Investigation of relation between adolescents'attachment style and identity status

ABSTRACT INVESTIGATION OF RELATION BETWEEN ADOLESCENTS? ATTACHMENT STYLE AND IDENTITY STATUS Nurhan BAŞ Master Thesis, Main Discipline of Educational Sciences Advisor: Prof. Dr. Turan AKBAŞ July 2013, 116 Pages In this study, investigation is made for the relationship between adolescents? attachment style and identity status and whether these two variables change according to age, gender, mother's education, mother's employment status, mother's age when child was born and adolescents? sibling order. Research is done with 398 adolescents, living in provinces like Diyarbakir, Adana, Mersin and Ankara and various high schools. In order to measure attachment style, one of the dependent variable of research, "Relationship Scales Questionnaire" (GriffinandBartholomew, 1994) translated into Turkish by Sumer and Gungor (1999) isused. In order to measure identity status, the other dependent variable of research, "Ego Identity Status Scale " (Bennion and Adams, 1986) translated into Turkish by Eryuksel and Varan (1999) isused. Inorder to collect information about independent variables of research ?Personal Information Form? prepared by the researcher is used. In data analysis, Independent Groups t-test, Spearman Brown Correlation Coefficient, One-Way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA), Mann-Whitney U andKruskal-Wallis Test isused. The findings have shown that there is a positive and meaningful relationship at a low level between moratorium identity status and dismissing attachment styles; at the same time there is a positive and meaningful relationship at a low level between diffusion identity status and preoccupied attachment status. From the point of view of independent changables; considering the gender, fearful attachment style points are differentiated and it is seen that the girls got higher mark. From the status of moratorium identity, diffusion identity and foreclosure identity, it is seen that the boys got higher mark in comparison to the girls. It is found that there is no meaningful relationship between age and attachment styles. Between achievement identity status and moratorium identity status marks, it is found that there is a meaningful relationship of low level and negative way. Considering the changable of mother?s educational status, adolescents whose mothers have a university or higher educational degree had meaningfully higher marks in the sense of secured attachment style when compared to those whose mothers are illiterate. At the same time, preoccupied attachment style marks of the adolescents whose mothers are graduated from a university or a higher institution are meaningfully low when compared to the adolescents whose mothers are illiterate or graduated from primary/secondary schools. It is revealed that the average of moratorium identity of adolescents whose mothers are graduated from primary school is meaningfully higher from the average of moratorium identity of those adolescents whose mothers are graduated from university or higher institution. Considering the mother?s employment status, it is found that the preoccupied attachment levels of the adolescents whose mothers are housewives are meaningfully higher when compared to preoccupied attachment levels of the adolescents whose mothers are employed. It is seen that the moratorium identity status and diffusion identity status marks of the adolescents whose mothers are employed are meaningfully higher than the moratorium identity status and diffusion identity status marks of the adolescents whose mothers are housewives. When the sibling sequence is analysed, there is no meaningful difference found between attachment styles and identity status. Keywords: Attachment Styles, Identity Status.