Comprehensive Child and Adolescent Nursing

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Psychological Well-being and Perceived Parenting

Style among Adolescents

Ansu Francis, Mamatha Shivananda Pai & Sulochana Badagabettu

To cite this article: Ansu Francis, Mamatha Shivananda Pai & Sulochana Badagabettu (2020):
Psychological Well-being and Perceived Parenting Style among Adolescents, Comprehensive Child
and Adolescent Nursing, DOI: 10.1080/24694193.2020.1743796

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/24694193.2020.1743796

Published online: 17 Apr 2020.

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COMPREHENSIVE CHILD AND ADOLESCENT NURSING
https://doi.org/10.1080/24694193.2020.1743796

Psychological Well-being and Perceived Parenting Style

among Adolescents
Ansu Francis, Mamatha Shivananda Pai , and Sulochana Badagabettu
Manipal College of Nursing, Manipal Academy of Higher Education (MAHE), Manipal, India

ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY

The family of an adolescent assists in shaping the adolescent’s Received 10 October 2019
Accepted 13 March 2020
behavior and psychological well-being throughout life. In order
for the adolescents to maintain an identity, they require secur- KEYWORDS
ity and affection from their parents. To assess the psychological Adolescents; correlational
well-being, perceived parenting style of adolescents and to survey; students;
determine the relationship between psychological well-being psychological well-being;
and perceived parenting style among the adolescents, perceived parenting style;
a correlational survey was conducted in five randomly selected India
schools in Southern India with 554 adolescents studying in 8th
grade to 9th grade. A self-administered perceived parenting
scale and a standardized Ryff scale for the assessment of
psychological well-being were adopted to collect data, which
were analyzed using SPSS. Without gender differences, major-
ity (51%) had a high psychological well-being; 49% revealed
low psychological well-being. Majority (95.5%) had a purpose
in life and positive relation with others. Most (93.2%) of the
adolescents perceived their parents as authoritative.
A moderately positive relationship was found between psycho-
logical well-being and authoritarian and permissive parenting
styles and a negative correlation between psychological well-
being and neglectful parenting style. The study concluded that
parenting styles will have an influence on adolescents’ psycho-
logical well-being. Among the four parenting styles, authorita-
tive parenting is warm and steady and hence will contribute to
the psychological development of adolescents. They also had
maintained a positive relation with others and have a purpose
in life. Adolescents who perceived their parents as authoritar-
ian had a decreased autonomy and those who perceived their
parents as permissive had a diminished personal growth.

Introduction
Adolescents have a marked change in behavior both within and outside the
family (Saric & Sakic, 2014). During the adolescent period, they go through
various changes in the body, develop sexual, gender, and ethnic identities.
They also experience unique stressors and pressures in all aspects of their life.
The adolescents need to confront them and try to find adequate solutions
which in turn will help them to have positive relations, mutual relations, and

CONTACT Mamatha Shivananda Pai [email protected] Manipal College of Nursing, Manipal

Academy of Higher Education (MAHE), Manipal, Karnataka, India
© 2020 Taylor & Francis
2 A. FRANCIS ET AL.

also enhance social communication. This also will help adolescents to per-
form well. In maintaining an identity, they require security and affection
from their parents (Saric & Sakic, 2014). Literature on psychological well-
being suggests to have a health-protective feature of reducing risk for disease
and promoting length of life (Ryff, 2014).
Psychological well-being of the adolescents may be affected by the family,
through the relationships they share, and also by the parenting styles adopted
by the parents to rear their children. To be psychologically well means to be
free of suffering or other psychological problems. It possesses positive self-
regard, mastery, autonomy, positive relationships with other people, a sense
of purposefulness and meaning in life, and feelings of continued growth and
development (Ryff & Singer, 2006; Ryff, 1995). Parental interaction with
children influence their growth and development. Parents play an important
role in the psychological well-being of adolescents. The parenting style in the
family has an effect on the compatibility and socialization of children
(Khodabakhsh et al., 2014). A firm and reassuring parenting style had
a positive effect on educational success and career path and permissive
parenting style had a negative effect on educational success and career path
(ZahedZahedani et al., 2016). Knowing the significant impact of parenting
style, it is imperative to determine the psychological well-being and perceived
parenting style of adolescents. Objectives of this study are to assess the
psychological well-being, perceived parenting style of adolescents, and to
determine the relationship between psychological well-being and perceived
parenting style among adolescents.

