A Complexity Approach to Psychological Well-Being in Adolescence: Major Strengths and Methodological Issues

Psychological well-being in adolescence is an increasing field of study. Deepening in its knowledge during this period of life can be of a lot of help to the designing of more adjusted prevention programs aimed to avoid or reduce the problems adolescents might be experiencing. Complexity theories can be a productive alternative to the important limitations explanations about psychological well-being in adolescence have nowadays. Answers to a questionnaire have been obtained from a sample of 968 Catalan adolescents from 12 to 16 years old including 29 psychological well-being indicators measuring 8 dimensions related to satisfaction with specific life domains, self-esteem, perceived social support, perception of control and values.A structural equation modelling approach to complexity that focuses on the non-linearity property has been followed. Given the large number of dimensions, the model has been estimated in two steps. First, a confirmatory factor analysis model has been fitted to the 29 indicators and appropriate factor scores have been saved. Then all possible products and squared terms of the factor scores have been computed and have been used as predictors of the dependent variable using an ordered logit model.The results show that a non-linear model including interaction effects among the 8 dimensions, age and gender, has a higher explanatory power to predict satisfaction with life as a whole, compared to a linear model estimated from those same indicators.This work must be understood as a first step, basically a methodological one, to the future elaboration of new models of psychological well-being in adolescence to be based on the principles defended by complexity theories.     

The Well-Being of 12 - to 16-Year-Old Adolescents and their Parents: Results from 1999 to 2003 Spanish Samples

This study adopts satisfaction with life as a whole and satisfaction with specific life domains as indicators to analyse the relationships between the well-being of 12 to 16-year-old adolescents and some related constructs such as self-esteem, perceived control and perceived social support. Well-being indicators from a 2003 Spanish sample using an 11-point scale (N = 1,634) are compared with an equivalent 1999 Spanish sample using a 5-point scale (N = 1,618). The different results obtained from the 2003 sample with a Principal Component Analysis (PCA) using a shorter and a longer list of life domains are also discussed. A sub-sample of the adolescents’ results from the 2003 sample are compared with their parents’ answers, using the same well-being indicators. Using a list of 8 life domains, and despite the change of scale used, overall results show no relevant changes in adolescents’ satisfaction with life domains between 1999 and 2003 in Spain and are in agreement with normative data expected from western societies [Cummins: 1998, Social Indicators Research 43, pp. 307–334; Cummins et al.: 2001, Australian Unity Well-being Index (Australian Centre on Quality of Life, Deakin University, Melbourne)]. Adolescents’ overall life satisfaction has been shown to correlate consistently with the other well-being related constructs. However, it clearly decreases with age over the period studied. The results also show that increasing the list of life domains has a major impact on the structure of the results obtained. When we compare results from parents with those from their own child, outstanding differences in well-being appear between generations: few domain satisfaction dimensions show significant correlation between parents and children and more than 20% of the population studied shows high discrepancies in the answers in four domains.     

Relationships Between Parents’ And Children’s Salient Values For Future And Children’s Overall Life Satisfaction. A Comparison Across Countries

In this paper, a model is set forth relating (a) overall life satisfaction of children to children’s values and (b) children’s values to parents’ values. Using confirmatory factor analysis models three dimensions of values (materialistic values, capacities and knowledge values and interpersonal relationship values) consistently emerged in 5 countries (Brazil, South Africa, Norway, Spain and India) for both parents and children. There was a considerable amount of missing data, mainly because the parent’s questionnaire was often not returned. Full information maximum likelihood estimators with missing data were thus used.Multiple-group analyses were next performed to assess factor invariance of the three value dimensions across the five countries for both parents and children. This implies testing the equality of factor loadings and intercepts across groups. This equality is required to ensure that factors have the same interpretation in all groups, which is necessary when comparing any aspect of the factor distribution across groups.The only two countries for which the interpretation of value dimensions was invariant for both parents and children were Brazil and Spain. The results of other countries could thus not be compared. Multiple-group structural equation models revealed that both parents and children scored higher on most values in Brazil than in Spain. In both countries, each child value dimension was only significantly predicted by the same value dimension of the parents. R-squares were in the 4–12% range and slightly higher in Brazil. The only value dimension that had some effect on overall life satisfaction was capacities and knowledge, which was so in both countries.Acknowledgements are due to the country project directors and their associates Per Egil Mjaavatn (Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway), Usha Nayar (Tata Institute of Social Sciences, India), Irene Rizzini (Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro, Brazil), Rose September (Western Cape University, South Africa) and Ferran Casas (Catalan Network of Child Researchers – XCIII – in co-operation with the University of Girona, Spain) for permitting us to use part of their project and to Childwatch International, Oslo, for sponsorship.