Ergenlerde sır saklamanın duygusal ve gelişimsel değişkenler açısından incelenmesi
Özet
Most research on secrecy has focused on its detrimental impact in adulthood, such as health problems, obsessive thoughts, and emotional distress. However, little attention has been paid to the potential benefits of secrecy. Yet, their role in adolescent development has not been fully studied. The aim of the present study is to investigate secrecy in adolescence with respect to some emotional and developmental variables among Turkish adolescents. Secrecy is assessed with respect to emotional autonomy, subjective well being and depression.A total of 720 adolescents (aged 14?18 years) participated in this study. Of these 46.5 % (n=335) were female and 53.5 % (n=385) were male. The age of the participants ranged from 14 to 18 years with a mean of 15,3 years (SD=1.02). ?Self-concealment Scale?, ?Emotional Autonomy Scale?, ?The Satisfaction with Life Scale?, ?Positive and Negative Affect Schedule? and ?Beck Depression Inventory? were used. Independent t-tests, ANOVA and stepwise multiple regression analyses were the primary statistics.Results indicated that secrecy was significantly differentiated with regard to some socio-economic variables such as age, school type, number of siblings and settlements lived at most. Also, secrecy was found to significantly and negatively correlate with subjective well-being, individuation and deidealization and significantly and positively correlated with depression. Results showed that the emotional autonomy subscales, individuation and depression, were the important variables in terms of contributions to variance. Independence, nondependency and subjective well-being were the other variables as predictors of secrecy, respectively.Consequently, results indicated that contrary to expectations, secrecy in adolescence decreased the individuation level of adolescents. Also, adolescents who have higher depression levels, keep secrets more than the ones who don?t have. The higher secrecy level of adolescents seems to affect subjective well-being negatively. The findings of this study overlap the previous studies that support the disadvantages of secrecy in literature.