A Comparative Study of Personality between Army Background Adolescents Residing Together and Apart from Father

Abstract

The Indian Army has been actively participating in internal as well as external threat management. To carry out all these activities the army personnel have to move out of their duty stations for prolonged periods and at short notice which in a manner disturbs the families in multiple dimensions. Many of the places where the army men are deployed are in remote areas where neither accommodation for the family nor adequate facilities for education of children is available. This results in parting of the adolescent from their fathers and hence has an effect on the development of the adolescent as far as their personality is concerned. The present study was undertaken to examine and compare the level of personality traits between adolescents from army background residing with and without father. The study was conducted on 160 twelfth class adolescents residing with father and 160 adolescents who reside without father. The age range was from 16-17 years, the sample was selected by using stratified sampling method from different schools located in cantonment area of Chandigarh, Mohali and Panchkula. Catell and Cattell  Jr.–Sr. High School Personality Questionnaire(HSPQ) by S.D. Kapoor and Srivastava was administered on the subjects to examine their level of personality traits. Adolescents from army background residing with father were found to have significantly different on first personality factor (Factor A), fourth personality factor(Factor D), fifth personality factor(Factor E), sixth personality factor (Factor F), ninth personality factor(Factor I), tenth personality factor (Factor J),eleventh personality factor(Factor O), thirteenth personality factor(Factor Q3), and fourteenth personality factor(Factor Q4) , as compared to adolescents from army background residing without father. This implies that the adolescents from army background residing with father have tended to be more outgoing, warmhearted, and easy going, more talkative, happy –go –lucky, enthusiastic, and careless than adolescents from army background residing without father. This also implies that adolescents from army background residing without father have tended to be more demanding, impatient, unrestrained, assertive, aggressive, sensitive, tender-minded, fastidious, individualistic, obstructive, unwilling to act and reflective, anxious, insecure, depressive and troubled , less controlled, and less self-disciplined than adolescents from army background residing with father. Additionally, no significant difference was found in the level of second personality factor (Factor B), third personality factor (Factor C), seventh personality factor (Factor G), eighth personality factor (Factor-H), twelfth personality factor(Factor Q2),between adolescents from army background residing with and without father.It may therefore be said that adolescents from army background residing with and without father were almost equally intelligent, equally emotionally stable, equally rule conscientious (equal super- ego strength) and equally dependent. The study revealed that father’s absence affect the personality of army background adolescents residing without father and presence of both parents plays a significant role in holistic development of the personality of army background adolescents.