Autonomy and Connectedness among Italian Emerging Adults: Their Relations with Psychological Well-Being

The general purpose of the present study was to explore in a cross-cultural perspective the dimensions of autonomy, relatedness and autonomous-related self among Italian emerging adults. Particularly, the first goal was to examine age and gender differences in these dimensions; the second goal was to investigate their associations with parental support of autonomy and relatedness; the third goal was to investigate their associations with psychological well-being. Participants were 181 Italian emerging adults (M = 35%) aged from 18 to 25 years (mean = 21. 35, SD = 2.12). Autonomy, relatedness and autonomous-related self were assessed with ???Autonomous and related self-construal scale??? (Kagitcibasi, 2007); perceived parental support of autonomy and connectedness was measured with ???Autonomy competence relatedness scale??? (Chirkov & Ryan, 2001); psychological well-being was measured with ???Psychological Well-Being Scale??? (Ryff, 1989). Firstly, results showed both gender and age differences: (a) females tended to report higher levels of connectedness and autonomous-related self than males; (b) older people tended to be more autonomous-related than younger people. Secondly, autonomy resulted positively related to parental support of autonomy and negatively related to parental support of connectedness, while relatedness resulted positively associated with parental support of connectedness. Finally, autonomy, relatedness and autonomous-related self were differently associated to various domains of psychological well-being: (a) connectedness resulted positively associated to purpose in life; (b) autonomous-related self was positively associated to self-acceptance, personal growth and environmental mastery; (c) autonomy was unrelated to psychological well-being.