Journal o f Youth and Adolescence, Vol. 13, No. 6, 1984

Adolescence, Stress, and Psychological Well-Being C. M . S i d d i q u e t a n d C a r l D ' A r c y j Received September 19, 1984; accepted December 17, 1984

The present study analyzes the mental-health consequences of stress in a sample of 1,038 adolescents (526 females and 512 males)from a Canadian prairie city. The study examined the relationship between perceived stress in family, school, and peer-group situations and four measures of psychological welt-being, i.e., anxiety, depression, social dysfunction, and anergia. The moderator effects of locus of control orientation (mastery) on stressoutcome relationships were also examined, as were the sex differences in health and the perception of stress. All three sources of stress were found to be related to the four measures of mental health, with family stress having the strongest negative health impact. The health-protective role of locus of control was limited for the large part to the stresses emanating from school and peer groups. Substantial sex differences were found in the'perception of family- and peer-related stresses as well as in levels of psychological distress. A tentative explanation of these differences was examined with reference to prevailing structural conditions and differences in locus of control orientation, with female adolescents showing greater externality. Implications of the results are drawn for the long-standing debate on the relative impact o f stress and its sources on adolescents" psychosocial development and for a current controversy in adolescent theory between proponents o f "classical" and proponents of "empirical" conceptions o f adolescence. The data analyzed in this paper were originally collected for a study entitled "The Quality of Student Life" carried out by the Applied Research Unit (J. A. Lischeron, principal investigator). Data collection was greatly facilitated by the cooperation of the Saskatoon Public Board of Education and theSaskatoon Catholic Board of Education. This access and cooperation are gratefully acknowledged. Further analysis and interpretation of study data have been facilitated by the Psychiatric Services Branch, Saskatchewan Health, and a career support award to Carl D'Arcy from Health and Welfare Canada. The interpretation of data and comments in this paper are solely those of the authors. tApplied Research Unit, Psychiatric Research Division (Saskatchewan Health), Cancer and Medical Research Building, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan S7N 0W0, Canada. 459 0047-2891/84/1200-0459 $03,50/0 © 1984 Plenum Publishing Corporation

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INTRODUCTION In a rather rare agreement, both popular notions and academic thinking consider adolescence as a time of major changes in all areas of functioning. Adolescence is said to involve dramatic transitions in the physical, social, sexual, and intellectual spheres, and transitions of this order must be stressful (Health and Welfare Canada, 1983). Recent research seems to bear out this theme by showing a somewhat greater prevalence of minor psychiatric morbidity among adolescents than among children and adults (Rutter, 1980b; Dohrenwend et al., 1980; D'Arcy and Siddique, 1984). While both males and females experience the stresses that normally accompany adolescence, this developmental phase is considered to be more stressful for female adolescents (Maccoby, 1966; Douvan and Adelson, 1966; Gore and Herb, 1974). Several studies indicating a greater susceptibility of female adolescents to emotional distress such as depression and anxiety (e.g., Graham and Rutter, 1973; Burke and Weir, 1978; D'Arcy and Siddique, 1984) are consistent with this view. One of the objectives of this paper is to examine the impact of social stresses as perceived by adolescents on their levels of psychological wellbeing. A second and related objective is to evaluate the role of one important personality variable, "locus of control orientation" or "mastery," in accounting for the widely observed sex differences in the mental health of adolescents. The data used in this paper are derived from the questionnaire responses of 1038 high-school student adolescents in a Canadian prairie city.

THEORETICAL ORIENTATION The existing literature on adolescence reveals several sources of stress to which adolescents find themselves vulnerable in their ongoing social interactions. The stresses emanating from the family, school, and peer groups are considered to be of particular relevance (Breton, 1972; Elkin and Handel, 1978; Ishwaran, 1979; Richer, 1979; Glynn, 1981; Hobart, 1981). It is in these spheres of life that adolescents spend most of their time and in which most of the stressful events occur. Since the family, school, and peer groups form the major socializing influences on adolescents, their expectations or the demands they make on adolescents may at times convert into cross-pressures (Brittain, 1963). Adolescents may perceive those expectations as limiting their behavior or counter to their predispositions and may react with some degree of dissatisfaction and emotional distress.

