The author has already analyzed the patterns of emotional tie between elderly couples in the post-retirement stage. The purposes of this study are to find out in the same way whom adolescents and their parents want as the most important objects of egocentric-altruistic needs, to examine the patterns of emotional tie among them, and to compare those of couples in the different stages. The samples are university students (42 males, 52 females) and their parents.
The results are summarized as follows :
Many of the students want to have intimate relation to others rather than family members, but female students are more likely to rely on their parents than male students. On the other hand, most of their parents are not child-oriented but spouse-oriented. Emotional tie between couples in the post-retirement stage gets closer than that of couples in the pre-retirement stage.