Developmental change of orientations to self-change during adolescence

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine developmental changes in orientations to self-change in adolescence, focusing on early, middle, and late adolescents. Although it is well known that many adolescents want to change themselves, few studies have examined how orientations to self-change evolve during adolescence. A total of 1,128 Japanese adolescents aged 13 to 25 (353 junior high school students, 375 high school students, and 400 university students) responded to an orientations to self-change scale consisting of 40 items. Results of a factor analysis indicated that the orientations to self-change consisted of 10 factors. A principal component analysis of the 10 factors resulted in a distribution along two axes: Future Selves--Past Selves and Positive Others--Negative Selves. Results of ANOVA comparing 10 scores with 3 school stages indicated that the orientations to self-change could evolve through three stages in adolescence. At fi rst, adolescents want to change all of themselves, then they tend to refer to their past selves and current others in changing themselves as they grow, and fi nally they reach the stage of referring to future selves, so that they want to improve specifi c aspects of themselves.