Effect of Psychological Wellbeing on Violent Behavior among Adolescents In Reference to Parenting Style

Introduction

World Health Organisation, where health is defined as “a state of complete physical, mental and social well‐being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity” (WHO, 1948). More recently, the WHO has defined positive mental health as “a state of well‐being in which the individual realizes his or her own abilities, can cope with the normal stresses of life, can work productively and fruitfully, and is able to make a contribution to his or her community” (WHO, 2001).

Psychological well-being is usually conceptualized as some combination of positive affective states such as happiness (the hedonic perspective) and functioning with optimal effectiveness in individual and social life (the eudemonic perspective) (Deci & Ryan 2008). As summarized by Huppert (2009, p.137): “Psychological well-being is about lives going well. It is the combination of feeling good and functioning effectively.” By definition therefore, people with high PW report feeling happy, capable, well-supported, satisfied with life, and so on; Huppert’s (2009)

As Psychological wellbeing is a combination of having positive emotions, actively engaging in aspects of life, having good social relationships, finding meaning in life and a sense of accomplishment (Seligman, 2011), it appears to have a strong correlation with a relatively new term that is currently emerging in literature. Psychosocial wellbeing is a term that does not have a globally recognized definition, however, it is perceived as a combination of cognitive, social, emotional and spiritual wellbeing. Cognitive wellbeing refers to values and having a rational and constructive approach to life’s challenges. Social wellbeing refers to interactions with others in the sense of having good social support (support network) and an ability to adapt to various situations. Emotional wellbeing refers to an ability to accept and express various emotions (positive and negative). Spiritual wellbeing refers to one’s life having a purpose or meaning and to a sense of belonging or connection with oneself, other people, nature or a higher power (Zinger, 2016). Carl Reff model is one of the first systematic models of Psychological Well-Being, and her model remain one of the most scientifically verified and empirically rigorous today.

1) Self-Acceptance

High Self Acceptance: You possess a positive attitude toward yourself; acknowledge and accept multiple aspects of yourself including both good and bad qualities; and feel positive about your past life.

Low Self Acceptance: You feel dissatisfied with yourself; are disappointed with what has occurred in your past life; are troubled about certain personal qualities; and wish to be different than what you are.

2) Personal Growth

Strong Personal Growth: You have a feeling of continued development; see yourself as growing and expanding; are open to new experiences; have the sense of realizing your potential; see improvement in yourself and behaviour over time; are changing in ways that reflect more self-knowledge and effectiveness.

Weak Personal Growth: You have a sense of personal stagnation; lack the sense of improvement or expansion over time; feel bored and uninterested with life; and feel unable to develop new attitudes or behaviours.

3) Purpose in Life

Strong Purpose in Life: You have goals in life and a sense of directedness; feel there is meaning to your present and past life; hold beliefs that give life purpose; and have aims and objectives for living.

Weak Purpose in Life: You  lack a sense of meaning in life; have few goals or aims, lack a sense of direction; do not see purpose of your past life; and have no outlook or beliefs that give life meaning.

4) Positive Relations with Others

Strong Positive Relations: You have warm, satisfying, trusting relationships with others; are concerned about the welfare of others; are capable of strong empathy, affection, and intimacy; and understand the give and take of human relationships.

Weak Relations: You have few close, trusting relationships with others; find it difficult to be warm, open, and concerned about others; are isolated and frustrated in interpersonal relationships; and are not willing to make compromises to sustain important ties with others.

5) Environmental Mastery

High Environmental Mastery: You have a sense of mastery and competence in managing the environment; control complex array of external activities; make effective use of surrounding opportunities; and are able to choose or create contexts suitable to your personal needs and values.

Low Environmental Mastery: You have difficulty managing everyday affairs; feel unable to change or improve surrounding contexts; are unaware of surrounding opportunities; and lack a sense of control over the external world.

6) Autonomy

High Autonomy: You are self-determining and independent; are able to resist social pressures to think and act in certain ways; regulate behavior from within; and evaluate yourself by personal standards.

Low Autonomy: You are concerned about the expectations and evaluations of others; rely on judgments of others to make important decisions; and conform to social pressures to think and act in certain ways.

Violence is defined by the World Health Organization as "the intentional use of physical force or power, threatened or actual, against oneself, another person, or against a group or community, which either results in or has a high likelihood of resulting in injury, death, psychological harm, mal development, or deprivation," although the group acknowledges that the inclusion of "the use of power" in its definition expands on the conventional understanding of the word( Krug et al(2002) Globally, violence resulted in the deaths of an estimated 1.28 million people in 2013 up from 1.13 million in 1990. Of the deaths in 2013, roughly 842,000 were attributed to self-harm (suicide), 405,000 to interpersonal violence, and 31,000 to collective violence (war) and legal intervention (Jump up 2013)

The present study is on adolescents because Adolescence is a very important period of one’s life. Revolutionary changes in one is experiences and character begin from the very beginning of this stage. it is a stage in human life when rapid changes take place in individual’s physical, mental, social, moral and spiritual outlook . During this age human personality develops new dimensions. Many parents & teachers fail to assess these changes and generally show indifference because they do not like the slack in their control over their children. This attitude creates many difficulties for the adolescents. Violence is one of the problem that can be faced due to the negligence of their parents.

