PERSONALITY AND BEHAVIORAL ANTECEDENTS OF HOMESICKNESS

This study concentrates on personality characteristics and behavioral features of military conscripts suffering from homesickness. A compari son is made with healthy controls and with conscripts suffering from p sychiatric symptoms of a different nature. Although the two pathologic al groups share several characteristics in comparison to the healthy g roup (elevated scores on Shyness, Psychopathology, Inadequacy, Social Inadequacy, and Hostility), homesick subjects also display certain spe cific features not-or far less-observed among the psychiatric control individuals (in particular, higher scores on Somatizing and Rigidity a nd lower scores on Extraversion, Negativism, Dominace, and Self-esteem ). In addition, typical of homesick conscripts is the strong emotional tie to their parents and the strong need for social support. Moreover , they had experienced homesickness in their childhood. Given the retr ospective nature of the present study, the need of prospective studies is stressed.