Psychological Predictors of Vagrancy in Adolescents

Abstract

Psychological predictors of vagrancy and home leave from socially and economically prosperous families in adolescents are analyzed in the article. The purpose of present article is to show that it is possible to predict the occurrence of runaways and vagrancy in adolescents in the absence of schizophrenia and other clinical diagnoses. Presented research data on the multidimensional relationship of personality accentuations and deviations in the styles of family education as psychological predictors of vagrancy in adolescents presented. 72 adolescents aged 12-16 and their 78 parents were examined according to the typology of character accentuations by K. Leonhard (the Kleist-Leonhard classification system) and the methodology “Analysis of parenting styles” by E.G. Eidemiller and V. Yustitskis, a regression analysis and assessment of the reliability of trends by the G-criterion of signs were carried out. Multidimensional links between various combinations of hypertimacy, cyclotimity, exaltation, emotionality, excitability of vagrant teenagers and the characteristics of their family relationships in the form of infantilizing an adult teenager in the parent's mind, attributing their own negative qualities within the framework of the projection mechanism are shown. Based on the data obtained, it has been concluded that psychological predictors that allow anticipating wagon bondage as a behavior deviation with a rather high reliability are not individual accentuated personality traits, but an emergent system of interrelated initial characteristics of a teenager’s personality and family relationships. It has been reliably established that the presence of none of the accentuations of the personality independently, outside the context of family education, is not a specific predictor for vagrancy and does not make it possible to predict its occurrence. The identified psychological predictors of vagrancy in adolescents are highlighted for targeted corrective and preventive programs for adolescents and their parents in order to prevent vagrancy in the early stages of the teenage crisis.

Keywords

• adolescents
• vagrancy
• vagabondage
• psychological predictors
• family education styles