Agency in the emerging adulthood period: An introductory study in Turkey
Özet
The term agency has been defined to a sense of responsibility for one's life course, the belief that one is in control of one's decisions about life and is responsible for their outcomes, and the confidence that one will be able to overcome obstacles that impede one's progress along one's chosen life course. In this context, agency has been considered a composite structure which is consisting of self-esteem, purpose in life, self-efficacy, and internal locus of control. This study aimed to investigate the relationship between the agency of emerging adults and certain demographic variables such as college education status, age, gender, SES, working status, marital status, parental status, and monthly total income of the family, self-definition, perceived identity definition, and self-definition about reaching adulthood. In this descriptive study, data were collected 700 emerging adults between the ages 18-26, so cross-sectional research design was used. To measure agency, The Multi-Measure Agentic Personality Scale-Short Form was used. Descriptive statistics were computed for all variables. T-test and One-Way ANOVA were used to determine whether or not demographic variables play a significant role in total point of the scale. The results showed that while there was a significant relationship between agency and certain demographic variables which are self-definition about reaching adulthood, educational status, gender, perceived identity definition, working status, college education status, and self-definition, and there wasn't a significant relationship between agency and certain demographic variables which are age, total income of the family, marital status, SES, and parental status. The findings were discussed in the context of emerging adulthood theory, and culture. © EuroJournals Publishing, Inc. 2012.
