Comparing the Level of Youths’ Dissatisfaction with Their Parents and Its Role in Predicting the Tendency for Social Deviations (Running Away from Home, Sexual Deviation, and Drug Addiction)

Social deviation (i.e., running away from home, sexual deviation, and drug addiction) is a phenomenon that has always existed to a greater or lesser extent in all societies. Although the rate of social deviation cannot be reduced to zero, the aim is trying to decrease it. In a general definition, it can be said that deviation is an action or behavior that violates formal and informal norms (Macionis & Gerber, 2010). However, to some extent, the deviation, which is called natural deviation, has been acceptable in all societies (Sotoudeh, 2014: 38), but if the deviation exceeds a certain level, the society becomes sensitive to it and prevents it using different levers. Thus, social deviation refers to the behaviors that cannot be ignored by the society. The Judiciary Commission of the Iranian Parliament (Majlis) has declared that judicial cases in the country are twice as the international standard (Tabatabai Naeini, 2016). According to another report, Iran, with a population of 80 million, has 15 million lawsuits and 2000 criminal titles (Shaykh al-Islami, 2014:1) and the vast majority of such cases are related to social deviations that are more common among young adults (Saedi, Hashemi & Abedi, 2013; Fatemi et al., 2015). The purpose of the present study was to investigate the degree of such deviations, examine the level of dissatisfaction among youngsters with their parents, compare their dissatisfaction with their fathers and mothers and finally predict the possible effects of parents’ dissatisfaction with the three kinds of deviation. On the other hand, considering the important role of prevention in this regard, this study aims at comparing the level of youths’ dissatisfaction with their parents (fathers and mothers separately) and considering its predictive role in their tendencies to the deviations of running away from home, sexual deviation, and drug addiction following the attachment theory (Bowlby, 1988).  

The present study was applied in terms of purpose and descriptive-analytical in nature. In addition, the type of research was quantitative and its method was cross-sectional survey. The statistical population of the present correlational study comprised 8633 undergraduate students of Mazandaran University (Mazandaran University, 2019) of which 384 were selected as the sample (Krejcie & Morgan, 1970). The questionnaires included: 1) the scale of the tendency to deviation (Rajabi, 2015) and 2) the scale of offspring’s attitudes toward parents (Walter & Hudson, 1992; Translated by Sajjadi et al., 2015). They were distributed among 400 students using the cluster sampling technique and 395 (17.5 % boy, 80.5 % girl) of them were used in data analysis.  

     The results showed that the respondents were more dissatisfied with their fathers. In addition, 11.1% of them agreed that running away from home was a way to become independent so 29.9 % gave the young people the right to be sexually perverted; 19 % agreed that drugs could be used as painkillers to overcome physical ailments. A significant difference between girls’ and boys’ tendency to run away from home, sexual deviation, and drug addiction was found while boys reported a higher tendency to these three deviances. These results can be explained through the politics of patriarchy in Iran (Eisamorad, 2016; Golzari, 2006). In this society, boys are allowed to have more freedom and are less controlled  than girls. The results also showed a significant relationship between dissatisfaction with the father or mother and the tendency to run away from home, sexual deviation, and addiction among the respondents. The results were found to be consistent with previous findings (Asadi, et al. 2019; Hoseinkhanzadeh, et al. 2014; Pourrajabali & Qanbari, 2019). According to the attachment theory, children who were less satisfied with their parents had a higher tendency toward social deviations. The results of linear regression showed that dissatisfaction with the mother was a stronger predictor of running away from home, sexual deviation, and addiction compared with dissatisfaction with the father. The results were also consistent with previous studies (Makvandi, Soleimani, & Liami, 1999). A study by Mirakhorli (2017) showed that mothers had more important roles than fathers to save their children from any type of deviance behaviors. Indeed, regarding the attachment theory, mothers had a deep relationship with their children since the pregnancy duration; however, fathers did not have. That could be why mothers have greater influences on their children’s behaviors (Bowlby, 1988).