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The rationale for the linkage between stress and mental-health outcomes follows from the underlying assumption of social epidemiological research which considers mental illness as a pattern of human reaction set in motion by stressful experience (Dohrenwend and Dohrenwend, 1974; Susser, 1981; Mechanic, 1983). It is suggested that social stress, actual or perceived, tends to act as a precursor to psychological distress/well-being and exercises a strong direct impact on physical and mental health. Thus, adolescents who perceive their family, school, and peer-group life as stressful may be expected to manifest greater emotional distress in the form of depression, anxiety, social dysfunction, and a reduced level of energized activity (anergia). A related body of research suggests that although stress does exert a negative impact, the intensity of its health consequences is likely to be different for adolescents, depending on their perceptions of stress as being within or outside their control. The "internals," who believe that they control environmental reinforcers, are more apt to cope with stressors without experiencing an elevated level of symptomology than the "externals," who perceive reinforcers as being the result of fate, luck, chance, or powerful others (Rotter, 1966). Studies dealing with the moderating effects of locus of control orientation on stress-outcome relations generally support this hypothesis (Joe, 1971; Johnson and Sarason, 1978; Keenan and McBain, 1979; Abdel-Halim, 1980). Consistent with this line of reasoning, it may be expected that under comparable conditions of stress, adolescents scoring high on the externality dimension of locus of control would show a lower level of psychological well-being than adolescents with high scores on the internality dimension. In the current study, we propose to look at both the direct and the buffering effects of locus of control orientation. As is the case for mental illness, male and female adolescents also tend to show considerable differences in terms of their locus of control orientation and amount of stress perceived. For instance, it has been shown that male adolescents not only score higher on the internal dimension of locus of control but also report higher levels of self-esteem than female adolescents (Douvan and Adelson, 1966; Maccoby and Jacklin, 1974). Other research indicates that female adolescents tend to perceive greater stress in several spheres of life; in particular, they worry more about disagreements with parents, acceptance by peers, relationships with the opposite sex, and their academic performance (Gove and Herb, 1974; Burke and Weir, 1978). These differences in locus of control orientation and perceived stress may also explain part of the sex differences in the mental health of adolescents observed in previous research. This paper examines the interaction effects of sex.and locus of control orientation on the relationship between perceived stress and psychological well-being.

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METHOD The Sample The study sample consisted of 1038 adolescent high-school students who were registered in grades 9 through 12 in all nine collegiates in a medium-sized Canadian prairie city (population, 162,000). Three considerations guided our selection of the sample: (a) that it gives an equal representation to students from each grade, (b) that it represents fairly the adolescent population of the city, and (c) that the procedures adopted be feasible and practicable in terms of conducting the study. It was decided to sample an equal proportion of students from each grade, allowing an equal representation of male and female students. Two hundred seventy-five students from each grade were randomly selected. This involved approximately 30 students in each grade from each of the nine schools. Very few students (about 3%) refused to participate in the survey. No attempt was made to approach the small number (about 1%) of students who were not available in their school at the time of data collection. In all, the data were collected from 526 female and 512 male students. The sample involves slightly over 9% of the adolescent population of the city in the 14-to 17-year age group (see D'Arcy and Siddique, 1984). In terms of socioeconomic background, the students generally came from middle- and lower middle-class families. Over half of the adolescents had parents with high-school and some university education. Ninety-one percent of the families owned their place of residence and the remainder lived in apartments and rented houses. The ethnic background of the sample showed a wide variation, with British (28%o), German (18%), and Ukrainian (11 °7o)being the major ethnic groups. Slightly less than one-third of the adolescents came from Catholic families; the other two-thirds indicated their religious affiliation as being with several "Protestant" denominations as well as "Orthodox" churches.

