contribute to the resilience in young adults. On the other hand social withdrawal will take the young
adults away from resilience.
Key words: Social withdrawal, Social interaction, Young adults, Resilience.
Socially withdrawn individuals are those who have reduced social interaction during
activities with peer involvement even though there are a lot of opportunities (Green wood, Todd,
Walker, and Hops 1978). However, they are not those who were rejected by the peers or others in
the group. Rejected individuals are those who take high rates of initiation among the peers or the
group, but are less affiliated by peers or others in the group, probably due to the inappropriate nature
of the initiations (Green wood, Walker, and Hops, 1977).
individuals, there will be a frequent refrain from social activities in the presence of peers (Lewis,
1990).
The lack of social interaction may result from a variety of causes, including social fear and
anxiety or a preference for solitude (Lewis, 1990). From early childhood to adolescence, socially
withdrawn children are concurrently at risk for a wide range of negative adjustment outcomes,
including socio-emotional difficulties such as anxiety, low self-esteem, depressive symptoms, and
internalizing problems; peer difficulties such as rejection, victimization, poor friendship quality; and
school difficulties such as poor quality teacher-child relationships, academic difficulties, school
avoidance (Lewis, 1990).
Social withdrawal is not a clinically defined behavioral, social, or emotional disorder, but it
definitely influences the personality of the individual. In the cases of the avoidance of social
company and the isolation from social company, solitude could hardly be construed as
psychologically or socially adaptive (Lewis, 1990). It is not the Isolation, but the difficulties in the
social or emotional nature that would bring the problems here. There are researchers who believe
that social withdrawal is linked with psychological maladjustment as it represents a behavioral
expression of internalized thoughts and feelings of social anxiety or depression (Vasa & Pine, 2006).
Social withdrawal shall act as a catalyst that develops negative outcomes such as negative
self-regard, loneliness, peer rejection, victimization, anxiety, and depression (Lewis, 1990).
It
becomes a curse for those who are in the period of young adulthood. Young adulthood begins at the
age of eighteen which leads to a long period of adjustments to new patterns of life and new social
3
expectations. The young adult is expected to play new roles, such as that of spouse, parent, and
breadwinner and to develop new attitudes, interests and values in keeping with these new roles
(Hurlock, 1980). Many young adults find the early years of adulthood so difficult. Therefore, they try
to prolong their dependency, for instance, by retaining the roles of students etc.
Young adulthood is a time of value change (Hurlock, 1980). Many of the values developed
during childhood and adolescence changes as experience and social contact with people of different
ages broaden. The early part of the young adulthood is a period of transition and during the time the
individuals witness a lot of change. There will be changes in social interests, social participation,
friendships and social groupings. In other words, it is a period when they need a high energy of
social interaction. And it is the period when they need resilience. They have to maintain the
normalcy without breakdowns. Social withdrawal symptoms shall be a barrier during this period to
the demonstration of resilience.
The present study focuses on young adults as its target group. Youth, in any society, is the
energy of that society. Analyzing the History, one can see that progress of a society depends upon
secured feeling in youth; for instance, 17th century England, 19th century America, and 20th century
India have been built on the aspirations and adventures of their youth. Analyzing the protective
factors that promote resilience in young adults has a high relevance in facilitating development. The
interview accounts from the studies made by Bancroft et al (2004) on young people presented a
serious challenge to the notion of choice in relation to youth transitions. During these transitions,
especially from adolescence to young adulthood, resilience is a factor which shall not be kept in
ignorance.
Young adults who are good in social interaction will have good social competence too.
Therefore, they will be highly resilient when compared to those who are socially withdrawn.
Socially withdrawn individuals will be generally less resourceful. They will be blind to the available
resources to demonstrate resilience when a challenging situation arises. Social interaction allows the
young adults to rise according to the situation, and mobilize maximum available resources from the
surroundings, in order to face any newly emerged challenges.
The hypothesis refers to possible association of resilience with the social interaction skills in
young adults.
Hypothesis: Socially interacting young adults differ from the socially withdrawn young adults in
resilience
METHOD
Sample:
The sample for the present study consisted of 64 young adults (age group 18 to 21 years)
from different middle class families at Calicut District in the State of Kerala, India. The subjects
were unaware about the concept of resilience while they were tested for the present purpose.
Tools:
BU Resilience Scale (Annalakshmi, 2009) is used to measure resilience of the subjects. The
scale purports to measure resilience with reference to seven domains including duration for getting
back to normalcy, reaction to negative events, response to risk factors (specifically, disadvantaged
environment) in life, perception of effect of past negative events, defining problems,
hope/confidence in coping with future and openness to experience and flexibility. The scale has
adequate reliability (reliability coefficient of Spearman Brown, 0.84; Guttman, 0.84; and Cronbach
alpha, 0.86) as found on a sample of 577 post-graduate students. The scale was validated against
Friborgs Resilience Scale for Adults (r = 0.401) and Bells Adjustment Inventory (r = -0.392).
Social interaction is scored using Social Interaction Rating Scale (SIRS) (Hops et al, 1978).
The SIRS lists eight items concerning social interactions and asks the teacher to rate each item on a
seven point Likert scale using the descriptors not descriptive or true to very descriptive or true.
The SIRS is scored by adding each items circled descriptor number (Score range is 7 through 56).
Social Interaction
Social interaction
Social Withdrawal
N
30
34
Mean
122.53
99.31
S. D
6.92
10.9
t- value
6.72**
As per the result indicates, the enhancement of social interaction shall enhance resilience.
The association of social interaction with resilience may be due to its relationship with social
competence. Social competence has been identified as a strong reliable factor related to resilience
(Annalakshmi, 2007; Adejuwon and Balogun, 2004; Benard, 1991; Oliver et al, 2006).
Communication skills, sense of humour and the ability to elicit positive responses from others
are some of the factors that seem to be associated with social competence and with resilience
(Santhosh, 2008). All these factors shall be speculated to be related to social interaction.
Socially withdrawn people are those who have reduced social interaction. Even though there
are a lot of opportunities, socially withdrawn people will be blind to them (Green wood, Todd,
Walker, and Hops 1978). This blindness would make them disable to see the protective factors in
the surrounding resources that enable them to be resilient. Social adversities are quite natural in the
day-to-day affairs during young adulthood (Schoon et al, 2004). Social withdrawal, as Lewis (1990),
suggests, may act as a catalyst, to make the problems worse, in such situations. The consequences
shall be the negative outcomes such as negative self-regard, loneliness, peer rejection, victimization,
anxiety, and depression (Lewis, 1990). All these are definitely a curse to the young adult, because
the individual, during the period, is expected to play new roles, such as that of spouse, parent, and
breadwinner and to develop new attitudes, interests and values in keeping with these new roles
(Hurlock, 1980).
The study had been a hairsplitting search which introduced a new protective factor, social
interaction, to the broad body of resilience literature. The findings of the study designate the
importance of the reduction of social withdrawal and the enhancement of social interaction in order
to enhance resilience in young adults. Implications contribute to the existing theory of methods of
enhancement of resilience, a factor which always help an individual to withstand risk and sustain
normality. However, more researches, with an increased sample, are needed to clarify the dynamics
of the relationship reported herein between social interaction and resilience.
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