Abstract
This paper is a third report of studies on developmental changes of dependent behavior in adolescents. The present paper is concerned with dependent behavior in junior-high school girls, comparing findings to those of previous reports, in which female undergraduate students (first report) and senior-high school girls (second report) served as Ss.
Methods of this study were the same as those previously used. Two questionnaires were administred to 249 junior-high school girls all with both parents alive. The first questionnaire asked Ss how dependent they were in what mode (physical proximity, attention, help, assurance, psychic/spiritual) on 6 objects (mother, father the most intimate friend of the same sex, the most intimate friend of the opposite sex, i. e., love object, etc.). The second was a SCT type questionnaire asking Ss, independently from the first, what significance or value those objects had in their psychic lives.
The results were as follows ;
1) Differentiation between objects in dependency structure, i. e., differentiation of focus or a central component from other several role-specific objects as less clear among junior-high schoolers. In other words,(1) the proportion of F-type (single-focus-type, the most structured one of dependency) was only 25%.(2) degree of functional differentiation was low even in F-type, and (3) the number of objects in the structure was small.
2) Strength of dependency needs was not greater in female junior-high school pupils than among undergraduate students. It cannot be asserted from the findings that potency of dependency needs acqui red during infancy decreases in strength in the course of development.
3) Dependency structure of junior-high school pupils had characteristically significant components.(1) mother tended to be more important tant than in later adolescence,(2) father, with mother, was selected more frequently as an important object of dependency,(3) the most intimate friends of either sex were not yet as important as they were to become in later adolescence.
Tentative hypotheses on developmental changes. of dependent behavior in adolescence were established from the findings of these 3 reports.
