Defensive styles and psychological symptoms among Chinese adolescents in Hong Kong

Abstract

Specific defenses were assessed in a cohort of 490 Chinese adolescent boys and girls in Hong Kong using the Chinese version of the short form of the Defense Style Questionnaire (DSQ). Commonly employed defenses included anticipation, sublimation, and reaction formation, indicating that adolescents tended to deal with stressors and emotional conflicts with relatively mature or adaptive defenses. Factor analysis revealed that a mature or adaptive defensive style could generally be distinguished from an immature or maladaptive defensive style, but a neurotic defensive style was not differentiable for this group of adolescents. Results also indicated that general and specific psychological symptoms were associated with the use of immature defenses characterized by somatization and externalizing emotional conflicts through acting out and misattribution. The use of the DSQ for assessing defenses among Chinese adolescents and cross-cultural comparisons are discussed.