Almost everyone can identify with the experience of homesickness. In fact, between 71 and 96 percent of the population has had at least one experience with the emotional distress resulting from a separation from home. Further, homesickness has been linked to a number of clinically significant sequelae including psychopathology, behavior problems, poor peer relations, academic difficulties, and medical problems. However, homesickness has been largely ignored in the psychological literature. The little research that does exist has primarily focused on defining homesickness and formulating preliminary models of the development of homesickness. Given that this early research represented only initial attempts to explain homesickness, a number of important areas of inquiry have been left unexplored. The proposed study will investigate the degree to which family functioning and mastery of separation issues predicts homesickness. Specifically, the study will examine 1) the direct contribution of family functioning to adolescent homesickness, 2) the direct contribution of psychological separation from parents to homesickness, 3) the direct contribution of family functioning to psychological separation, and 4) the indirect contribution of family functioning to homesickness through its impact on psychological separation. Furthermore, it will be demonstrated that homesickness is a distinct and unique phenomenon, distinguishable from other well-known constructs (e.g., depression) and methodological shortcomings in previous research will be addressed. The study will include 160 first-year students at a semi-rural university. Measures to assess family functioning, psychological separation, and homesickness will be administered to first-year university students and their parents.
