Relationship between Loneliness, Depression and Attachment Styles of Late Adolescents with their Working Mothers

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Page: 1067-1069

Mihul Narad¹ and Neha Pandeya² (Consultant Clinical Psychologist, Cadabams Mental Health Care Services Pvt. Limited¹ and Department of Psychology, Mehr Chand Mahajan DAV College for Women, Chandigarh, India²)

The purpose of the study was to assess gender differences in loneliness and depression among late adolescents about their attachment styles with their working mothers. The main assumption here was that loneliness and depression thrive in those families more where the materialistic growth is the focus and parents believe in an individualistic way of life, which in turn leads to damage to the traditions, values and social relationships of family members, especially of adolescents whose mothers are working. Hence, a comparative study has been carried out to assess how the various attachment styles of male and female adolescents with their working mothers affect their personality. The study was carried out on a randomly selected sample of 30 male adolescents and 30 female adolescents in the age range of 18-20 from Chandigarh, Panchkula and Mohali (tricity). The data was collected using the Loneliness Scale (Russell, Peplao, & Cutron, 1980), Inventory of Parent and Peer Attachment (Armsden & Greenberg, 1987), and Zung Self-Rating Depression Scale (Zung, 1965). Results revealed that there is a significant difference between males and females on loneliness, depression and attachment styles. There is a significant positive relationship between loneliness and depression and a significant negative relationship between depression and attachment style among male and female adolescents.