Methods
A quantitative research approach was adopted for this study. A total of 554
participants were recruited by cluster sampling. The sample size was calcu-
lated using a power calculation and in order to remove the clustering effect,
the total was multiplied with the design effect. Inclusion criteria were: (a)
adolescents studying in 8th and 9th standard, (b) living with parents, and (c)
adolescents studying in English medium school. The adolescents staying in
hostel were excluded from the study. Ethical clearance was obtained from the
institutional ethical committee and permission was also obtained from the
principals of five selected English medium schools. The data were collected
from adolescents of selected English medium schools of Karkala block from
the first week of January 2017 till the second week of February 2017. The
sample was taken as cluster sampling. Written informed consent from either
mother or father was obtained, written assent from participants of the study,
and assured that their responses will be kept confidential and will be used for
the study purpose. The participants were given freedom to withdraw from
the study at any time during the study period. The participant information
 COMPREHENSIVE CHILD AND ADOLESCENT NURSING 3

sheet was explained and instructions were given to children regarding how to
fill the questionnaire.
A demographic questionnaire enquired about the age, gender, class, sylla-
bus, place of stay of children, adolescents living with parents, parent’s
education, working status of parents, occupation of parents, family composi-
tion, and standard of living. In addition to completing the demographic
proforma, the participants were asked to complete a self-administered
Likert scale that assessed the perceived parenting style and psychological
well-being. The perceived parenting style was prepared by the author; it
consisted of 36 items and each domain, namely, authoritative, authoritarian,
permissive, and neglectful, consisted of 9 items each. Those parents who are
high disciplinarians, use a restraining, corrective style, and insist that their
children follow parental directions are defined as authoritarian. Authoritative
parents are warm but steady. They inspire their adolescent to be independent
whereas the parents maintain limits and control over the adolescent beha-
viors. Permissive parents are very kind, but easy going. They are lenient and
passive in their parenting, and believe that by fulfilling their children’s wishes
they are able to demonstrate love toward them. On the other hand, those
parents who are unaffectionate and do not place any conditions on their
children are defined as neglectful parents (Okeson, 2013).
A standardized tool for the assessment of psychological well-being con-
taining 42 items was used with the permission from the author. It contained
7 items each in the respective domains, namely, personal growth, self-
acceptance, environmental mastery, positive relation with others, autonomy,
purpose in life, and personal growth.
Analysis of the data was carried out using SPSS, version 16.0. The relation-
ship between psychological well-being and perceived parenting style of the
participants was calculated using Spearman’s rank correlation test and asso-
ciation between psychological well-being and selected demographic variables
was computed with the help of Chi-square test.

Results
Demographic characteristics
Analysis of 554 participants participated in this study was tabulated as
frequency and percentage. The predominantly female (n = 283, 51.1%)
sample belonged to the age group of 14–16 years. Approximately 73.5% of
the participants' mothers were not working while 96% of the participants'
fathers were working. When the majority of 42.2% of the mothers studied up
to PUC (12 years of schooling), 37% of fathers had studied below PUC.
Approximately 86.5% of mothers and 71.1% of fathers were unskilled
4 A. FRANCIS ET AL.

workers. Majority of 74.7% of adolescents expressed they had a good stan-

dard of living.

Psychological well-being
A total of 554 participants' psychological well-being was analyzed and the
results revealed that majority of the adolescents (51%) had a high psycholo-
gical well-being and 49% of them had a low psychological well-being. The
domain-wise description (autonomy, environmental mastery, self-
acceptance, personal growth, positive relations with others, and purpose in
life) indicated that majority of 95.5% of the adolescents have both positive
relations with others and a purpose in life (Table 1).
The data presented in Table 1 show that participants have attained a high
score in all dimensions. However, majority of the adolescents (529 out of 554,
95.5%) have attained a high score in the domain purpose in life and 528 out
of 554 (95.3%) have attained a high score in the domain positive relation with
others. The data also reveal that the highest mean score for psychological
well-being is 32 and the standard deviation is 6.24 which was attained for the
domain “positive relation with others.”

Perceived parenting style

Among 554 participants, majority (93.2%) of the adolescents perceived their
parents as authoritative, 4.5% of them perceived their parents as authoritar-
ian, 2% perceived their parents as permissive, and only one child perceived
their parents as neglectful (Table 2).

Table 1. Domain-wise description of psychological well-being of the adolescents, N = 554.

Dimensions:
Minimum score − 6; Frequency Percentage Interquartile range
Maximum score – 42 Score (f) (%) Mean ±SD (IQR) Median
Autonomy High 493 89 27.17 ± 4.87 27 7
Low 61 11
Environmental mastery High 517 93.3 29.31 ± 4.99 30 7
Low 37 6.7
Purpose in life High 529 95.5 31.92 ± 5.90 32 8.25
Low 25 4.5
Personal growth High 496 89.6 27.43 ± 5.53 27 6
Low 58 10.5
Positive relations High 528 95.3 32 ± 6.24 32 9
Low 26 4.7
Self-acceptance High 510 92.1 29.4 ± 5.63 29 7
Low 44 7.9
 COMPREHENSIVE CHILD AND ADOLESCENT NURSING 5

Table 2. Domain-wise description of parenting style of the adolescents, N = 554.

