The Association Among Negative Life Events, Self-disclosure And Adolescent Social Adaptation

Negative life events(NLE) are various problems someone may experience in his or her life and the main origin of psychological stress which usually has negative effect on body health. A number of students suffering negative life events like learning and family stress more or less, when they enter adolescence, it will cause many psychological and behavioral problems if they are unable to deal with it correctly. Existing studies have shown that life events and self-disclosure have significant impact on social adjustment such as adolescent aggressive behavior, depression and self-esteem. Self-disclosure refers to telling someone about his/her information and sharing his/her personal, private thoughts and feelings with others sincerely. According to the social penetration theory, self-disclosure is the basic form of social exchange and the prerequisite for the establishment of intimate relationship. Existing research showed that self-disclosure could greatly contribute to our self- understanding, developing of intimate relationship, maintaining of mental health and enhancing of social adjustment.A series of questionnaires, Self Disclosure Questionnaire, Adolescent self-rating life events check list, Achenbach’s youth self-Report, the Center for Epidemiologial Studies Depression Scale and Self-esteem Scale, were administered to 453 junior high school students. This study focuses on the basic characteristics of adolescent self-disclosure and mainly examine whether adolescent self-disclosure plays a moderate role between life events and social adjustment, and the findings were as follows:1. There was no significant gender or grade differences in adolescents’ NLE.2. The overall level of adolescent self-disclosure was below average. No significant grade differences or gender differences were found.3. Adolescent self-disclosure to mother showed the highest level, followed by father, same-sex friends, and opposite sex friends.4. The junior high school students’ self-disclosure was mainly divided into four types: high-parent self-disclosure, high-friend self-disclosure, low self-disclosure and the general self-disclosure. There was no significant gender or grade differences in the type of adolescents’ self-disclosure.5. Negative life events was negatively associated with adolescent self-esteem, but positively with aggression and depression. Self-disclosure to father was positively correlated with adolescents’ self-esteem, and negatively correlated with aggression and depression.Self-disclosure to mother was positively associated with adolescents’ self-esteem and academic record. Self-disclosure to friends was positively correlated with aggression.6. Self-disclosure to mother or father moderated the association between NLE and aggression; Self-disclosure to friend moderated the association between NLE and depression.