Parenting or child rearing is the process of promoting and supporting the physical, emotional, social, and intellectual development of a child from infancy to adulthood. A parenting style is a psychological construct representing standard strategies that parents use in their child rearing.

Authoritative Parenting

The parent demonstrates a responsiveness to the child’s needs, demandingness (setting expectations of behavior and consequences for noncompliance), monitoring of the child’s behaviour, providing clear standards of conduct, and discipline based on reasoning rather than based on power assertion or withdrawal of love. Authoritative parents provide home environments rich with strict behavioral supervision with high degrees of emotional support. Within this style of parenting, children are encouraged to behave with prosocial behavior and to reason autonomously about moral problems, to respect adults, and to learn to think independently [32].

Authoritarian Parenting

The parent demonstrates demandingness (setting expectations of behavior and consequences for noncompliance), are less responsive to the child’s needs, are more likely to use power assertive discipline, and may utilize love withdrawal to gain compliance. Love withdrawal involves using love as a reward or weapon, that is, when the child does something wrong, love and support are withheld from the child. The parent operates with a “do as you are told” style of discipline and does not often discuss why something was wrong nor does the parent invite moral discussion with the child. The parent may demonstrate some degree of warmth but mostly demands respect from the child.

Permissive Parenting

The permissive parent attempts to behave in a no punitive, acceptant and affirmative manner towards the child's impulses, desires, and actions. She [the parent] consults with him [the child] about policy decisions and gives explanations for family rules. She makes few demands for household responsibility and orderly behaviour. She presents herself to the child as a resource for him to use as he wishes, not as an ideal for him to emulate, nor as an active agent responsible for shaping or altering his on-going or future behaviour. She allows the child to regulate his own activities as much as possible, avoids the exercise of control, and does not encourage him to obey externally defined standards. She attempts to use reason and manipulation, but not overt power to accomplish her ends.

Neglectful or Uninvolved Parenting

This fourth parenting style was added by Maccoby and Martin (1983). The parent demonstrates minimal warmth and minimal control over the child. The parent is often rejecting of the child and gives the child minimal if any attention or nurturance. This parent is neglectful in their parenting responsibilities. Basically the parent provides some or most of the physical necessities for the child, but has little if any relationship with their child. The motto “children should be seen but not heard” may apply here. Parents are consumed with their own life and have little time or concern for their children.

Methodology:

Sample: 150 urban adolescents between 14 to 20 years from senior school to under graduate standards from different part of the world and social economic background were assessed for the study

Design: A single group co-relational design is planned to see the relationship between the variables of the stud

Tools: Ryff’s Psychological Well-Being Scale (PWB)by Carol Ryff, Parenting Style Inventory II (PSI-II) by Nancy Darling, TeruToyokawa, Adolescent Violent Behavior Checklist (AVBC) were used to assess the problem of the study.

Procedure:

Data was collected from national and international schools/colleges in India and China where students were from all over the world like US, UK, Asia, Australia etc. In the group of 20 students, PWB scale and PSI questionnaire were distributed separately with 10 min. of interval. They were instructed clearly about these questionnaires and ensured about the confidentiality of their responses. After establishing the rapport with the group they were asked to answer the questionnaire. AVBC checklist was collected based on the feedback from their teachers, staff, administration, neighbours, classmates, friends and their own perception for themselves.

Results

Pearson product moment correlation and factor analysis applied to get the results. The range of the mean for parenting style is from 9.39 to 10.56 and SD is 2.75 to 3.23 (table 1). The mean of psychological wellbeing is range from 4.28 to 7.74 and SD is from 1.79 to 2.27(table 2). According to table 3 authoritarian, permissive and neglectful parenting style are found significantly positively correlated with violent behaviour in adolescents. The coefficient of correlations are .48>.05 and .54>.05 and .81>.01. Negative significant correlation was found with authoritative parenting style with-.58>.05 coefficient of correlation. Table 4 indicates significant negative correlation between violent behaviour and all the aspect of psychological wellbeing with the following coefficient of correlation -.45>.05,-32>.05,-50>.05, -72>.01, -42>.05, and -.68>.01. It is found from table 5 that there is a significant positive correlation between psychological wellbeing and Authoritative parenting style with following coefficient of correlation .40>.05, .57>.05,.53>.05, .84>.01,.61>.01 and .79>.01. Table 6 shows the factors varimaxely rotated by principal component method and the top loaded factors are positive relations with others (.89) and autonomy (.75) which are the prominent factors among all.

