Abstract: Development and adaptation are the basic tasks of human life. Social adaptation is the core issue of individual’s survival and development, and also an important socialization objective of adolescents. How to improve adolescents’ social well-adaptive behavior and change their social maladaptive behavior is an important theme in education and psychology. Thus in the current study we investigated developmental characteristics of adolescents’ social adaptive behavior with a self-developed scale.
In this study 1556 students from 6 middle schools in Guangzhou Province were invited to complete the Adolescents’ Social Adaptive Behavior Scale. We demonstrated that averagely, adolescents’ social adaptive behaviors develop well, but the distribution of the ABQ and the MABQ (Maladaptive Behavior Quality) were remarkably different from the theoretic distribution. The ‘excellent’ and ‘good’ adapters were fewer than expected but the ‘bad’ and ‘worst’ adapters were more than theoretic distribution. We found significant interactions on social well-adaptive behavior, such as grade and gender, grade and household registration, household registration and gender. We also showed significant interactions on social mal-adaptive behavior, such as grade and gender as well as grade and household. Significant grade difference in social adaptive behavior was found. Grade 1 of junior middle school got the highest score and grade 1 of senior school got the lowest score in social well-adaptive behavior. Grade 1 of junior school got the lowest score in social maladaptive behavior. Overall gender difference of adaptive behavior was not salient, but there were some gender differences in specific dimensions. Male students’ scores were significantly higher in self orientation, social life, study adaptation and social interaction, while female students’ scores were significantly higher in social cognition and sex. Finally, urban students got significantly higher score in social well-adaptive behavior and lower score in maladaptive behavior than rural students This study indicated that in order to promote adolescents’ social adaptation, we should pay more attention to the characteristics of grade, gender and family origin

Key words: adolescent, social well-adaptive behavior, social maladaptive behavior, developmental characteristics