of SD = 0.9.The results indicated a series of correlations and significant differences between the target variables (attachment styles, the emotional maturity level and the self-esteem level) on the two groups of adolescents (delinquents and non-delinquents).Our data revealed that the anxious-ambivalent attachment style was associated with a low self-esteem level, regardless of the adolescent's status (with or
without delinquency). However, the non-delinquent
adolescents with a high level of emotional maturity
showed a higher level of self-esteem. Also, the
comparison of the results between the two groups
showed that non-delinquent adolescents had a higher
level of emotional maturity and self-esteem than the
delinquent adolescents.
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