Adolescent separation-individuation: Testing a conceptual model which integrates psychoanalytic, family systems and cognitive developmental factors.

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to test a theoretical model which suggests that cognitive, intrapsychic, and family factors interact to facilitate or impede the adolescent separation-individuation process. It was hypothesized that adolescents whose families "cognitively bind" them--i.e. restrict the autonomy of their thinking--would demonstrate generally less effectiveness in thinking about "social topics" (represented in this study by separation-individuation and friendship) than would "non-bound" adolescents. It was also hypothesized that specifically, thinking about separation-individuation would be more adversely affected by cognitive binding than would thinking about friendship. Adolescents who rated their families high in cohesion were also expected to achieve higher cognitive scores than low cohesion subjects in both social domains, but again a more salient effect was expected in the separation-individuation domain. In addition, high cohesion and /or "non-bound" adolescents were expected to show more mature feelings concerning separation-individuation than were low cohesion and /or cognitively bound adolescents. Videotaped interactions of fifty-six fifteen and sixteen year old adolescents and their parents were coded for cognitive binding using the Cognitive Binding Assessment Measure (CBAM) designed for this research. Family cohesion was assessed with the FACES III questionnaire. Adolescents' feelings about separation were measured by the Psychological Separation Inventory questionnaire. The ability to apply their thinking to two social domains, separation-individuation and friendship, was assessed by the This I Believe (TIB) measure, a timed, written test and the Interpersonal Negotiation Strategy (INS), a semistructured interview. General cognitive abilities were measured by the WISC-R Similarities subtest and the Plant Problem which tests the ability to isolate variables. As predicted, high cohesion/non-cognitively bound adolescents outscored low cohesion/cognitively bound adolescents in both domains of social thinking, but not in general, non-interpersonal cognition. Also, CBAM correlated more negatively with separation-individuation than with friendship as predicted, but only for girls and only on the TIB test. Girls' but not boys' FACES III scores correlated with PSI in a number of ways which had not been predicted. Implications of these results for the conceptual model and the significance of the gender differences were discussed.