تشخص در اسلوونی بزرگسالان در حال ظهور: ارتباط آن با جمعیت شناسی، نشانگر انتقالی، معیارهای به دست آمده برای بزرگسالی و رضایت از زندگی

The study investigated associations of Slovene emerging adults' age, gender, living situation, romantic relationship, and employment status with aspects of individuation in relation to mother and father. Controlling for demographic variables and transitional markers of adulthood, we further explored the contribution of individuation measures to individuals' perceptions of achieved criteria for adulthood and life satisfaction. The participants provided self-reports on the Individuation Test for Emerging Adults, the Satisfaction With Life Scale, and the list of Achieved Criteria for Adulthood. Age and living out of parental home were positively associated with self-reliance in relation to both parents, whereas female gender was related to higher levels of connectedness and seeking parental support. Along with age and involvement in a romantic relationship, connectedness and self-reliance predicted adulthood criteria attainment and life satisfaction. The results support the models of individuation that emphasize growing autonomy and retaining connectedness to parents as pathways towards personal adjustments.

A delayed transition to adulthood has been observed in (post)industrial societies over the past three decades, with a new developmental period between adolescence and adulthood being referred to as emerging adulthood (e.g., Arnett, 2000, Arnett, 2006, Buhl and Lanz, 2007 and Douglass, 2007). Alongside with postponement of taking over full adult responsibilities and roles, emerging adulthood is accompanied by an extended process of individuation in relation to parents (Beyers and Goossens, 2003, Buhl, 2008, Lamborn and Groh, 2009 and Masche, 2008). Individuation has been portrayed as an intrapsychic process of gaining individuality (a unique sense of self and autonomy) while maintaining connectedness to parents (Grotevant and Cooper, 1986 and Youniss and Smollar, 1985). This process unfolds within gradually restructuring parent–child relationships into relationships between equal adults (Aquilino, 2006, Arnett, 2006 and Tanner, 2006). The changing parent–child relationships seem to be enhanced by emerging adults' leaving their parents' home, gaining financial independence, and establishing a romantic relationship (Aquilino, 2006 and Buhl, 2007). Likewise, these transitional markers were shown to be associated with young people's self-reliant functioning and emotional autonomy, personal growth and adjustments (e.g., psychosocial maturity, achieved criteria for adulthood, and subjective well-being) in North American and Western European countries (e.g., Beyers and Seiffge-Krenke, 2007, Kins and Beyers, 2010 and White, 2002). However, these associations may be moderated by specific regional factors and cultural traditions as suggested by research in Southern European countries (e.g., Lanz and Tagliabue, 2007, Mendonça and Fontaine, 2013 and Van de Velde, 2002). Our study aimed to supplement the current understanding of factors that are associated with emerging adults' individuation in different cultural regions of Europe, and to explore hitherto unreported role of individuation in emerging adults' personal adjustment. Although Slovenia has often been considered an Eastern European country (e.g., Wallace, 2006), it has been influenced by Mediterranean cultures for centuries, which may partly explain why Slovene emerging adults' developmental context shares many features with the Southern European one (Kuhar, 2007 and Wright et al., 2004). Emerging adulthood in Slovenia Like in Southern European countries (e.g., Douglass, 2007, Mendonça and Fontaine, 2013 and Scabini, 2000), emerging adulthood in Slovenia is characterized by an extremely delayed moving out of parental home (men/women leave at average ages of 31.5/29.8 years, Eurostat Press Office, 2009), prolonged engagement in tertiary education facilitated by available opportunities to retake exams and courses, social policy (free health insurance, low taxes for student work), late marriages and parenthood (the mean ages of women/men at first marriage and mothers at birth of the first child are 29.1/31.4 years and 28.8 years, respectively, Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia, 2012), and a cultural tradition of strong and prolonged reliance on one's family as a source of security and support (Ule & Kuhar, 2003). The Slovene emerging adults are thus substantially dependent on emotional and financial support of their family (Kuhar, 2007 and Lavrič et al., 2010), but most of them get along with parents