نقش واسطه‌ای بهزیستی روانی در رابطه بین مسئولیت‌پذیری و سازگاری در نوجوانان تک‌والد

Investigating the mediating role of psychological well-being in the relationship between responsibility and adjustment in single-parent adolescents

Mohammad Bagher Haji Soltani[1], Leila Khajepour^*[2], Emad Yousefi[3]

[1]- Doctoral student of Educational Psychology, Department of Psychology, Qeshm Branch, Islamic Azad University, Qeshm, Iran.

[2] -Assistant Professor, Department of Psychology, Qeshm Branch, Islamic Azad University, Qeshm, Iran. (Corresponding author)   khajepoor24@gmail.com Tel: 09121725078

[3] - Assistant Professor, Department of Psychology, Qeshm Branch, Islamic Azad University, Qeshm, Iran.

Abstract

Introduction: Adolescence is one of the special periods of transition, which is associated with extensive physical, psychological and social changes. Adolescents grow up gradually, their needs are different compared to childhood, they want more independence, and they are looking for new values and self-concept, which leads to changing relationships in families. Considering the importance of adolescence, this research was conducted with the aim of investigating the mediating role of psychological well-being in the relationship between responsibility and adaptation in single-parent adolescents in Tehran.

Method: This research was applied and the method of doing it was descriptive correlation based on structural equations. The statistical population consisted of single-parent adolescents aged 12 to 15 years studying in the first year of high school in Tehran who lived with only one of their parents (father or mother), and 342 people were selected through sampling. Available were selected. The research tool was Kordlov's responsibility questionnaire, adaptation of high school students and Rif's psychological well-being. Data analysis was done through structural modeling using Amos software.

Findings: The findings showed that there is a significant negative relationship between responsibility and adaptability in each single-mother and single-father group. Also, the mediator variable of psychological well-being in the single-parent group has no significant relationship with the variables of responsibility and adaptability, and in the single-parent group, well-being has a positive and meaningful relationship with responsibility and has no significant relationship with adaptability.

Conclusion: Adolescents need the constant presence of both their parents in order to provide the conditions for their upbringing well by accepting the responsibility of their upbringing and growth and the active participation of both parents in this matter.

Key words: adaptation, family, mental well-being, responsibility, single parent, teenager

Received: 6/ February/ 2024                 Accepted: 14/March/ 2024

Introduction:

The early period of development is very important because of the lasting effects they have on people's lives, and many of these important changes in adolescence occur between the ages of 12-15 years, which can form the identity of people and independence to influence the demand. This issue becomes more important when teenagers face the single-parent phenomenon in their period and are members of single-parent families (1) because the development and formation of the personality of the teenager is affected by the personality of the parents and relationships. It is familial and when one of the parents is absent for any reason, it leaves an adverse effect on the development of teenagers, making them susceptible to mental illness or behavioral problems (2). One of the criteria of a developed teenager is his compatibility with others (family members, teachers, friends, relatives and surrounding environment). Adaptation is a relationship that is established between a person and the environment and allows a person to respond appropriately to his needs and motivations. Adaptability is a sign of a person's social growth and has an impact on people's social and career success and progress, and in this way, people find a sense of satisfaction, usefulness and happiness by using the exchange of emotions and respect for others (3). Adaptation is a psychological process based on which a person copes with life's desires and challenges or controls and manages them (4). People who show compatibility can create a compromise and harmony between themselves and the environment and in this way fulfill their needs and desires and gain satisfaction, which otherwise, as incompatible people It is known (5). Studies have introduced responsibility as one of the factors affecting the adaptation of teenagers and state that in this age group, they have a greater desire to be independent and accept new roles and make various decisions in different aspects of education, career, social and friendship relationships. They all have an effect on their adaptation, which means that the more teenagers show more personal responsibility, the wiser decisions and choices they make, which will affect their adaptation (6).

