Adolescent ego development: relationship to family cohesion and adaptability.

Adolescence has been a focus of research for several decades. Recently, a portion of this body of research has addressed the relationship between adolescent development and family functioning. The intent of much of this research has been the attempt to determine how family dynamics influence the developmental processes of adolescents. Adolescents' perceptions of family cohesion and adaptability, as well as their levels of satisfaction with those perceptions, have been correlated with ego development within a sample of middle adolescents. Adaptability and cohesion were found to be significantly related to ego development, but interactions among the two variables, as well as with family structure were important.