well, consider parents as important figures in their lives, and do not feel constrained in strivings for personal autonomy or report about a lack of privacy (Lavrič et al., 2010 and Puklek Levpušček and Zupančič, 2007). This strongly resembles the satisfactory and highly supportive family setting, which gives young people in Southern European countries a great deal of freedom in prolonged exploration of life possibilities (Holdsworth and Morgan, 2005, Moreno, 2012, Scabini, 2000, Scabini and Cigoli, 1997 and Scabini et al., 2006). Such family solidarity represents a protective factor against the risks of emerging adults' instability and insecurity (Moreno, 2012), but it may also make the process of emerging adults' individuation from parents more difficult (Mendonça and Fontaine, 2013 and Zupančič et al., 2012). The process of individuation A sense of individuality and autonomy (i.e., independence, self-determination, self-governance, reliance on one's own self) gradually develops from early childhood to adulthood. Whereas the primary process of individuation unfolds during the first years of life and results in a child's sense of independent existence (Mahler, Pine, & Bergman, 1975), the second individuation in adolescence focuses on restructuring infantile internal representations of parents as omnipotent figures and strengthening one's own internal resources, which leads to a psychologically independent self (Blos, 1967). While individuation in adolescence is marked by self-delineation within a family context which is still characterized by one's objective dependence on parents, the process in emerging adulthood continues within more symmetrical parent–child relationships and the parents grant their emerging adults more personal freedom in deciding how to lead their lives (Arnett, 2006 and Tanner, 2006). Separation issues that were prominent in adolescence (e.g., de-idealization of parents, testing one's self-sufficiency by emphasizing non-dependence on parents) decrease in importance (Koepke & Denissen, 2012;Komidar, Zupančič, Sočan, & Puklek Levpušček, 2013) as the emerging adults advance in identity development (Arnett, 2000 and Meeus et al., 2005), improve their competencies across many domains of psychosocial functioning, and actually lead a more independent life (Arnett, 2000 and Tanner et al., 2009). The balance between autonomous self and maintenance of closeness to parents as the final outcome of the process seems to be a key element of successful individuation, the idea supported by the autonomy–relatedness perspective (Grotevant & Cooper, 1986) and individuation theory (Youniss & Smollar, 1985). As the independent aspects of self are becoming a core of an individuated self in emerging adulthood, the aspects of relatedness (connectedness and seeking parental support) develop differently. Connectedness, which reflects interpersonal closeness such as mutual respect, trust, interest, enjoyment in parents' company, and open communication with parents, represents a relatively stable relational phenomenon (in terms of mean-level consistency). In contrast, support seeking that refers to one's needs for instrumental assistance from parents (support, approval, help, and advice) in managing personal affairs, shows negative associations with self-reliance, functional and emotional independence from parents, and represents a less developmentally stable relational construct than connectedness (Komidar et al., 2013). Demographic factors and individuation Following the autonomy–relatedness perspective, self-reliance should increase with emerging adults' age, while connectedness to parents should remain stable (Youniss & Smollar, 1985). Whereas the growing individuality, self-determination, and/or self-reliance were clearly shown to increase with age, the findings about continuity of relatedness appear less straightforward. Some studies reported a small decrease from adolescence to adulthood, especially in seeking parental closeness (Buhl, 2008, Marčec, 2012 and Zupančič et al., 2012) and others continuity (e.g., Zupančič & Kavčič, 2014) or even a small increase (e.g., Scabini, 2000). In line with an increasing emotional and functional independence from parents (Hoffman, 1984 and Zimmer-Gembeck and Collins, 2003) at least seeking parental support is supposed to consistently decrease with age. The process of individuation seems to have slightly different dynamics for men and women. Research consistently shows that a sense of relatedness with family members (especially with mothers) is stronger in daughters than sons (Frey et al., 2006, Geuzaine et al., 2000, Lye, 1996, Puklek Levpušček, 2006, Saraiva and Matos, 