Father Involvement Family Environment Inter-Parental Conflicts and Psychological Adiustment in Adolescents

Abstract

The current research aimed to explore how father involvement, family environment, and inter-parental conflicts relate to psychological adjustment in adolescents. It was hypothesized that father involvement and family environment would be positively related to psychological adjustment, whereas inter-parental conflicts would be negatively related to psychological adjustment in adolescents. Further, the mediating role of family environment and moderating role of inter-parental conflicts in relationship between father involvement and psychological adjustment in adolescents controlling for demographics, mother involvement, and peer relations was also hypothesized. The present research was comprised of two studies. In study one, an indigenous perceived inter-parental conflict scale for adolescents was developed and validated. Principal Axis Factoring through Direct Oblimin rotation method generated six factors which were labeled as overt conflicts, familial conflicts, conflicts related to emotional reactivity, financial conflicts, child-related conflicts, and psychological conflicts. Moreover, two measures Father Involvement Scale (FIS, Finley & Schwartz, 2004), and The Nurturant Fathering Scale (NFS, Finley & Schwartz, 2004) were translated into Urdu following the standardized forward-backward translation procedures. In study two, by employing a cross sectional research design, a sample of 500 adolescents (n = 253boys, n = 247girls) with an age range of 14-18 years (M = 15.28, SD = 1.07) was recruited from ten randomly selected public high schools of city Lahore. To collect the data, the Urdu version of Father Involvement Scale (FIS, Finley & Schwartz, 2004), The Nurturant Fathering Scale (NFS, Finley & Schwartz, 2004) Self-report Family Inventory: Version II (SFI; Beavers & Hampson, 2000) Perceived Inter-Parental Conflict Scale for Adolescents (PIPCSA: Ramzan et al., 2021), Peer Relations Scale (Petersen et al., 1984), and The Child Personality Assessment Questionnaire (PAQ, Rohner & Khaleque, 2005), were employed. Hierarchical regression analyses revealed that different dimensions of father involvement (instrumental, expressive, and mentoring) significantly predicted self-esteem, positive worldview, and self- adequacy. Contrary to expectations, among all types of parental conflicts, only overt conflicts significantly predicted the dependency in adolescents. Moreover, different dimensions of parental conflicts (overt conflict, financial conflict, and familial conflicts) significantly moderated the association between father involvement and adolescents‟ psychological adjustment. The family environment mediated the relationship between father involvement and psychological adjustment in adolescents. Additional analyses revealed that girls perceived their mothers as more expressive and nurturing. Boys perceived more inter-parental conflicts as compared to girls. Likewise, boys were psychologically better adjusted. The present study contributes to understand the underlying importance of the role of father involvement and family environment and the benefits of the supportive relationship of mother involvement and peer relations on the psychological adjustment of adolescents in the socio cultural context of Pakistan. The findings of this work have important implications for parents, educators, and researchers