Abstract
The purpose of the present research was to examine the features of apathy in relation to how adolescents feel about their lives during 3 levels of schooling: junior high school, high school, and college. A questionnaire covering apathy and such topics as school adaptation and social support was given to 275 junior high school students (142 boys and 133 girls), 337 high school students (169 boys and 168 girls), and 337 college students (164 men, 159 women, and 14 unidentified), for a total of 949 students. The main results were as follows: (1) Factor analysis revealed 3 factors in the apathy scale: self-unknowing, personal distrust and dissatisfaction, and feeling of fatigue.(2) The results of ANOVA showed that the factors of self-unknowing and feeling of fatigue fell in the college student level, and that the developmental aspects of personal distrust and dissatisfaction varied, depending on the student's gender.(3) In the junior high school and high school students, feelings of school adaptation about wanting to study and relations with friends were connected with apathy. For the male college students, but not the females, friends' support was strongly connected with the factor of personal distrust and dissatisfaction.
