Parental age and occupation: Determinants of social intelligence among adolescents

Abstract

Adolescence is the most vulnerable stage to the social problems. The more congenial home environment, less parent domination and sympathetic parental encouragement have been found to be responsible for the achievement of the adolescence. Secure bonds between parents and their adolescent allow young people the freedom to grow and explore, knowing their home represents a safe heaven to which they can return when necessary. Social intelligence is an aggregated measure of self and social awareness, evolved social beliefs and attitudes, and a capacity to manage complex social change. Paternal occupation has positive impacts on social intelligence of adolescents. Social intelligence is an aggregated measure of self and social awareness, evolved social beliefs and attitudes, and a capacity to manage complex social change. Parental factors also contributes a lot in the development of the child and purgation of his inherent qualities. Parents play an important role in all-round development of the child. This study examines the impacts of social intelligence in relation to their parental age and occupation of adolescents. The study was conducted in Hisar district of Haryana state. Two areas were selected purposively i.e., rural and urban, from urban area Hisar city and from rural area two villages namely Gawar and Shamsukh were taken for collection of data. From each schools 30 boys and 30 girls of 13-15 year (240 adolescents) were included in final sample. Father age and occupation was independent variable. Social intelligence were taken as dependent variable. Social Intelligence Scale (SIS) by Chadha and Ganesan (2004) was used for assessing social intelligence. The results reveal that paternal occupation possess more social intelligence than maternal occupation. Mean scores showed that adolescents whose fathers were farmers were low in social intelligence from the adolescents whose fathers were engaged in laborers, service and businessman. The results further exposed that statistically non-significant differences existed in all aspects of social intelligence in both paternal and maternal age.