Perceived parenting Frequency Percentage Mean ± standard Inter quartile
styles (f) (%) deviation Median range
Authoritative 517 93.2 37.7 ± 3.9 38 6
Authoritarian 25 4.5 28.3 ± 4.5 28 7
Permissive 11 2 28.5 ± 4.3 28 5
Neglectful 1 0.2 19.07 ± 4.6 19 7

Relationship between psychological well-being and perceived parenting

style
This study shows the relationship between psychological well-being and perceived
parenting style. A Spearman’s rank correlation test showed a significant moderate
positive correlation between psychological well-being and authoritative parenting
style (ρ = 0.432, p < .01); there was no significant relationship between psycholo-
gical well-being and authoritarian (ρ = 0.025, p = .5), permissive parenting styles
(ρ = 0.1, p = .02) and a negative correlation between psychological well-being and
neglectful parenting style (ρ = −0.4, p < .01) (Table 3). Thus, the hypothesis that
there is no significant relationship between psychological well-being and perceived
parenting styles is rejected. Authoritative parenting style was found to improve the
psychological well-being of the adolescents. For detailed analysis, correlation
between each domain of psychological well-being (autonomy, self-acceptance,
positive relations with others, purpose in life, environmental mastery, and perso-
nal growth) and perceived parenting styles (authoritative, authoritarian, permis-
sive, and neglectful) revealed that authoritarian parenting styles decrease the
autonomy of the children and permissive parenting style hampers the personal
growth of the children.

Relationship between each domain of psychological well-being and

perceived parenting style
This section brings out the detailed analysis between each domain of psy-
chological well-being and perceived parenting style, in order to find the
correlation between the domains of psychological well-being and the per-
ceived parenting styles.
The data show that there is a weak positive correlation between author-
itative parenting style and the domains of psychological well-being

Table 3. Relationship between psychological well-being and each domain of perceived parenting
style of the adolescents, N = 554.
Variables ρ p-Value
Psychological well-being and authoritative parenting style of high school students 0.432 0.00
Psychological well-being and authoritarian parenting style of high school students 0.025 0.5
Psychological well-being and permissive parenting style of high school students 0.1 0.02
Psychological well-being and neglectful parenting style of high school students −0.4 0.00
6 A. FRANCIS ET AL.

(autonomy, environmental mastery, self-acceptance, purpose in life, positive

relation with others, and personal growth).
The results show a weak positive correlation between authoritarian par-
enting style and the domains of psychological well-being (autonomy, envir-
onmental mastery, self-acceptance, purpose in life, positive relation with
others, and personal growth).
The analysis also showed a weak positive correlation between permissive
parenting style and domains of psychological well-being (autonomy, envir-
onmental mastery, self-acceptance, purpose in life, positive relation with
others)
The analysis also showed a weak negative correlation between permissive
parenting style and personal growth (Table 4).
A weak negative correlation was found between neglectful parenting style
and domains of psychological well-being (autonomy, environmental mastery,
self-acceptance, purpose in life, positive relation with others, personal
growth). This could be due to the less number of students; only one student
perceived their parent as neglectful.
Hence, the research hypothesis is accepted and the null hypothesis is partially
rejected. It was inferred that authoritative, authoritarian, and permissive parent-
ing styles had a very less effect on the domains of psychological well-being. It was
inferred that the adolescents who perceived their parents as authoritarian had
decreased autonomy and children who perceived their parents as permissive had
diminished personal growth. The results also suggested that neglectful parenting
style decreases the psychological well-being of the adolescents. Out of 554
participants, since only one child perceives parents as neglectful, the study
findings cannot be generalized.

