[The adolescent and his/her significant persons].
The author publishes the results of a study designed to analyze how an adolescent's social support network is distributed when a teenager has a problem and seeks help. The author analyzes who are the significant persons to whom an adolescent turns to when facing a problem, be it moral, material or sentimental. By means of content analysis technique, the author establishes a seven category system based on the stories told by adolescents; the author plans to discover the attributes and qualities which bring an adolescent close to these significant persons making them, in the eyes of the adolescent, particularly influential. The author plans to observe is differences exist among the persons which adolescents perceive as predisposed to help them and those to who adolescents finally ask for help. The results indicate that the importance of the person varies significantly as a function of the field in which the problem arises and the size of help sought. The results confirm differences based on sex but not on age. Therefore, the importance of the persons remains stable from the first to the last year of adolescence.
Castellana Rosell
Montserrat
M
Facultad de Psicología, Ciencias de a Educación y el Deporte de a Universidad Ramón Llull. montserratcr@blanquerna.url.es
D000293:Adolescent; D000294:Adolescent Behavior / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D033062:Friends; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010287:Parent-Child Relations; D016487:Parenting; D010379:Peer Group