Data Collection The data were obtained through a structured self-response questionnaire. Two trained interviewers administered the questionnaire to students individually and in congregated settings during school hours. The data were collected in the fall and early winter of 1976-1977. The questionnaire covered a wide range of topics including the socioeconomic background of

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the students and their academic performance and aspirations, as well as their evaluation of school life, examination and teaching methods, and the quality o f their relationships with family members and peer groups. About half of the questionnaire included items on the students' mental and physical health, health behavior, and use o f alcohol and drugs and a locus of control scale.

MEASURES

Social Stress

Stress is conceptualized as occurring "when there are demands on a person which tax or exceed his adjustive resources" (Lazarus, 1966). The individual under stress is said to manifest his/her stressful experience by expressing a lack of satisfaction with the existing social relations or the social environment in which he/she functions. This notion that stress occurs largely within individuals as a result of some cognitive appraisal leading to a feeling of dissatisfaction or of being threatened has been widely investigated. In the present study, relevant data were collected to assess the amount of stress perceived by students in their family, school, and peer groups. Fifteen items relating to each o f these specific aspects o f students' social milieux were included in the questionnaire. These items were designed in such a way as to elicit the degree of students' satisfaction (or dissatisfaction) with the quality of life as they perceived it in those domains of interpersonal relations. Some o f the representative questionnaire items read as follows. Family life: "In general, how well would you say you and your mother (father) communicate with each other? .... To what extent are the goals and values o f your family similar to yours?" School life: "How interested and concerned do you feel your teachers are in your academic development or progress? .... To what extent do you feel you can express your grievances a n d / o r opinions and feelings to your teachers?" Peer-group life: "How would you describe the expectations your friends make o f you, e.g., time, money, car, favors, etc.? .... How much involvement would you say you have in terms o f making decisions about things you do with your friends?" The responses to each item were recorded on an I l-point rating scale. A principal component factor analysis was applied to each set of 15 items to develop relevant scales of social stress. The family stress index involved 13 items. The alpha coefficient o f reliability for this index was 0.89. The school stress index consisted of 9 items which yielded a reliability coefficient of 0.82. The factor analysis of items pertaining to peer-group life

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isolated 10 items which were then added together to develop the peer-group stress index. The alpha coefficient for this index was also 0.82.

Locus of Control Orientation

The locus of control construct, which originated from Rotter's social learning theory, denotes the degree to which individuaIs view environmental reinforcers as being under their personal control. Several standard measures of this construct exist in the literature. In the current analysis, a 30-item scale developed by James (1963) was used. The scale was found to be reliable, with a 0.80 alpha coefficient. Psychological Well-Being

The psychological well-being of adolescents was assessed by Goldberg's (1978) General Health Questionnaire (GHQ). The GHQ consists of questions about social activities and psychological and physical symptoms and is designed to reveal indications of depression, agitation, apathy, and anxiety in the respondent. Several versions of the GHQ are available, involving 12, 20, 30, 60, and most recently 28 items. The 30-item version was employed in the present study. Numerous studies have examined the validity of the GHQ as a measure of nonpsychotic psychiatric distress in populations with different characteristics. The GHQ-30 is the most commonly validated version; it has been validated in community samples (Finlay-Jones and Murphy, 1979; Tarnopolsky et al., 1979; Henderson et al., 1979), in general practice (Tennant, 1977), in postpartum women (Nott and Cutts, 1982), and in an occupational setting (Jenkins, 1980). In a recent paper, Banks (1983) has assessed the validity of the GHQ-30, GHQ-28, and GHQ-12 against that of the Present State Examination (PSE) in a sampIe of adolescent students. The GHQ has been used both as a screening instrument and as a global measure of psychological well-being (or distress). Since in the current paper we intend to examine the conditions under which levels of distress vary in a general adolescent population, we shall view the GHQ as a continuum and use a Likert scoring method to aggregate the relevant items into different dimensions of psychological well-being. It has been shown that the GHQ taps several distinct aspects of psychological well-being in a general population (Goldberg, 1978; D'Arcy, 1982; Banks, 1983). In the present study, a factor analysis (varimax rotation mode) of the GHQ-30 resulted in four orthogonal dimensions which, following Goldberg(1978) and others, may be referred to as (i) anxiety/insomnia, (ii) social dysfunction, (iii) depression/anhedonia, and (iv) anergia. The items involved in each scale

