The coherence between personality traits of adolescents and empathic bonds with parents according to family construction

Abstract

The number of children who grow without parents is increasing in Lithuania. After parents’ divorce children (especially adolescents) encounter various psychological and social difficulties. They possibly feel lonely and irrelevant or may be angry with their parents. Adolescents also sometimes lack warmth, respect or understanding even if they live with both parents. This negative experience is possibly related to various personality traits (PT). This study aimed to explore the coherence between PT of adolescents and empathic bonds with parents (EBP) according to family construction - in divorced (DF) and non-divorced families (non-DF). Method: The Scale of EBP of Adolescents (prepared by authors in accordance with Buri, Misukanis, Muller, 1989) and the Scale of PT (paranoid, histrionic, avoidant, narcissistic, antisocial, dependant, obsessive-compulsive, borderline; Sinkariova, Urbonaviciute, Jonyniene, 2007) were used for a representative sample of students’ population, aged 15-19 (N= 423). Results: The EBP of adolescents in DF were significantly negatively related to adolescents’ tendency to paranoid, borderline, histrionic, dependant and obsessive-compulsive PT (p< 0.05) but not significantly related to avoidant, antisocial and narcissistic PT (p>0.05). The EBP of adolescents in non-DF were significantly negatively related to all PT investigated except histrionic and antisocial PT (p>0.05; only for narcissistic traits significantly positive relation was found). Actually, no statistically significant difference between PT of adolescents in DF and non-DF was established. Conclusions: The PT of adolescents were not in coherence with family construction itself but were more related to EBP: the better adolescents feel associating with parents, the less analysed PT they have (with the exception of narcissistic traits that are more characteristic for adolescents who have strong EBP).