SOURCES OF CONFLICT, SUPPORT RESOURCES AN D EMOTIONAL STATE IN ADOLESCENTS

Social support during adolescence has often been described in terms of the interpersonal relationships that provide instrumental and emotion al help to the youngsters. The purpose of this study was two-fold: 1) To identify the sources of support most frequently seeked by adolescen ts when facing problems with the following: father, mother, siblings, friends, self body-image, and sexuality; and 2) To explore the relatio nship between sources of support (family, friends or noone) and the ad olescent's emotional status. This ex-post-facto, crossectional study w as conducted with a non-probabilistic sample of 608 adolescents (298 f emales and 310 males) with ages ranging from 13 to 15 years. All subje cts attended junio high school (''secundaria'') in Mexico City. The fi ndings revealed that female adolescents showed a marked tendency to se ek the help/support of their immediate family when facing any type of problem. Their second choice for support was their friends. Only when facing sex-related conflicts they preferred the help of their family f ollowed by seeking no help at all. Male adolescents on the other hand, showed a pattern significantly different than that of their female co unterparts. Among males, when facing problems with friends or members of the nuclear family their preferred source of support was the family itself followed by friends. Self body-image, and sex-related conflict s were solved by the majority with the help of no-one, the second and third choice of support when dealing with these problems were their fa mily and friends, respectively. The support provided by the nuclear fa mily was found to be the most effective for both females and males. Th e adolescents reporting seeking the support of the nuclear family had the lowest CES-D scores regardless of the type of problem facing. Amon g females, those seeking the help/support from sources other than the nuclear family had significantly higher CES-D scores than the ones who approached the family for advice. Among males, no statistically signi ficant differences were found in CES-D scores among those who prefered the support of family, frinds or no-one. However, consistenly lower C ES-D score were obtained by the young men who relied on their family f or support. Results are discussed from a gender-differences perspectiv e and within the socio-cultural context that prevails in Mexico.