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and their factor loadings have been presented elsewhere (D'Arcy and Siddique, 1984), The total G H Q score and these four subscales are the primary measures of the psychological well-being of adolescents. As in the case of our other measures, the reliability coefficients of these subscales were fairly high. The intercorrelations between subscales as well as their individual correlations with the total G H Q score were found to be in the neighborhood of 0.70. RESULTS Table I presents zero-order correlations (Pearson's r) among indices of psychological well-being, social stress, and locus of control and adolescents' sex, age, and grade level in school. While all three aspects of social stress correlate with measures o f psychological well-being in the predicted direction, the index of family stress shows relatively more consistent and larger correlations. The locus of control orientation was also consistently correlated with the total G H Q and its subscales, indicating that externals are more likely to experience symptoms of distress. Also congruent with the previous research, the variable of sex indicates a greater vulnerability of female adolescents to psychological distress, especially in the form of depression, anxiety, and reduced mobilization. In a separate analysis, sex differences in symptomotogy were examined using subclassification analysis. Significant differences between male and female adolescents were found on the master G H Q scale (male mean, 3.45; female mean, 5.08; t = 4.63, p > 0.001) as well as on these three subscales. The variables o f age and grade level were included in the analysis assuming that the older adolescents in higher grades might perceive more stress and consequently exhibit greater symptomology. The correlations produced by these two variables are not only inconsistent but also too small to lend any strong support to this assumption. However, since previous i. First-Order Correlations (Pearson's r) Among Measures of Psychological Distress, Social Stress, and SociodemographicCharacteristics of Adolescentsa Measure of Locus of Grade psychological F a m i l y School Peer control Sex Age level distress stress stress stress (externals) (female) (+) (+) Anxiety 0.29 0.24 0.15 0.27 0.16 0.10 0.07 Depression 0.30 0.25 0.19 0.3t 0.15 NS NS Social dysfunction 0.30 0.2I 0.28 0.22 NS NS NS Anergia 0.23 0.22 0. I I 0.15 0.16 NS 0.07 Total GHQ 0.34 0.27 0.22 0.30 0,15 0.07 NS uNS, correlations not significant at the 0.05 level; all other correlations are significant at the p < 0.05 or a higher level. Table

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research does indicate the importance of these variables in understanding the psychosocial growth of adolescents (e.g., Rutter, 1980b), in the analysis that follows, the correlations between key variables are adjusted for the effects of these variables. The main effects of the stress variables, along with the interaction effects o f locus of control and sex on psychological well-being after controlling for age and grade level, are shown in Table II. Looking at the main effects, some important observations may be made as follows: The effect o f family stress remains fairly stable and consistent across all subscales o f distress and the master G H Q scale. The effect of school stress, which showed considerably larger correlations with each measure of mental health (see Table I), is reduced to one-third in almost every case with the exception of the anergia subscale, where the reduction is close to one-half. On the other hand, the index o f peer stress, which produced relatively smaller correlations, retains three o f five statistically significant beta coefficients. While the main effects o f locus o f control orientation are consistent with its zero-order correlations, the variable of sex shows a substantial improvement in its main effects. The results relating to the interaction of locus of control orientation and sex with aspects o f social stress present an interesting pattern. There is a strong indication that the locus of control orientation acts as a moderator variable in the correlations of school and peer stress with dimensions o f psychological well-being but n o t in the relationship between family stress and psychological well-being. This suggests that externally oriented adolescents under school- and peer group-related stresses are more likely to experience elevated levels of psychological distress, whereas family stress exercises its mental-health impact independent of the locus of control orientation. With respect to sex, the results indicate that female adolescents are highly susceptible to both family and peer-group stress and this contributes to their greater depression, anxiety, and other symptoms of distress. In terms of school stress, the sex differences in symptomology, with the exception of anergia, tend to disappear. The interaction between sex and the locus of control orientation suggests that of the four possible groups, the externally oriented-female adolescent group is the most psychologically vulnerable. To explicate further the relationships among these variables we examined their relative contribution in a hierarchical regression model. Table IIl summarizes regression results for three sets of variables in the order in which they were entered in the regression equation. All seven variables explained an average of about 20°70 of the variance in each dimension of psychological well-being. In almost each instance, over half of the variance is accounted for by sex and locus o f control orientation, and the remainder by the three stress variables. In a separate attempt, several regression analyses were conducted to assess the unique effects of these variables. In a nonpredetermined stepwise