2012 and Zupančič et al., 2012). Evidence from Portugal and Slovenia further suggests that the emerging adult sons feel more independent in relation to both parents than daughters (Marčec, 2012, Saraiva and Matos, 2012 and Zupančič et al., 2012). Distinct social realities lead young men and women to form different representations of self-within-relationships and to use different strategies (agentic vs. communal) to develop personal identity and psychosocial maturity (Gilligan, 1982). It seems that even in postmodern societies daughters tend to develop within more interdependent contexts than sons. According to the social role theory (Eagly, 1987 and Eagly and Johannsen-Schmidt, 2001), females are expected to behave in a more nurturing, caring way, whereas males are supposed to act more independently of others and take on more agentic roles. Due to somewhat different gender-related socialization goals within the family relationship network (Maccoby, 1990) females may receive more encouragement to get along with others, whereas males may obtain more support to get ahead of the others. Emerging adult sons may thus develop a more agentic and dominant relationship style with their parents than daughters, who tend to develop a more communal, interdependent relationship style with their parents, i.e., remaining more connected to parents, particularly to mother, and in need for parental emotional and instrumental support (Lye, 1996 and Sneed et al., 2006). Transitional markers of adulthood and individuation Transitional markers such as leaving the parental home, starting a romantic relationship and entry to the work life may be considered as pacemakers of the process of individuation (Buhl, 2008 and Masche, 2008). Research in Anglo-Saxon and Northern European contexts suggests that co-residing with parents is related to a lack of maturity and self-reliant functioning, difficulties in development of emotional autonomy (Beyers and Seiffge-Krenke, 2007, Holdsworth and Morgan, 2005, Kins and Beyers, 2010 and Seiffge-Krenke, 2006), and lower subjective well-being (White, 2002). However, the prolonged co-residence with parents does not necessarily impede the process of individuation and emerging adults' well-being in Southern Europe (Holdsworth and Morgan, 2005, Manzi et al., 2006 and Scabini et al., 2006). Rather than depending on living arrangements, successful development in emerging adulthood varies to the extent to which co-residing is a culturally integrated pattern (Newman & Apteker, 2008). The Slovenes' living arrangement (in/out of the family home) does not appear to be consistently linked to individuation. Some studies found that emerging adults living out of parental home feel somewhat more independent (Puklek Levpušček & Zupančič, 2010), and experience less need for parental support (Zupančič et al., 2012) than their peers co-residing with parents (Puklek Levpušček and Zupančič, 2010 and Zupančič et al., 2012), while others did not (e.g., Zupančič & Kavčič, 2014). Independent living was also shown to be associated with functional (but not intrapersonal) aspects of independence in Portuguese emerging adults (Mendonça & Fontaine, 2013). Romantic relationships become one of the most important developmental transitions in emerging adulthood (Collins and van Dulmen, 2006 and Lanz and Tagliabue, 2007). Being committed and sharing daily experiences with another person may redirect the focus of one's attachment needs from parents to partners, which may lead to changes in connectedness to parents, and to an increase in independence from parents (Buhl, 2008, Kins and Beyers, 2010, Larose and Boivin, 1998 and Masche, 2008). These changes may be due to the emerging adults' new experiences of living a partly separate life and gaining new emotional resources. In addition, the instrumental aspect of relatedness (seeking parental support) was found to decrease among individuals in a romantic relationship (Masche, 2008), whereas the mutually trustful aspect (connectedness) did not discriminate between dating from non-dating emerging adults (Lanz & Tagliabue, 2007). Like the emerging adults' investment in other adult roles, a full-time employment may contribute to their feelings of secure commitments, effectiveness in regulating themselves, and their interactions with others (Greenberger & Sørensen, 1974). Gaining own financial resources affects individuals' perceptions of psychosocial maturity and autonomy (Masche, 2008), and may thus promote self-reliance in parent–child relationships and reduce seeking instrumental support from parents. Employed emerging adults also feel more agentic and adult-like (Luyckx, Schwartz, Goossens, & Pollock, 