Discussion

Above results shows that violent behaviour develops or increase when style of parenting are authoritarian, permissive and neglectful. Because parental hostility and rejection foster anger and frustration in children and adolescents which in turn leads to higher levels of antisocial behaviour (Simons et.al. 2007)  Numerous studies have manifested that negative praxis from the parents, like excessive control and extreme permissiveness, perceived by the child as negligence and ignorance on the part of the parents when seeing to their needs, have a negative effect in the emotional development of the children, prompting in part, behavioral problems and violent behaviour (e.g., Eisenberg et al., 2010; Samper et al., 2008; Gámez-Guadix et al., 2010; Mestre et al., 2010; Richaud, 2010; Calvete et al., 2014; Llorca-Mestre et al., 2017b) in line with this, Hoeve et al. (2009) found, in accordance with the finding of Loeber and Stouthamer-Loeber (1986), that parental rejection and poor supervision were among the best predictors of delinquency. In particular, a neglectful parenting style may be linked to delinquency (Maccoby and Martin, 1983; Steinberg et al., 1994) Parental negligence on offender aggressive behavior and a direct and negative effect of parental permissiveness on prosociality and of negligence on aggressive behaviour (Chao and Willms, 2002; Mestre, 2014; Grusec and Hastings, 2015)

Permissive parenting is one of the more negative and destructive styles of parenting. Children and adolescents reported lower psychological well-being and more depressive symptoms than those raised with authoritative parenting styles( Rothrauff TC, Cooney TM, An JS; 2009). Children and adolescents in these homes demonstrate higher degrees of psychological maladjustment( Barber BK, Rollins BC;1990, Dornbusch et.al.;987, Steinberg L, et.al.;1991). The children tend to be less self-controlled, immature, and demonstrate more antisocial behavior than those raised with authoritative parenting. Neglectful is perhaps the most negative and destructive style of parenting. Children and adolescents reported lower psychological well-being, more depressive symptoms, and higher rates of substance abuse than those raised with authoritative parenting styles( Rothrauff TC, Cooney TM, An JS 2009). Children and adolescents in these homes demonstrate higher degrees of psychological maladjustment( Barber BK, Rollins BC;1990, Dornbusch SM, Ritter PL, Leiderman PH, Roberts DF, Fraleigh MJ;1987, Steinberg L, Mounts NS, Lamborn SD, Dornbusch SM;1991). This style of parenting is associated with significantly higher criminal behaviour.

There is negative relationship between violent behaviour and authoritative parenting because This style of parenting predicts the most beneficial and positive outcomes for children and adolescents (Rothrauff TC, Cooney TM, An JS; 2009 ). One result of the strict behavioural supervision that occurs with high degrees of emotional support is the lessening of engaging in criminal behaviour in adolescents. Children and adolescents in these homes demonstrate higher degrees of psychological adjustment Barber BK, Rollins BC;1990, Dornbusch et.al.;987, Steinberg L, et.al.;1991). Overall the children raised with this style of parenting tend to be more self-reliant, self-controlled, self-assertive, exploratory, and content. They tend to have more self-confidence and life success. So authoritative parenting helps in decreasing violent behaviour in adolescents.

Results of the study also shows that Psychological wellbeing is significantly related to parenting style which highly affect violent behaviour among adolescents. Several factors have been found to be significant in the prediction of criminality for juveniles and violent behaviour in adolescents. These include what is often seen in permissive and authoritarian parenting styles, which include poor parenting practices, emotional negativity such as hostility, rejection, inattentive monitoring, inconsistent discipline, weak parent-child bonds, and a disregard for the rights and safety of the child which leads poor psychological wellbeing in adolescents (Glueck S, Glueck E ;1950, Laub JH, Sampson RJ ;2003 , Lipsey MW, Derzon JH ;1998, Loeber R & Farrigton DP(Eds.,), Moffitt TE ;1993, Reid JB, Patterson GR, Snyder J; 2002)

Conclusion

Conclusion generated from the study that there is a significant relationship between parenting style and psychological wellbeing which affect violent behaviour among adolescents. Psychological wellbeing and authoritative parenting effects negatively in developing violent behavior among adolescents. In other words both help in developing nonviolence behaviour among adolescents in the world.

References

Tables

Table 1. Mean and SD of types of Parenting styles

Table 2. Mean and SD of factors of Psychological wellbeing

Table 3. Correlation co-efficient between parenting style and violent behaviour

Table 4. Correlation co-efficient between psychological wellbeing and violent behaviour

Table 5. Correlation co-efficient between psychological wellbeing and Authoritative parenting style

Table 6. Rotated component matrix