Abstract

The purpose of this study was to find factors that would make an effect on adolescents' identity and to offer directions for the adolescents' identity development. Subjects were 414 male and female highschool students in Kangnung and Sokcho. Male students communicated more with their fathers than female students did, while male and female students were not different in perceiving their communication with mother. The more educated the father was, the better the open communication was made with their child. As for the mother, the less educated the mother was, the more the problematic communication was made between mother and child. Male students had higher identity scores comparing to female students. And father's education was positively related with the sub-scale scores of personal relation, self-acceptance, self-expression, self-existence. and the total scores of identity, while mother's education was positively related with the sub-scale scores of goal-orientation, personal social role, self-acceptance, self-existence, and the total scores of identity. Father's open communication showed a significant correlation with goal-orientation and personal social role. Strangely enough, self-acceptance and personal relation were related to the open communication of father, and uniqueness was of mother. And the problematic communication of both parents had negative correlation with self-existence. Based on a multiple regression analysis, it was found that the variables which had significant effect on the identity of adolescents were Render and father's communication patterns.