Abstract
Recent research suggests that strength-based parenting—the tendency for parents to see and encourage children to use their strengths—relates to lower stress and higher life satisfaction in adolescents. The current study tests whether strength-based parenting, in conjunction with a teenager’s strengths use, influences the teenager’s subjective wellbeing, and whether a growth mindset moderates the relationship between strength-based parenting and strengths use. Three hundred and sixty three adolescents (Mage = 13.74, 51% female) completed questionnaire measures of strength-based parenting, strengths use, subjective wellbeing (life satisfaction, positive affect, and negative affect), Extraversion, Neuroticism, and two aspects of growth mindset. A hierarchical regression using latent variables found that strengths use and strength-based parenting were both significant independent predictors of subjective wellbeing, over and above the effects of extraversion and neuroticism. A mediation analysis found that strengths use partially mediated the relationship between strength-based parenting and subjective wellbeing. Finally, a novel measure of strengths mindset significantly moderated the relationship between strength-based parenting and strengths use. These results suggest that adolescents who see their parents as strength-based report greater strengths use (especially when they have a growth mindset about their strengths) and greater subjective wellbeing.
Highlights
The current study tests whether strength-based parenting, in conjunction with a teenager’s strengths use, influences the teenager’s subjective wellbeing, and whether a growth mindset moderates the relationship between strength-based parenting and strengths use
The strongest correlations were between life satisfaction and positive affect (r = .69), Neuroticism and negative affect (r = .64), positive affect and strength use (r = .61), and life satisfaction and strengths use (r = .61)
Having found support for the incremental validity of strengths use and strength-based parenting (SBP) above and beyond the variance accounted for by Extraversion and Neuroticism, we examined whether the relationship between SBP and subjective wellbeing was partially mediated by strengths use
Summary
This life stage can be marked by mental illness and declining life satisfaction (Andersen and Teicher 2008; Aquilino and Supple 2001), but can be an ‘‘age of opportunity’’ (Steinberg 2014) from which a young person emerges with thriving mental health and a positive identity in adulthood (Keyes 2006; Park 2004). A series of studies have found promising indications that children and adolescents have greater wellbeing when they have parents who identify and encourage their strengths (Waters 2015a, b). The current study extends this line of inquiry by testing whether an adolescent’s mindset (Dweck 2006) may moderate the relationship between strength-based parenting (SBP) and strengths use. We test whether a strengthbased approach to parenting predicts incremental variance in the adolescent’s subjective wellbeing, above and beyond well-established personality trait predictors of wellbeing
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