0.08 0.08 NS 0.13 0.09

Anxiety Depression Social dysfunction Anergia Total GHQ

NS 0,12 0,18 NS 0,11

Peer stress 0.20 0.24 0.15 0.09 0.22

Locus of control 0.22 0.22 0.11 0.20 0.22

Sex NS NS NS NS NS

Family stress 0.17 0.20 0.14 NS 0.17

School stress 0.32 0.50 0.25 0.29 0.39

Peer stress

Locus of control and

0.37 0.52 0.24 0.19 0.40

Family stress

Sex and

NS NS NS 0.31 NS

School stress

°NS, beta coefficient not significant at the 0.05 level; all other beta coefficients are significant at the 0.05 or a higher level,

0,20 0.18 0,19 0.17 0.22

School stress

Measure of Family psychological distress stress

Main effects

Interaction effects

0.36 0.43 NS 0.39 0.34

Peer stress

0.12 0.22 0.21 0.26 0.21

Locus of Control and sex

Table !1. Main and Interaction Effects (Standardized Beta Coefficients) of Locus of Control, Sex, and Stress Variables on the Mental Health of Adolescents After Adjusting for Age and Grade Level"

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Table II!. Regression of CHQ-30 and Subscales of Psychological Well-Being on Sociodemographic Characteristics, Locus of Control, and Stress Variables

Independent variables

Multiple R

R2

Age, grade level Sex, locus of control Social stress -- family, school, peer groups

0.06 0.35

-0.12

0.44

0.19

Age, grade level Sex, locus of control Social stress - family, school, peer groups

0.12 0.39

F

Level of significance

-0.I2

1.32 24.71

NS 0.001

0.07

24.06

0.001

R 2 change

Anxiety/insomnia

Depression/anhedonia

0.48

0.01 0.15

0.14

5.43 32.21

0.01 0.001

0.23

0.08

30.47

0.001

Social dysfunction Age, grade level Sex, locus of control Social stress - family, school, peer groups

0.08 0.27

0.07

-0.07

2.90 13.92

NS 0.001

0.42

0.18

0.11

21.78

0.001

Age, grade level Sex, locus of control Social stress - family, school, peer groups

0.03 0.25

0.06

-0.06

0.42 12.36

NS 0.001

0.14

0.08

16.14

0.001

Anergia

0.37

Total GHQ-30 Age, grade level Sex, locus of control Social stress - family, school, peer groups

0.07 0.37

0.14

-0.14

2.19 28.84

NS 0.001

0.49

0.24

0.10

33.02

0.001

r e g r e s s i o n a n a l y s i s , f a m i l y stress e n t e r e d first in t h e r e g r e s s i o n e q u a t i o n , f o l l o w e d b y l o c u s o f c o n t r o l a n d sex. F a m i l y stress e x p l a i n e d a b o u t 1007o o f t h e v a r i a n c e in t h e t o t a l G H Q s c o r e a n d in t h e s c o r e o f e a c h o f its s u b s c a l e s . T h e i n d i c e s o f s c h o o l a n d p e e r stress e a c h c o n t r i b u t e d s l i g h t l y o v e r 1 07o o f t h e v a r i a n c e . T h e a v e r a g e e f f e c t o f all i n d e p e n d e n t v a r i a b l e s w a s 21 o70 f o r " e x t e r n a l s " a n d 12070 f o r " i n t e r n a l s . " S i m i l a r l y , t h e a v e r a g e e f f e c t o f t h e s e v a r i a b l e s was m u c h h i g h e r in t h e s u b s a m p l e o f f e m a l e a d o l e s c e n t s t h a n in m a l e a d o l e s c e n t s (23 vs. 1 1070).

