The Analysis Of Interpersonal Self-differentiation And Social Adaptation On Junior Middle School Students

It is universally acknowledged that junior middle school students experience a particularly non-symmetrical phase of physical and psychological development and extremely unbalanced personality development, especially the students in China who spend most of their time boarding and studying at school in stead of living at home. The change of living environment obviously needs them to readjust interpersonal relationship which involves levels of interpersonal self-differentiation proposed by Bowen, affecting their social adaptation capability as well. Therefore, we are challenged with the following questions? What is the level of Chinese junior middle school students’ interpersonal self-differentiation? What kind of influences does these students’ interpersonal self-differentiation exert on their social adaptation?This paper analyzed junior school students’ self-differentiation levels by employing Scale of Junior Middle School Students’ Interpersonal Self-differentiation on the basis of Bowen’s self-differentiation theory and FeiXiaotong’s "Diversity-orderly Structure" interpersonal communication model, combined with Wang Dengfeng’s Adjectives List of Personality Traits to illustrate the deviations of interpersonal self-differentiation of these students with different personalities. Finally, the relation between their interpersonal self-differentiation and social adaptation were further explored. The conclusions are as follows:(1) The Scale of Junior Middle School Students’ Interpersonal Self-differentiation employed in this analysis held fair validity and reliability.(2) Over50%Chinese students had mixed personalities:In the circle of acquaintances, the personality traits and interpersonal self-differentiation levels had significant difference, but not in the circle of family, friends and strangers.(3) Junior middle school students’ interpersonal self-differentiation levels could be divided into eight categories:chaos, elusion, isolation, dependence, fixation, dyspathy, tardiness and maturity.(4) The junior middle school students’ interpersonal self-differentiation levels had the diversity-orderly structure in varieties of interpersonal communications.(5) No gender difference in students’ interpersonal self-differentiation types among different interpersonal communications. However, the grade difference is significant:self-differentiation capability rose with the grade’s promotion. In the circle of acquaintances, their interpersonal self-differentiation types were different in the variable "only child".(6) Junior school students’interpersonal self-differentiation was significantly related with their social adaptation in different interpersonal communications.