Responsibility is defined by the sense of mastery and control that people have over their decisions and behaviors (7). Responsibility is an individual's internal commitment that allows a person to perform optimally according to the existing conditions. The more aware people are, the more they feel responsible, and with the continuation of awareness, the feeling of responsibility increases (8). Researches have shown that responsibility has a direct relationship with adaptability, so that people with low responsibility have limited flexibility and little understanding of the controllability of the environment and cannot evaluate different situations do it right and consider the environment as controllable if they can predict it without any change and transformation. In addition, they have a weak ability to accept unforeseen circumstances and often do not accept responsibility for their actions, because they have poor social awareness and believe that the problem that arose was not under their control (9); Therefore, having a sense of responsibility as a vital valuable capital is one of the most important factors for the development and flourishing of potential abilities, flourishing talents and creativity, and is an important factor for academic progress, socialization and all kinds of It is compatible, because the future needs more responsible people who have the ability to choose and control. (10).

Mental well-being causes balanced and normal growth in teenagers and provides the way to develop their potential talents. Psychological well-being is defined as striving for perfection and talent in order to realize the real potential abilities of a person (11). People who have high psychological well-being are more inclined to assume a role in society and participate in more public activities because of their spirit of participation. They generally have positive emotions and welcome a positive evaluation of the happening data, but people who have low well-being have a negative attitude and negative evaluation towards environmental events and experience more negative emotions and behavioral disorders do (12) Just as interpersonal interactions and communication between family members can affect children's behavior, the patterns and behaviors of a parent, depending on their presence or absence, can help disrupt the psychological development of a child or children. In this case, the children suffer from behavioral, emotional and personality problems, as a result of which their mental well-being is also at risk, which leads to incompatibility (13).

Research shows that single-parent teenagers experience insecure attachment and have a negative mood and emotional weakness compared to two-parents. These teenagers face conflicts that have arisen due to family circumstances and they do not have adequate understanding of them, therefore they show low resilience and may suffer injuries many psychological, behavioral and social problems in the future (14). The tension and conflicts that occur due to the absence of one of the parents can affect the mental health of all family members, including children, and disrupt family relationships (15) and if these problems are to some extent increases, it is considered an important risk for mental well-being, because teenagers have the idea that their parents do not understand their needs and desires, and their parents think that teenagers are It does not pay attention to the existing conditions, which will lead to limiting the parent-child relationship and endangers the adaptation of adolescents (16,17). The importance of adolescents' adaptation for social progress and success and feeling of satisfaction in society depends on responsibility, which is doubled in the case of adolescents from single-parent families who have a different understanding of physical problems and psychological, social and behavioral disturbances. to be Because in single-parent families, usually one of the parents plays both the role of father or mother along with his own role, in this case, the teenager cannot be a successful example of his role or gender from the parent who to be present On the other hand, with the acceleration of these types of families in today's societies, the mental health of adolescents is undergoing changes (18) and they always have problems with some Compatibility issues have been faced, which requires a detailed etiology of their psychological characteristics. On the other hand, studies have shown that mental well-being can have a positive effect on children's adjustment. Therefore, in the current study, the researcher seeks to develop a model to investigate the mediating role of psychological well-being in the relationship between responsibility and adjustment in single-parent teenagers in Tehran.

Research Method:

The descriptive research method was of the correlation type, based on structural equations. The statistical population of the research consisted of all single-parent teenagers aged 12 to 15, studying in the seventh, eighth and ninth grades of the first high school in the academic year of 1401-1400 in Tehran. The sample size based on Cochran's method was 342 people who were selected through convenience sampling. For implementation, with the cooperation and guidance of counselors located in education departments and first year secondary schools for girls and boys, located in districts 5 and 22 of Tehran, students who attend due to various reasons such as death, divorce, migration, etc. They had lost one of their parents and participated in the research. For this purpose, with the cooperation of the officials and counselors present in the schools, the research samples based on the criteria for entering the research include: single-parent teenagers, in the sense that they live with only one of their parents, father or mother. Also, having no disciplinary problem, not going to school counseling sessions or therapy counseling centers, no social abnormalities and informed consent to participate in the research project were selected. Exclusion criteria include: teenagers who live jointly with both father and mother's parents, or in addition to father's or mother's parents, relatives such as grandfather, grandmother, etc. also take care of them were responsible, and was not willing to continue cooperation. Then, with an interview to meet the criteria and also to attract the opinion of the single-parent teenager, the mentioned questionnaires were completed by the teenagers. Data analysis was done by structural equation modeling method and amos24 software. In order to measure the variables of the research, the questionnaire tool was used as follows:

Kordlo Responsibility Questionnaire (2013): This questionnaire has 5 scales (the first scale of the student's activities inside and outside the school, the second scale of the students' responsibilities at home, the third scale of the absenteeism and tardiness of the subject and the fourth and fifth scales measure responsibility, sense of security, self-esteem and belonging. this test was conducted on the students of Tehran city. 479 male and female students were tested. The validity of the test by correlating the questions was 0.82 and its reliability using Cronbach's alpha was 0.89. The questionnaire is likert type and has 4 options, the minimum score is 56 and the maximum is 224, and a higher score indicates higher responsibility. In the present study, Cronbach's alpha was 0.78.

High School Students' Adaptability Questionnaire: This questionnaire was designed by Sinha and Singh in 1993 to measure high school students' adaptability and was translated and standardized by Karami in 2017. This questionnaire has 60 questions and 3 emotional, social and educational or academic components, which are scored in the form of two options (yes=1 and no=0) and the minimum score obtained is zero and the maximum score is 60, and a high score is a sign of low compatibility and a low score is a sign of desirable compatibility. The reliability of the questionnaire has been obtained by using three methods of halving, test-retest, and Richardson test, respectively, 0.95, 0.93, and 0.94. The content validity of the test has been confirmed by psychology experts. The questionnaire was standardized in Iran on high school students, and the reliability coefficient of the whole scale was determined to be 0.95 by normalization method, 0.93 by retest method and 0.94 by Kuder-Richardson method (Saatchi, Kamkari, Askarian). In the present study, Cronbach's alpha was 0.85.

Riff psychological well-being questionnaire (2002): this questionnaire has 54 questions and includes 6 components of autonomy, control over the environment, personal growth, positive relationship with others, purposefulness in life and self-acceptance. The Likert scale is formulated from 1=completely disagree to 6=completely agree, and its scores will be between 54 and 324, and higher scores indicate higher psychological well-being. In the news and philanthropic research in 2015, the validity of content, form and criterion of this questionnaire has been evaluated. The reliability of this questionnaire was also calculated through Cronbach's alpha coefficient, which for the subscales of self-acceptance, positive relationships with others, autonomy, mastery of the environment, purposeful life and personal growth equal to 0.85, 0.83, 0.79, 0.81, 0.82, 0.82 and 0.89 were calculated and the total score was equal to 0.89. In the present study, Cronbach's alpha was 0.82.

Findings:

A total of 342 teenagers were present in this research. The reason for the separation of the parents of the research subjects in the single-parent group: 105 fathers died, 46 fathers emigrated, 36 divorced, 3 others and 1 father also emigrated; and in the single-parent group: 66 people died of mother, 61 people divorced, 22 people emigrated and 2 people also others; It has happened. According to Table 1. 191 of the teenagers live with their mother and 151 of the subjects live with their father.

Table 1. Sample frequency by demographic variables

Table 2. Mean, standard deviation, skewness and kurtosis of the variables of the proposed model

According to the results of Table 2, the values of the skewness and kurtosis statistics are lower than the value of 1, which indicates that the default of the research data is normal. Then the Pearson correlation coefficients of the model were checked and the results are shown in Table 3.

Table 3. Pearson correlation coefficients of model research variables

According to Table 3, there is a negative and significant relationship between responsibility and adaptability of -0.154 in the group of single parent mothers, and between responsibility and psychological well-being of 0.156 and between adaptability and psychological well-being of 0.141, there is a positive and significant relationship. In the single-parent group, there is a negative and significant relationship between responsibility and adaptability - 0.182, between responsibility and psychological well-being - 0.243, and between adaptability and psychological well-being - 0.155 and a positive and significant relationship.