DISCUSSION T h e o b s e r v e d r e l a t i o n s h i p a m o n g stress v a r i a b l e s , l o c u s o f c o n t r o l , a n d m e a s u r e s o f p s y c h o l o g i c a l w e l l - b e i n g o f a d o l e s c e n t s a r e as p r e d i c t e d and are congruent with previous studies.

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The present study lends some support to the contention that locus of control orientation is an important personal resource which performs a key health-protective function by moderating the impact of social stress. However, as indicated by our analysis and results, the buffering role of this variable is limited largely to the stressors that stem from adolecents' relationships and activities that occur outside the family, in the school and peer groups. Perhaps it is because of their dependency upon their families that adolescents are most sensitive to the quality of intrafamily life. The findings of this study are also consistent with a body of research showing sex differences in psychiatric symptomology. There is no totally satisfactory explanation of this complex issue. However, several tentative explanations offered in the literature are reviewed to explore the issue of the greater psychiatric vulnerability of female adolescents. Most studies of adults and adolescents have examined the sex differences in relation to differential structural conditions, arguing that females are placed in a relatively disadvantageous position in contemporary society (Gove, 1978; D'Arcy and Siddique, 1984; Eichler, 1983). These differences have tended to perpetuate certain socialization philosophies and cultural contradictions regarding sex roles which, in turn, are partly responsible for the greater stress and symptomology o f females. Although during childhood, boys and girls are equally encouraged for both conventional and competitive roles, during adolescent there tends to be a marked pressure for girls to adapt to traditional feminine roles. Bardwick notes, "This sudden pressure to conform to a rather specific role stereotype is bound to induce some role conflict and anxiety" (1971, p. 144). Consequently, a number of female adolescents find themselves in a situation where they not only perceive a rather narrow and unclear choice of roles but also develop a sense of lacking control over their aspirations and behavior patterns. In the current study, this is reflected by significant sex differences in locus of control orientation, with female adolescents showing a greater externality than males (female mean, 75.28; male mean, 74.20; t = 1.88, p > 0.05). And as shown by our analysis, an external orientation is closely associated with several symptoms of distress. The greater social and psychological dependency of female adolescents is another related factor which may account for the nature of their perception of stress and symptomology. Existing research findings indicate that female adolescents tend to be highly dependent on their families and, to some extent, on their peers for emotional support and expression of their personal problems (e.g., Epstein, 1970; Douvan and Adelson, 1966). Female adolescents are also found to be more inclined to conform to adult values than males (Tanner, 1978). Eichler (1983) argues that due to their differential structural positions, adolescent males and females are likely to experience the same families differently. The characteristic dependency of females not only exercises a negative impact on

