Beeing an adolescent: self-image and emotions

Adolescence has long been characterized as a time of increased emotionality. American research has found that most adolescents report feeling globally happy with their lives (Offer, Ostrov, & Howard,1981); furthermore, other research has highlighted that, when extreme emotional turmoil does occur, it is associated with worse long-term adjustment (Dusek & Flaherty,1981; Larson et al. 2002). The purpose of this pilot study was to investigate the hypothesis that negative emotionality may be related to psychological and social maladjustment during adolescence (Larson,1991; Eisenberg et al.,1996; Rothbart & Bates,1998). Following the path of emotional variability from early to late adolescence in Italy, we aimed at investigating the connection between this emotional continuum and a continuum including the representations of self-image generated by adolescents across this developmental phase. 
300 Italian adolescents (in early, middle and late adolescence) were involved. Two instruments were used: a questionnaire for the assessment of moods and behaviors during the most recent month of the subjects’ lives and the Italian version of the Offer Self-Image Questionnaire (OSIQ) (De Vito and coll., 1989). The first analysis showed a significant relation between the two instruments. Preliminary analysis of variance highlighted significant differences in behaviors and emotions experienced by males and females; statistically significant differences also emerged with reference to the phase included in the wide concept of adolescence the individuals in our sample were passing through and between adaptive and maladaptive subjects as assessed with the OSIQ subscales.
In line with our starting hypothesis, maladaptive subjects seemed to experience more negative and related-to-disengagement emotions than their adaptive peers