Psychological Well-being in Adolescents

222 Pages·2015·3.54 MB·English

by  Natalie Seymour

Psychological Well-being in Adolescents: Planning
towards and Thinking about the Future.

Natalie Seymour
June 2015

Research submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of
Doctor in Clinical Psychology (DClinPsy), Royal Holloway, University of
London.

1
Acknowledgements

I am extremely grateful for all the support and guidance I have received
throughout the research process. I would particularly like to thank Professor
Andrew MacLeod for his calm and supportive approach to supervision and his
invaluable knowledge of research and statistics. A special mention should go
to my Sister and Mum who helped recruit the two schools who took part.
Thank you to the staff and pupils who were hugely cooperative and gave up
their lesson time to contribute to the research in such a positive way. Finally I
would like to say a big thank you to my friends, my family and Pete for being
supportive, patient and hugely positive throughout the process.

2
Abstract

Over recent years clinical psychology research has further explored what
contributes to positive functioning in adults. Less, however, is known about
positive mental health in adolescents. Psychological well-being (PWB; Ryff,
1989) consists of six dimensions that contribute to positive mental well-being.
The primary aim of the present study was to explore the relationships between
the dimensions of PWB, positive and negative affect, positive and negative
future thinking and planning towards goals. The second aim was to examine
school and demographic differences in PWB, planning towards goals and
future thinking. 201 School students (15-19 years), from two different areas of
the South-East of England completed two tasks, one that elicited goals and
plans and one that elicited positive and negative future thoughts. They also
completed self-report measures of affect, PWB and subjective socio-economic
status. High positive affect was significantly associated with high Personal
Growth, Self Acceptance and Purpose in Life. Dimensions of PWB were not
significantly associated with negative affect or positive and negative future
thoughts. Purpose in Life and Personal Growth were significantly positively
correlated with specificity of steps towards education and career goals. The
School from the more deprived neighbourhood, with a high BME population,
had higher Self Acceptance and Personal Growth and generated significantly
more positive and significantly less negative future thoughts than the school in
the more affluent neighbourhood, with a high White British population. The
findings extend the understanding of dimensions of PWB in adolescents and
have implications for clinical and school based intervention.
3
List of Tables

Table 1: Definitions of the Six Dimensions of Psychological Well-being (Ryff,
1989)……………………………………………………………………………….23
Table 2: Goal and Plan Specificity codes with examples from the data….55
Table 3: Cronbach alphas for the internal consistency of the six dimensions of
Ryff’s Scale of Psychological Well-being………………………………........66
Table 4: Participant Ethnicity…………………………………………………68
Table 5: Frequency of Mothers and Father’s Occupational Group based on
the National Statistics Socio-economic Classification (NS-SEC, 2010)…..70
Table 6: Inter-correlations for the six dimensions of PWB……………….. 72
Table 7: Correlations between dimensions of PWB and Positive and Negative
Affect……………………………………………………………………………74
Table 8: Means and Standard Deviations of Positive and Negative Future
thoughts for the three time conditions………………………………………75
Table 9: Correlations between dimensions of PWB and Positive and Negative
Future Thinking……………………………………………………………….76
Table 10: Means and Standard Deviations of Goal specificity, Steps
generated and Specificity of Steps………………………………….…….77
Table 11: Correlations between dimensions of PWB and measures of
Planning towards Goals……………………………………………….……79
Table 12: Correlations between dimensions of PWB and measures of
Planning towards Goals for different goal categories……………………81
Table 13: Regression of Specificity of steps generated towards an education
and career goal and Personal Growth and Purpose in Life…………….82
4
Table 14: Demographic information of participants by School………………86
Table 15: Mean and Standard Deviation of FAS score for School 1 and 2…87
Table 16: Means and Standard Deviations of dimensions of PWB for School 1
and 2…………………………………………………………………………………88
Table 17: Demographic information of participants by Age group……………92
Table 18: Means and Standard Deviations of dimensions of PWB for Younger
and Older age groups……………………………………………………………. 93
Table 19: Demographic Information of participants by Ethnic group……….95
Table 20: Means and Standard Deviations of dimensions of PWB for Black
Ethnic minority (BME) and White British groups………………………………96
Table 21: Demographic information of participants by Subjective Socio-
economic group…………………………………………………………………100
Table 22: Mean and Standard Deviation of FAS score for high and low
subjective SES groups…………………………………………………………101
Table 23: Demographic information of participants by Objective Socio-
economic group………………………………………………………………..102
Table 24: Mean and Standard Deviation of FAS score for high and low
Objective SES groups…………………………………………………………103
Table 25: Correlations of Dimensions of PWB with affect, future thinking and
planning towards goals for School 1……………………………………220
Table 26: Correlations of Dimensions of PWB with affect, future thinking and
planning towards goals for School 2………………………………………..221
Table 27: Fisher Transformation Z Score – Significance of Difference on
Dimensions of PWB with affect, future thinking and planning towards goals for
School 1 and 2……………………………………………………………….222
5
List of Figures