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their self-esteem and identity but also heightens their sensitivity to familyand peer group-related stress (Maccoby, 1966). In the present study, significant differences were observed in male and female adolescents' perception of family and peer stress (family stress-female mean, 81.89; male mean, 79.26; t = 2.15, p > 0.03; peer stress-female mean, 60.26; mate mean, 58.59; t = 2.38, p > 0.01). It is partly these differences in male and female adolescents' perception of their social milieux and in their locus of control orientation that seem to explain the high level of symptomology among female adolescents in our sample. These differences suggest that females as a group function under greater stress than males. The findings of this study are also relevant to a long-standing debate on the relative impact of stress sources on the psychosocial development of adolescents. With the publication of James Coleman's (1961) The Adolescent Society, the proponents of "youth culture" tended to view peer pressures as the mainspring of adolescent distress and maladaptive coping behaviors. However, the research appearing after Coteman's study (Epperson, 1964; Jahoda and Warren, 1965) presents persuasive evidence calling into question the centrality of peer groups in teenage life. These and other studies (e.g., Elkin and Westley, 1955; Jenck et al., 1972) indicate that the family continues to be the major impact during the adolescent transition. Although Rutter and his colleagues seem to accept arguments documenting the predominance of family influences, they also provide overwhelming evidence (1979, 1980a) to show the significance of schooling in adolescents' overall psychosocial growth and health. Others have tried to reconcile these competing views by referring to the so-called "situation hypothesis." It is suggested that the content of the situation is more important for adolescents in choosing a certain course of action than the pressures of either parents or peers (Brittain, 1963; Larson, 1972). While these issues need to be addressed with more direct and comprehensive data, it is clear from the findings of this study that family stress is of central importance in adolescence, having significant mental-health consequences. Further research is needed to elucidate the issues concerning the relative impact of family-, peer-, and school-related stresses. It may be, paradoxically, that in the midst of the current changes to small families and truncated families, familial attachments are becoming more important in the life of adolescents. Thus, any dissatisfactions with the quality of family life, e.g., communication problems with parents, fear of their disapproval, lack of intimacy, and intrafamily conflict, are likely to be viewed with greater alarm and may be expressed in an emotionally charged manner. Furthermore, current adolescent theory posits a contradition between the "classical" view that considers adolescence as a period of "storm and stress" or "turmoil and crisis" (Freud, 1952; Ackerman, 1962; Erikson, 1968; Meyerson, 1975) and the more recent "empirical" view supporting the

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conception of adolescence as a relatively peaceful and harmonious developmental phase (Bandura, 1972; Offer and Offer, 1975; Rutter e t al., 1976). John Coleman (1978) argues that a resolution of this contradiction is essential to any advancement in the adolescence theory. However, the contradiction may be more apparent than real. In this study, some 33.5070 of the adolescents surveyed reported n o symptoms o f psychological distress and another 39°7o reported five or fewer symptoms (a mild level of distress); on the other hand, a significant 27.507o reported higher levels o f psychological distress. For the majority the adolescent transition may be relatively smooth, however, for a significant minority it does indeed appear to be a period of stress and turmoil. The overall evidence from this and other studies (e.g., Coleman, 1978; Rutter, 1980b) indicates that, in general, adolescence is indeed a period in the life cycle which contains certain difficulties and developmental stresses involving major adaptations, but the full-blown storm and stress syndrome appears to be relatively limited. The large majority of adolescents seem to get on well with adults and are able to cope effectively with demands of school and peer groups. They use their resources to make adjustments with environmental stressors with only moderately visible signs o f psychological distress. However, a significant minority of adolescents do experience problems, distress, and turmoil. Finally, the data analyzed in this paper further document the significance of traditional sociological and psychological theories which indicate the contribution of positive relationships with others and support networks in one's immediate social milieux to the emotional well-being of adolescents.

REFERENCES

Abdel-Halim, A. A. (1980). Effects of person-job compatibility on managerial reactions to role ambiguity. Organiz. Behav. Hum. Perform. 26:193-21I. Ackerman, N. W. (1962). Adolescent problems: A symptom of family disorder. Family Proc. I: 202-213. Bandura, A. (1972). The stormy decade: Fact or fiction.'?In Rogers, D. (ed.) Issues in Adolescent Psychology, 2nd ed., Appleton-Century-Crofts, New York. Banks, M. H. (1983). Validation of the General Health Questionnaire in a young community sample. Psychol. Med. 13: 349-353. Bardwick, J. (1971). Psychology o f Women, Harper and Row, New York. Breton, R. (in collaboration with McDonald, J., and Richer, S.) (1972). Social and Academic Factors in the Career Decisions o f Canadian Youth, Department of Manpower and Immigration, lnlbrmation Canada, Ottawa. Brittain, C. V. (1963). Adolescent choices and parent-peer cross pressures. Am. Sociol. Rev. 28: 385-391. Burke, R. J., and Weir, T. (1978). Sex differences in adolescent life stress, social support, and well-being. J. PsychoL 98: 277-288. Coleman, J. S. (1961). The Adolescent Society, Free Press of Glencoe, New York.

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