By Mathilde Avril
Synthesis of my work of study and research (TER)
The study that I carried out in the first year of my master is entitled: “Relations between peers in adolescence: the place of motor handicap in the functioning of empathic processes and of personal expectations within friendship”.
Its objective was to explore some aspects of friendly relationships among adolescents with physical disabilities in comparison to adolescents without specific deficits, through the examination of two processes within friendship :
- Friendly personal expectations that refer to the existence of some ideal characteristics and sought in the friendly relationship (intimacy, emotional support, instrumental help, similarity, trust, reciprocity, the pleasure of spending time with friends) (Hall, 2010).
- And the empathic skills that refer to the intuitive faculty of putting oneself in the place of others, of perceiving what they feel (De Vignemont & Singer, 2006).
I chose to conduct this study because in adolescents with physical disabilities, the transition to adulthood is accompanied by major challenges.In addition to managing the major psychological and physiological changes common to all, they must overcome obstacles resulting from their disabilities in realisation some activities, including those related to the development and maintenance of friendship. In adolescents, psychosocial skills are essential for good adaptation to the environment. Friendship is a primary source of interaction, underpinned by these skills. In the formation and maintenance of friendship, the young person develops expectations about how his friends should be and behave. However, the adolescent with a disability lives the experience of friendship differently. These adolescents would develop personal expectations different from those of adolescents without disabilities. Moreover, in good-quality friendly relationships, the ability to perceive and understand emotions indirectly influences social interaction. From where the importance of empathic behavior. Adolescents who report having greater empathy have better friendships.
To undertake my study, I observed these processes in 56 adolescents aged on average of 14 years and 8 months divided into two groups, those with motor disabilities (n = 10) and those with no specific deficits (n = 46). Data collection was realized by self-evaluation for expectations and emotional competencies, using two scales of measurement:
- The CEC scale “Emotional Contagion, Empathy, Break Against Emotions” by Favre, Joly, Reynaud, and Salvador, (2009)
- Hall’s Personal Expectations Scale (2012)
In parallel with the help of clinical observations, I analyzed the reality of the daily experience of friendship for adolescents with motor disabilities.
Main results:
Concerning friendly personal expectations my results showed that teenagers with motor disabilities hierarchize in the same way expectations as teenagers without disability. Pleasure, reciprocity, intimacy, emotional support, instrumental help and arrangement are expected in order. Their expectations in terms of reciprocity and pleasure are even stronger. However, the observations showed that there was a real difference between their expectations and the reality of their friendships. Overall have more difficulty in maintaining their friendships, by common exits, mutual invitations to the home (…) due to an environment not always adapted to their handicap (deficiency of accessibility), as well as that a great reluctance of the parents to allow them to become autonomy.
Concerning empathy, my results indicated that teenagers with motor disabilities were more empathic than teenagers without disability. This higher level of competence can be explained by their particular experience, where their relationships, in particular family relations, would show a high level of empathy which the young people would internalize during the exchanges.
Finally, for empathic skills in relation to friendly personal expectations. My results revealed that teenagers with motor disabilities do not invest emotionally in the same way as teenagers without disability in friendly relationships. Compared to teenagers, they constitute these relationships on a different basis, marked by similarity with others, the pleasure of spending time with friends at school, emotional support and help, but much less on the intimacy and therefore the self-revelation of oneself. However intimacy is a crucial element, one of the major developments of friendship in adolescence.
My study highlighted that teenagers with motor disabilities there was a gap between their friendly personal expectations, their empathic skills and the reality of the daily life of their friendships. This gap is explained by a lack of mobility, accessibility and autonomy which limit the development and maintenance of friendly ties, nevertheless necessary, especially in adolescence to face the upheavals encountered during this period of life.
