Investigation of Turkish Adolescents Emotional Autonomy in Terms of Some Demographic Variables

Abstract

This study aims to investigate the relationship among age, gender, and parental status with adolescents’ autonomy. The research group consisted of 6061 adolescents including 2879 females and 3163 males. The data collection instrument was the Emotional Autonomy Scale. The data was analyzed by computing t-test and ANOVA in SPSS programme. The findings revealed that dimensions of emotional autonomy demonstrate differences in terms of age, gender, and parental status. There were high mean scores for males in terms of deidealization, similarly females exhibited high mean scores in nondependency dimension. In terms of age, the adolescents of 14 and 15 years of age have higher mean scores than 18 year- olds in deidealization and nondependency dimensions. With respect to parental status, the adolescents whose parents are married feel more emotional autonomy in deidealization and nondependency dimensions.