Moraliteit as voorspeller van eensaamheid by adolessente: 'n kruis-kulturele studie

[摘要] English: Loneliness is currently regarded as one of the most common and widespread problems experienced by human beings, and it is also observed as a painful, unpleasant and negative experience. The term loneliness might conjure up an image of an elderly person, alone and isolated. It is a concern, however, that this complex phenomenon occurs to a great extent during adolescence. Reasons for this might be that adolescence is a developing period of transition between childhood and adulthood that brings with it more social changes, such as leaving home, to live by oneself, to attend university or to start a career.On the other hand morality entails the principles or ideals of a group that enable them to distinguish between right and wrong according to the viewpoint of the group concerned, and to behave accordingly. Moral development is thus the process whereby individuals learn principles to enable them to distinguish between behaviour that is right and other behaviour which should be regarded as wrong. The individual is then capable of directing his own behaviour in terms of these principles.Adolescents daily face various confrontations. Each day they have to make moral decisions: should they act according to their own ideals or should they compromise. In this sense, idealism implies to act morally and not to succumb to wrong temptations. Similarly, adolescents have to confront the complex phenomenon of loneliness daily. Thus loneliness and morality are two important behavioural aspects that manifest during adolescence. The question is whether morality could foretell loneliness. The researcher wished to establish a relationship between loneliness and morality for a better understanding of loneliness.In view of the above, the main objective of the study was to establish the perception of adolescents of different cultures regarding loneliness and morality and to investigate the relationship between loneliness and morality. It was also determined which of the independent variables, namely morality, gender, age, mother tongue and ethnicity, contributed significantly to the prediction of loneliness. A further objective was to determine any difference regarding loneliness and morality as perceived by different culture groups.The following hypotheses were formulated for this research:Hypothesis 1: The main hypothesis was that a linear correlation between the loneliness of an adolescent and a number of independent variables namely morality, gender, age, mother tongue and ethnicity were present.Hypothesis 2: There were differences between the different levels of the independent variables namely gender, age, mother tongue and ethnicity as far as loneliness and morality are concerned.The researcher used ex post facto research and more specifically a criterion group design. In this criterion group design, samples which represent the different levels of the independent variables were selected randomly from the population.A total of 714 adolescents from three different secondary schools in the greater Bloemfontein between the ages of 13 and 17 were selected. Adolescents were used because they are increasingly being confronted with moral issues and because loneliness occurs more commonly during adolescence. The focus was on three ethnic groups namely coloured, black and white adolescents.Three different questionnaires, namely the Le Roux Loneliness Scale, the Morally Debatable Behaviours Scale and a Biographical questionnaire were applied to obtain the necessary data.The results were as follows:-A significant inverse correlation between loneliness and morality was determined, while morality was identified as the best predictor of loneliness. According to the results adolescents with low moral values were more lonely than adolescents with high moral values. This is a new finding and merits further investigation.-Age was also identified as a main predictor of loneliness. Older adolescents were significantly more inclined to experience loneliness while younger adolescents were less inclined to loneliness.-It was also found that culture was an important variable in the study of loneliness. Black adolescents were significantly more inclined to loneliness than white and coloured adolescents.This research confirms that loneliness is a complex and disturbing phenomenon that appears more commonly during adolescence. Since these are new findings more research is merited.

[发布机构] University of the Free State