Attachment And Its Relation With The Ego-identity Development Of Students In Gong-du School

Attachment and its relation with the Ego-identity Development of Students in Gong-du SchoolThis study was designed to investigate attachment and its relation with the ego-identity development of students in Gong-du school horizontal and vertical dimensions. Horizontal research on attachment focuses on the strong and lasting emotional links between students in Gong-du school and certain someone who include parents, peers and important person in current life. Vertical research on attachment focuses on the early attachment between students in Gong-du school and their parents or primary care-givers and on how the early attachment predicts the relationship in the future. A sample of 113 students in Gong-du school and 160 students in normal junior school was investigated through the Inventory of Parents and Peer Attachment, the self-compiled vertical attachment questionnaire, the Ego Identity Process Questionnaire, some of whom was selected to join the individual self-compiled and semi-structured interview related to attachment and ego-identity.The result shows that:1. On horizontal attachment quality, students in Gong-du school are worse than that of students in normal junior school. There are significant differences between them in scores of trust towards mother, trust towards father and communication with peers. There are extremely significant differences in scores of communication with mother. On vertical attachment quality, they show no significant difference in two dimensions, namely, attachment avoidance and attachment anxiety.2. Different degrees of correlationship exist among the various dimensions of the horizontal and vertical of attachment of students in Gong-du school. Extremely significant correlationship exists between alienation from mother, alienation from father, alienation from peer and attachment avoidance respectively. Significant correlationship exists between communication with mother, trust towards father and attachment avoidance. Significant correlationship also exists between alienation from peer and attachment anxiety.3. Different degrees of correlationship exist among the various dimensions of attachment and self-identity of students in Gong-du school. In further regression analysis, it is found that trust towards peer and father in attachment relation make contributions to commitment to the ideological domain. Trust towards father and alienation from peer make contributions to exploration to the ideological domain of identity. Trust towards mother, communication with peer and anxiety in vertical attachment can predict commitment to the interpersonal domain. Anxiety in vertical attachment can predict exploration in the interpersonal domain. In general, trust towards mother, anxiety in vertical attachment and communication with peer can predict identity state of students in Gong-du school.4. Interview results show that students in Gong-du school show insecure factors varying from different degrees in early attachment and the current attachment and other psychological characteristics caused by attachment, including attachment avoidance, anxiety, aggressive, emotional isolation and so on which have relation with family structure deficiencies, bad parental rearing pattern and few communication between parents and children. However, there are also some protective factors in their lives, such as support from relatives or peer. There was not significant difference in ego-identity state between students in Gong-du school and in normal junior school, which follows the development track of teen-agers group. The social stereotype to students from Gong-du school and some parental bad examples have impact on their plans for the future. What's more, early parent-child attachment, current peer and family relationship influence their ego-identity state.