Relationship between parental rejection and social adjustment problems among school children

Abstract

Present study was undertak en to assess relationship between Parental Rejection and Social Adjustment p roblems. Further the study tested mediating role of Inferiority Complex in adolescent.Research instrum ents in this study includes The Inferiority Scale (Yao, 1991), Work and Social Adjustment Scale (Marks, 2002) and Parental Acceptance and Rejection Questionnaire (Rohner, 1987). The research comprises of two phases. Phase J is pilot study ( N = 50) and Phase II is main study (N = 440)Questionnaires distributed amongadolescents age rangedfrom 13 to 16 years in four dffJerent schools of Islamabad and Rawalpindi from both public and private sectors. Before anaZysis, sca les were testedfor their psychometrics which showed that the alpha coefficient reliability for all scales were in acceptable range. Pearson correlation, Independent t-test, ANOVA, Mediation analysis wasused for hypothesis testing. Pearson correlation showed that Inferiority Complex is positively correlated with Social Adjustment Problems,Parental Rejection is positively correlated with Social Adjustment Problems and Parental rejection is positively related to Inferiority Complex. Result indicated that Rej ection from both parentsis associated with an increase of Inferiority Complex in adolescents. Result also showed significant gender dffference that Inferiority Complex is high among g irls as compared to boys, whereas Social Adjustment Problems are high among boys.Mediation analysis also pelformed to check the mediating role of Inferiority Complex for the relationship between Father 's Undifferentiated Rejection, Father 's Negligence, Mother Negbgence and Social Adjustment of children for controlling effect of age, gender, income andfamily system. Result showed that Parental Rejection and Negligence increases Jnferiori~)l Complex resulting in a substantial increase of Social Adjustment Problems in children and Social Adjustment Problems in children and adolescents.