Predictors of Adolescent's Attitudes towards Vandalistic Behaviors: The Role of Psychological Alienation and Attachment Quality

The present study aimed to examine the relationship between psychological self-alienation, attachment quality and attitudes towards vandalistic behaviors in high school students. This study was conducted with a correlation method and the study population included 320 students (176 females and 144 males) in third grade of high school who were selected through multistage cluster sampling. The psychological self-alienation questionnaire (Seeman, 1959), vandalistic behaviors questionnaire and the inventory of parent and peer attachment (Armsden & Greenberg, 1987) were applied. Results showed that there was a negative relationship between trusting parents and peers and vandalistic behaviors. Moreover, findings demonstrated that there was a positive relationship between alienation from parents and peers as well as all aspects of self-alienation had a positive relationship with vandalistic behaviors. The analyses of stepwise regression indicated that psychological self-alienation, trusting father and peers as well as relationship with mother and peers could significantly explain the variance of attitudes towards vandalistic behaviors (R2=.87) Hence, the counselors and family therapists are suggested to pay attention to attachment relationship while studying adolescents’ behaviors.