TITLE:
Chinese Adolescents’ Conflict with Parents and Its Relationship with Their Psychological Well-Being
AUTHORS:
Jianjin Liu
KEYWORDS:
Chinese Adolescents, Parent-Child Conflicts, Justification, Psychological Well-Being
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Access Library Journal,
Vol.7 No.8,
August
5,
2020
ABSTRACT: This paper investigated 125 Chinese adolescents’ daily conflicts with their parents through blogs within 2 weeks on a platform specifically designed for this study. BSI (Brief Symptom Inventory) scores were also collected to measure their psychological well-being. 3-way ANOVAs (age × gender × BSI group) were conducted on variables of parent-child conflicts (frequency, intensity, resolution, fairness and feelings towards resolution, justification). The main findings are: 1) adolescents from the low-BSI group felt less unfair and upset or depressed to the resolution of the conflicts, compared to those from the high-BSI group. In other words, when adolescents felt more fair and happy to the resolution to the conflicts, they have a healthier status of psychological well-being; 2) frequency and intensity of conflicts in general had no significant correlation with adolescents’ psychological well-being, but there is an interaction between gender and BSI score on intensity; 3) there is a significant difference between low- and high-BSI groups in conflicts concerning personal issues or choices, which indicates low-BSI group (with a higher level of psychological well-being) negotiated more on personal issues with their parents; 4) there is an interaction between adolescents’ age and BSI in personal justification and an interaction between gender and BSI in psychological justification. Implications and suggestions on education related to adolescents’ psychological well-beings are discussed.