Figure 1: Graph of Main Interaction effect on Positive and Negative Future
thinking for School 1 and School 2……………………………………………90
Figure 2: Graph of Main Interaction effect on Positive and Negative Future
thinking for BME and White British Group……………………………………98

6
Contents
Title Page……………………………………………………………………1
Acknowledgements………………………………………………………...2
Abstract……………………………………………………………………...3
List of Tables………………………………………………………………..4
List of Figures……………………………………………………………….6
Contents……………………………………………………………………..7
1.0 Introduction…………………………………………………………..11
1.1 Purpose of the Research…………………………………….11
1.2 The Context of Adolescent Well-being……………………...13
1.3 The Growth of Positive Psychology…………………………15
1.4 Adolescence……………………………………………………16
1.5 Defining Well-being……………………………………………19
1.5.1 Psychological Well-being (Ryff, 1989)…………..22
1.6 Future-Directed Thinking…………………………………….27
1.7 Planning Towards Goals…………………………………….31
1.8 Socio-Economic and Ethnic differences in Well-being…...33
1.9 The Relationship between PWB, Future thinking and Planning
towards goals…………………………………………………37
1.10 The Present Study………………………………………..39
1.10.1 Hypotheses and Research Questions…………..40
2.0 Method…………………………………………………………………43
2.1 Ethical Approval……………………………………………….43
2.2 Participants…………………………………………………….43
7
2.3 Power Calculation…………………………………………………….43
2.4 Design………………………………………………………………….44
2.5 Measures………………………………………………………………44
2.5.1 Questionnaires…………………………………………….44
2.5.2 Tasks……………………………………………………….49
2.6 Pilot Study…………………………………………………………….56
2.7 Procedure……………………………………………………………..57
3.0 Results………………………………………………………………………..65
3.1 Data Entry……………………………………………………………..65
3.2 Participant Demographics……………………………………………66
3.2.1 Age/Gender…………………………………………………66
3.2.2 Ethnicity…………………………………………………….67
3.2.3 Objective Socio-economic Status (SES)………………..69
3.2.4 Subjective Socio-economic Status………………………71
3.3 Hypothesis 1: Negative Affect will correlate with Autonomy,
Environmental Mastery and Self-Acceptance and Positive Affect will
correlate with Positive Relationships, Personal Growth and Sense
of Purpose………………………………………………………………71
3.4 Hypothesis 2: The six factors of PWB will be associated with
positive and negative future thinking in adolescents………………74
3.5 Hypothesis 3: The six factors of PWB will be differentially
associated with planning towards goals in adolescents…………..76
3.6 Analysis by School…………………………………………………….82
3.7 Additional Analysis………………………………………………….....84
8
3.7.1 Research Question 1: Do adolescents from different
Schools differ in their Psychological Well-Being, Future
thinking and Planning Towards Goals?..........84
3.7.2 Research Question 2: Can Age account for the
differences between Schools on Psychological Well-Being
and Future thinking? …………………………..91
3.7.3 Research Question 3: Can ethnic group account for
differences between Schools in Psychological Well-Being
and Future thinking? ………………………… 94
3.7.4 Research Question 4: Can ethnic group account for
differences between Schools in Psychological Well-Being
and Future thinking? …………………………99
3.8 Differences between Schools Summary ……………..104
4.0 Discussion……………………………………………………….106
4.1 Summary of Main Findings……………………………...106
4.2 Summary of Additional Findings………………………..107
4.3 Discussion of dimensions of PWB Findings…………..110
4.3.1 Future Thinking…………………….…………114
4.3.2 Planning Towards Goals…………………….117
4.4 Discussion of differences between Groups…………...123
4.4.1 Schools…………………………….…………..124
4.4.2 Ethnicity………………….…………………….128
4.4.3 Socio-economic Status…………….…………130
4.4.4 Age………………………………………….….131
4.5 Clinical Implications………………………….…………..133
9
4.5.1 School Interventions……………………………………...133
4.5.2 Clinical Interventions……………………………………..135
4.6 Strengths……………………………………………………………...138
4.7 Limitations…………………………………………………………….139
4.8 Further Research…………………………………………………….143
4.9 Conclusions…………………………………………………………...146
5.0 References………………………………………………………………..….149
6.0 Appendices…………………………………………………………………..185
6.1 Appendix 1 – Ethics Approval Form……………………………….185
6.2 Appendix 2 – Instructions for tasks as read by the researcher...186
6.3 Appendix 3 – Example Parental Opt-out letter…………………...190
6.4 Appendix 4 – Presentation for data collection…………………....192
6.5 Appenndiix 5 - Example Informed Consent Form……………….196
6.6 Appendix 6 – Example Task Pack…………………………………198
6.7 Appendix 7 – Example Questionnaire Pack……………………...210
6.8 Appendix 8 – Tables of Correlations between dimensions of PWB,
affect, future thinking and planning for School 1 and 2…………..219

10