Discussion
The findings are in agreement with a cross-sectional study which was conducted
among 853 learners at public schools in South Africa which was conducted with
an aim to assess the parenting styles and psychological needs influences on
adolescents' life goals and aspirations. The results suggested that authoritative
and authoritarian parenting styles affect the adoption of life goals and psycho-
logical well-being of adolescents (Roman et al., 2015).
Authoritative parenting style improves psychological well-being, author-
itarian parenting style decreases the autonomy of the adolescent, permissive
parenting style hampers the personal growth of the adolescent, and neglectful
parenting style hampers the psychological well-being of the adolescents.
In this study, gender-wise distribution of the parenting style showed that
the majority of the female adolescents were perceiving that their parents as
authoritarian (95.7%). A cross-sectional study was conducted among 558
Fillipino college students in order to assess gender differences in
Table 4. Domain-wise correlation between psychological well-being and perceived parenting style of the adolescents, N = 554.
Domains of pyschological well-being
Environmental Self- Purpose in Positive Personal
Perceived parenting Autonomy mastery acceptance life relations growth
style ρ p ρ p ρ p ρ p ρ p ρ p
Authoritative 0.240 <0.01 0.280 <0.01 0.366 <0.01 0.359 <0.01 0.3 <0.01 0.229 <0.01
Authoritarian −0.073 <0.01 0.19 0.64 0.018 0.6 0.025 0.55 0.04 0.35 0.046 0.27
Permissive 0.094 0.02 0.058 0.17 0.158 <0.01 0.094 0.02 0.09 0.03 −0.01 0.697
Neglectful −0.20 <0.01 −0.28 <0.01 −0.296 <0.01 −0.347 <0.01 −0.31 <0.01 −0.257 <0.01
COMPREHENSIVE CHILD AND ADOLESCENT NURSING
7
8 A. FRANCIS ET AL.

psychological well-being. The study findings concluded that female partici-

pants scored higher in positive relations with others and also had a purpose
in life while males had higher autonomy when compared to females (Perez,
2012).
A correlational survey was conducted in Azad university of Ahvaz among
12,000 students in order to determine the relationship between perceived
parenting styles and loneliness in students; the study findings suggested that
there is a significant negative relationship between perceived authoritative
parenting style and loneliness in children; a significant positive relationship
was found between perceived permissive and authoritarian parenting styles
and loneliness in children. The findings concluded that authoritative parents
help in bringing up non-lonely children (Rafiee & Chehrei, 2016).
A similar study was conducted in China among 122 8th grade students in
order to assess the parenting style and adolescents' school performance. The
study suggested that children with authoritative parents scored significantly
higher than those children with authoritarian and permissive parents. Using
adolescents' reports, it was revealed that fathers' parenting had no effect on
the school performance of the children (Kang & Moore, 2011).
A similar study was conducted to assess future education-related personal
goals, concerns, and internal motivation with the help of a week-long group
intervention among 1,034 ninth graders in Finland. The findings revealed
that intervention helped in creating personal goals among the adolescents.
The study also revealed that as personal goals increase their future education-
related concerns will also be increased (Salmela-Aro et al., 2010). A similar
study was conducted in Japan to find the impact of authoritative, authoritar-
ian, and permissive parenting styles on children’s mental health status among
1,320 people including company employees, university students, and hospital
staff members. The study revealed that regardless of gender difference all the
participants had revealed their mothers as authoritative more than their
fathers. The study concluded that maternal and paternal authoritative par-
enting was beneficial to children’s later mental health (Uji et al., 2014).

Implications
Parenting and psychological well-being plays a very important role in shap-
ing the adolescents. This study assessed the psychological well-being, per-
ceived parenting style of the adolescents, and has scope for application of this
study in the community, pediatric wards, and in child guidance clinics. In
community, the nurse can identify the different parenting styles adopted by
the parents and educate the parents about spending quality time with their
children. In pediatric wards, the nurse has a very important role in ensuring
the parental involvement in child’s care. In a child guidance clinic, the nurse
plays an important role in counseling the parents as well as the children.
 COMPREHENSIVE CHILD AND ADOLESCENT NURSING 9

Conclusion
The study concluded that parenting styles will have an influence on child’s
psychological well-being. Among the four parenting styles, authoritative
parenting is warm and steady and hence will contribute to the psychological
development of the child and adolescents. The adolescents also had main-
tained positive relation with others and had a purpose in life. The adolescents
who perceived their parents as authoritarian had a decreased autonomy and
the adolescents who perceived their parents as permissive had a diminished
personal growth. Compared to males, majority of the females considered
their parents to be authoritative. On the other hand, males considered their
parents to be authoritarian and permissive.

Acknowledgments
Authors sincerely thank the adolescents participated in this study.

Author Contribution
Ansu Francis: Methodology, data collection, formal analysis, original draft.
Mamatha Shivananda Pai: Methodology, supervision, formal analysis,/Writing - review &
editing.
Sulochana B: Methodology, supervision, formal analysis,/Writing - review & editing.

Disclosure of Interest
The authors report no conflict of interest.

ORCID
Mamatha Shivananda Pai http://orcid.org/0000-0001-9038-3014
Sulochana Badagabettu http://orcid.org/0000-0002-2242-3413

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