Abstract
The aim of this study was to determine the importance of high school students’ personal strengths use and the perceived school climate on their psychological functioning. The sample of 258 students from a gymnasium filled in measures for adolescent psychological functioning, strengths use and perceived school climate. Contrary to what was expected, the results revealed that personal strengths use did not moderate the relationship between students’ perceived school climate and their psychological functioning. However, both factors – perceived school climate and strengths use – independently of each other, significantly predicted students’ psychological functioning. Therefore, in order to achieve more positive developmental outcomes, it is not enough to create a good climate at school, it is also important to create opportunities for students to use their personal strengths.
Highlights
Adolescents’ development processes have been drawing researchers’ interest for decades, the positive and negative developmental outcomes being one of the biggest topics in the field
There are suggestions in the literature that multiple and rapid changes in this age require from adolescents additional adjustment efforts, which result in different levels of psychosocial functioning (Pakrosnis & Čepukienė, 2013)
The scores of psychological functioning are quite well spread, with average scores being in the midrange of the theoretical interval for two scales measuring the negative side of the adjustment and somewhat higher for most of the scales reflecting the positive side of the functioning
Summary
Adolescents’ development processes have been drawing researchers’ interest for decades, the positive and negative developmental outcomes being one of the biggest topics in the field. There are suggestions in the literature that multiple and rapid changes in this age require from adolescents additional adjustment efforts, which result in different levels of psychosocial functioning (Pakrosnis & Čepukienė, 2013). The contemporary concept of adolescence considers this age as the time of challenging changes, and as the period of life full of potential, providing young people with the possibility to discover and develop their strengths and resources which, if nurtured and realized, can lead to positive development and well-being. In order to obtain a more comprehensive and complex understanding of adolescence, research should go beyond assessing the signs of psychopathology and incorporate both negative and positive sides of adolescents’ daily life (Pakrosnis & Čepukienė, 2013; Tzang et al, 2012). Successful adjustment can be defined as lower level of difficulties or indicators of nonadaptive functioning and higher level of positive functioning indicators, such as prosocial behavior, self-confidence etc. (Pakrosnis & Čepukienė, 2013)
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