Table 4. Parameters of research measurement model in confirmatory factor analysis

Table 4 shows that the standard factor loadings of all indicators are higher than 0.32. The highest factor load belongs to the indicator of sense of belonging in responsibility (β=1.022) and the lowest factor load belongs to the indicator of self-acceptance in psychological well-being (β=0.342). Based on the results of the table, it can be said that all indicators meet the necessary capability to measure their underlying variables. The unstandardized factor loadings related to the four indicators of security, emotional compatibility, and self-acceptance were recorded with the number 1, so their standard error and critical ratio were not calculated. The values of construct reliability and convergent validity show the good fit of the model.

Table 5: fit indices of the variable measurement model in confirmatory factor analysis

The results of the fit indices in Table 5 for the measurement model show that all the fit indices are within the acceptable range of 0.90 and above, and the RMSEA index is within the permissible range of 0.08, indicating the suitability of the model. It is a measurement.

Table 6: Fit indices of the proposed model

The results of the fit indices in Table 6 for the proposed model show that all the fit indices including 2χ (P < 0.05), df/2χ, GFI, AGFI and CFI are within the acceptable range of 0.90 and above. and the RMSEA index is in the permissible range of 0.08 and it indicates the desirability of the proposed model and it can be said that the model has a good fit with the data obtained from the research.

Table 7: Direct and indirect regression coefficients of the variables in the model

According to Table 7, the coefficients of the path of responsibility and adaptability (-0.184) are negative and significant, and the paths of responsibility and psychological well-being (0.066) and psychological well-being and adaptability (0.089) show no significance.

Table 8: Direct and indirect regression coefficients of the variables in the single-parent father model

According to the results of Table 8, there is a negative and significant relationship between the path of responsibility and adaptability (-0.04). Also, the path of responsibility and psychological well-being (0.15) is positive and significant, and the path of the quality of psychological well-being and adaptability (0.03) is non-significant.

Discussion and conclusion:

The results showed that there is a significant negative relationship between responsibility and adjustment in each group of single-parent mothers and single-parent fathers. The results are in line with the researches of Stritzel and Crosnoe (17) and Motamedishark (19). In explaining this finding, it can be stated that teenagers who have responsibility skills, behaviors such as desirable social interactions, establishing positive relationships with others, correctly understanding the moods and emotions of others, regulating their positive and negative emotions, etc. They give that it will lead to positive social and psychological consequences, which in this way are accepted by the environment, as a result, responsibility is considered an important factor in academic progress, sociability, social compatibility with friends, peers and other adults. It can be In the explanation of the lack of significance in the group of single-parent mother and single-parent father, it can be stated that one of the distinctive signs of single-parent families is the integration of the role of father and mother, meaning that the parent who is present, in addition to playing his own role , should play the role of the opposite parent for his child or children and perform some of the responsibilities or duties of another parent for them in addition to his maternal or paternal behaviors. For example, in the culture of most human societies, the father is considered as one of the main and central members of the family, who is the main responsibility of the family and the final decisions in various issues such as economic, social, cultural and educational. The mother's father has the responsibility of calming the family atmosphere due to having tender feelings and emotions, for this reason, the role of the father is in line with teaching social contracts and how to deal with social issues, and the role of the mother is also in the direction of nurturing love, compassion and tenderness. It is that the absence of each of them affects their learning and development. The importance of this issue is because the teenage years are the period of character formation and when one of the parents is absent, it can lead to the failure of the correct learning of gender behaviors in teenagers, and on the part of the parents who play both roles. they do, it causes that the teenager does not get a complete and clear idea of his own role or that of the opposite sex and has communication problems in the future, because the teenager can't behave properly and maybe the role of his gender. In this regard, researches have shown that compatibility is less predictable in single-parent teenagers compared to teenagers in two-parent families or even single parents who lived together (17). They also showed that adolescents from single-parent families have more behavioral problems than those from two-parent families, and these problems are such as normative problems, behavioral disorders such as aggression, depression, anxiety, which can disrupt the adaptation of adolescents (19). Therefore, it can be concluded that the absence of each parent in the family environment can disrupt the balance of the family environment and weaken the family's functioning, reduce supervision and social skills, and cause behavioral disorders in children. They increase.

