A Comparison of Pursuing – Distancing and Dependency on Others among Monolinguals and bilinguals

Abstract

Introduction and Purpose: Every man has a moral character. Some people are early familiar, some are late familiar, some are introverts and some are extroverts. Pursuing-distancing are related to the overall structure of relations between persons or the distance or space that exist between them and others. On the other hand, dependent individuals place their needs the subordinating of wandering needs, throw the main responsibilities of their life on others, they don't have self-confidence and if they remain alone for a short time, they feel worried and upset. This study aims to compare the pursuing-distancing rate and the rate of dependency on others in monolinguals and bilinguals.

Methods: 19 monolinguals and 22 bilinguals of female psychology students of Shazand Payam Noor University participated in this study. The data collection instruments were Donald M. Bernstein's questionnaire of loving companion – steer scale and Robert M.A. Hershfield et al’s questionnaire of dependency on others. Data analysis was performed through SPSS software and statistical test of multivariate analysis of variance.

Results: According to data analysis, there is no significant difference in dependency on others between monolinguals and bilinguals(P ≤ 0/05). So, generally, in dependency on others, the subscales of lack of self confidence and dependency are more seen in bilingual individuals. Autonomy is more seen in monolingual individuals compared to bilinguals and in subscales of pursuing-distancing significant difference was not found.

Conclusion: The available significant difference in dependency on others between monolinguals and bilinguals can be caused by many factors such as ethnic and tribal customs, different parenting styles of parents and widespread social and cultural values. But the number of performed researches in this area is very limit. Particularly, most of performed research has been done on the dependent personality disorder. The results of this study will determine the need for further studies on this subject.