The mother and the motherland: Their internal representations among immigrant and non-immigrant adolescents

Sophie D. Walsh, Eugene Tartakovsky

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

4 Scopus citations

Abstract

This paper studies associations between internal representations that adolescents hold for their mothers and internal representations of the country they belong to, and the extent to which such internal representations impact on psychological adjustment. Two studies were conducted: the first with 328 Russian adolescents in Russia, and the second with 178 Jewish adolescent immigrants from Russia in Israel. In both samples, representations of the mother as caring were significantly related to the adolescents' positive attitudes towards their country of living. In addition, the adolescents' positive attitudes towards country of living were significantly related to their psychological adjustment, over and above internal representations of mother. Findings suggest the importance of theories of internal representations for understanding the dynamics of the adolescents' attachment to social objects and their psychological adjustment.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)185-204
Number of pages20
JournalAttachment and Human Development
Volume14
Issue number2
DOIs
StatePublished - Mar 2012

Keywords

  • Israel
  • Russia
  • attachment to social objects
  • high-school adolescents
  • internal representations of a country
  • internal representations of mothers
  • psychological adjustment

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