Personality, Parenting Style and Instructor Anxiety as Predictors of Psychological Problems among Adolescents

Abstract

Urban adolescents are often assumed to be privileged with resources that nurture their physical and mental health. This assumption overshadows the fact that they face many unacknowledged psychological problems, due to which they remain as an understudied or neglected population in the area of resilience research. The present study attempts to explore the factors that contribute to the psychological problem in urban adolescents. A convenient sample of 423 students in the age group 12 to 16 years from six CBSE schools in a mid-sized city in South India was selected. The participants completed self-report measures of personality, family cohesion, perceived parenting style, peer relationship, student-teacher relationship and psychological problems. Psychological problems in this study were assessed in terms of internalizing and externalizing problems. A hierarchical multiple regression analysis was carried out to find the best predictors of psychological problems. The results indicate that psychological problem in urban adolescents is negatively predicted by personality traits like honesty-humility and extraversion, perceived parenting styles like mother autonomy granting, mother responsiveness and father demanding. Further, the psychological problem is positively predicted by instructor anxiety. Thus cultivating positive personality traits, a supportive family environment with positive parenting, and good support and guidance from the teachers may help urban adolescents by buffering against their psychological problems.