Also, in another part, the results showed that the mediating variable of mental well-being in the single-parent mother group has no significant relationship with the variables of responsibility and adaptability. In the single-parent group, well-being has a positive and significant relationship with responsibility and has no significant relationship with adaptability. The research results are in line with the previous researches (20) and (21). In the explanation of these results, it can be stated that responsibility gives a person the power of choice and the ability to accept or not accept and take charge of things, therefore, according to Glaser's belief, it can be concluded that responsibility is related to mental health. It is related and the more responsible a person is, the better mental health he has. In other words, teenagers help to develop their abilities by accepting responsibility. Responsibility from this dimension, which is considered as one of the important indicators of mental health, refers to the sense of duty, accountability and commitment (22). A responsible person is one who can plan his mental well-being based on his own needs and not on the basis of what others plan for him; Therefore, taking responsibility by accepting one's responsibilities, to a reasonable extent, is necessary and obligatory to achieve mental health and a sense of self-worth (23). The family is considered the place of formation and birth of the child and is the basis for his transformation and development. Meanwhile, the child needs the constant presence of both his parents in order to accept the responsibility of his upbringing and development and the active participation of both parents with in this matter, provide the conditions for his upbringing well. Now, with the absence of one of the parents, this education and growth has become a problem and the children will face many difficulties in the future. In this regard, researches have stated that the tension and unfortunate events of life, including the absence of one of the parents, affects and disrupts the mental well-being of all family members, especially their children (21). Also, there is a different mental well-being among the children of single parents, and families do not experience the same quality (20).

In explaining the difference in the mediator variable of psychological well-being in the two groups of single-parent mother and single-parent father, it can be stated that the issue of separation of couples from each other for any reason can have very heavy and sometimes destructive effects on family members. be; Because the absence of each of the spouses can affect the mental and psychological conditions of the children and cause many problems for them. When these teenagers experience many behavioral problems, it causes them to be more than the children of two-parent families become more lonely and withdrawn and depressed, and also have less self-confidence and experience double disappointment. of course, regardless of their age, children experience and understand the situation of the absence of the parent in a different way and have a limited ability to understand the events during the separation, the feelings they have about this and the questions that arise in this regard. (24). These teenagers not only experience behavioral problems, but also become depressed, anxious and withdrawn more than the children of normal families, which reduces their self-confidence and increases their despair. Therefore, it can be said that if one of the parents ceases to be in the family for any reason such as death, divorce, migration, etc., in such a situation, the teenager will face many problems and issues that are out of his control and suffer He has despaired and experienced many psychological and social injuries that have a negative effect on his mental well-being, and this decrease in mental well-being will affect his academic performance, adaptation, and social and occupational situations in the future. It will leave a negative and wide range.

Research limitations:

The present research had some limitations, the most important of which are the use of an available sample, the limitation of the statistical population of the research to two regions of Tehran, and the implementation of questionnaires online.

Application of research:

Considering the importance of the mental well-being variable in responsibility and its influential role on the adaptation of teenagers, trainings and workshops that improve and increase the adaptation of teenagers should be developed to be held in schools.

Conflict of interest:

The authors of the article state that this article is based on the first author's doctoral thesis titled "Investigation of the mediating role of parent-child relationship and psychological well-being in the relationship between responsibility and adjustment in single-parent adolescents in Tehran" under the guidance of Dr. Leila Khajepour and the advice of Dr. Emad Yousefi at the Islamic Azad University. Qeshm has been extracted and has no conflict of interest.

Ethical considerations:

Necessary permits for conducting research at the school level have been received from the Tehran Education Organization, and the consent of the participants in the study has been obtained, and their answers have only been used to answer the research hypotheses.

Acknowledgments:

The authors of the article appreciate and thank all the people who participated in the research who gave their time to the researcher.