2008), possibly because of having own financial resources and taking over new responsibilities. Financial independence is actually considered one of the most important criteria for reaching adulthood (Arnett, 2000, Arnett, 2003, Puklek Levpušček and Zupančič, 2010 and Sirsch et al., 2009) and an important factor for completion of the individuation process (Mendonça & Fontaine, 2013). Individuation, criteria for adulthood achieved, and life satisfaction It has been evidenced that conceptions of the transition to adulthood and young people's perceived adult status have changed over the past decades (Arnett, 2000, Arnett, 2003, Kins and Beyers, 2010, Nelson, 2009, Puklek Levpušček and Zupančič, 2010 and Sirsch et al., 2009). The self-perceived adult status can be tapped by Arnett's (2003) list of criteria regarding the conceptions of the transition to adulthood, which are organized into domains of independence, family capacities, interdependence, norm compliance, legal, biological, and role transitions. Instead of assessing the importance of each criterion for reaching adulthood, the respondents indicate the criteria they have already achieved (Kins and Beyers, 2010, Nelson, 2009 and Puklek Levpušček and Zupančič, 2010). According to the autonomy–relatedness perspective (Grotevant and Cooper, 1986 and Youniss and Smollar, 1985), one might expect that a strong reliance on parental support signals a lack of independence and insufficiently mature, adult-like functioning in emerging adults, and thus decreases the likelihood of adulthood criteria achievement. On the contrary, a sense of connectedness to parents and personal autonomy should contribute to psychosocial maturation (Koepke & Denissen, 2012) and facilitate attainment of the adulthood criteria. Kins and Beyers (2010) indeed demonstrated that growing personal independence from parents leads to an accelerated achievement of criteria for adulthood, while the associations between different aspects of relatedness to parents and the criteria achieved remain to be explored. Life satisfaction (LS) represents a cognitive component of subjective well-being and has been defined as a global evaluation of one's life (Pavot & Diener, 1993) that affects a wide range of important life outcomes (Pavot & Diener, 2008). Satisfaction with specific life domains is an important source of chronically accessible information on which LS evaluations are primarily based (Pavot and Diener, 2008 and Schimmack et al., 2002). In university students, family relationships appear to be among the most important domain sources of LS (Schimmack et al., 2002). A few studies on well-being in emerging adulthood further suggest that a high quality of parent–child relationship (Bernier et al., 2005 and Buhl, 2007), closeness within family relationships (Manzi et al., 2006), and growth in personal independence (Kins & Beyers, 2010) are linked to higher levels of well-being. As feeling (un)successful in important life domains can influence LS (Pavot & Diener, 2008), it is reasonable to expect that successful individuation from parents as conceptualized by high levels of autonomy and connectedness is positively related to emerging adults' LS. Aims and hypotheses The present study focused on demographic factors (age, gender) and transitional markers (living situation, romantic relationship, employment status) that may promote differences in three aspects of individuation from parents, i.e., connectedness, support seeking, and self-reliance. We further explored the associations between the aspects of individuation and emerging adults' personal adjustments—the self-perceived adulthood criteria attainment and life satisfaction—while controlling for the effects of demographics and transitional markers. Based on presented theoretical perspectives and empirical findings we formulated four hypotheses: Older age would be associated with higher levels of self-reliance, and lower levels of seeking parental support, whereas females would feel more connected to parents and in need for parental support, but would report on lower levels of self-reliance than males (Hypothesis 1); Living out of parental home, involvement in a romantic relationship, and work on a regular basis would be associated with higher levels of self-reliance and lower levels of seeking parental support (Hypothesis 2); Lower levels of seeking parental support and higher levels of self-reliance and connectedness would be positively linked to self-reported adulthood criteria attainment (Hypothesis 3); Self-reliance and connectedness would be positively related to emerging adults' perceived life satisfaction (Hypothesis 4).