The Influence of Parental Divorce on the Personality and Social Adjustment of Adolescent Students of Jimma, Agaro and Mizan Towns

Abstract

The Personality and social adjustment of adolescent students to parental divorce is thefocus of this research. It questioned whether parental divorce influences thepersonality characters and social adjustment of adolescents. A cross-sectional, questionnaire-based survey was conducted on 120 purposely selected groups ofadolescents (60 adolescents from divorced family and 60 from intact family),attending 10+1 & 10+2 grade level at Jimma, Agaro and Mizan town preparatory schools. Socio-demographic details and responses to questionnaires assessing thepersonality character and social adjustment of adolescents were recorded. The datawas analyzed, and compared using statistical measures of correlation and independent sample t-test. The results indicated that high levels of excitability (M=4.32), boldness(M=3.82), withdrawal (M=3.66), apprehension (M=3.52), and tension (M=4.64), aswell as low levels of emotional stability (M=2.06), warmth (M=2.43), self-discipline(M=2.38), and conformity (M=2.40) characterized the personality of adolescents from divorced family, and the result was significantly different (t = 1.18, α = 0.05) ascompared with the personality measures of adolescents of intact family. Moreover, adolescents from divorced family (M=3.05) performed poor in social adjustment, ascompared to adolescents from intact family (M=3.18), (t = -3.07, α = 0.05).