Negative Life Events and Life Satisfaction: Exploring the Role of Family Cohesion and Self-Efficacy Among Economically D
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Negative Life Events and Life Satisfaction: Exploring the Role of Family Cohesion and Self‑Efficacy Among Economically Disadvantaged Adolescents Fang‑Hua Jhang1 Accepted: 17 September 2020 © Springer Nature B.V. 2020
Abstract An individual’s cognitive evaluation of overall life satisfaction (LS) in response to negative life events (NLEs) may depend on the nature of the events as well as the internal and external adaptive resources they possess. However, little attention has been paid to the direct association between event uncontrollability and controllability and LS, as well as their indirect associations through the internal and external resources. This study examined how uncontrollable and controllable NLEs related to adolescent LS and whether family cohesion and self-efficacy mediated the association between NLEs and LS. Structural equation modeling was used to analyze the two-wave nationally representative sample consisting of 956 Taiwanese junior high school students from economically disadvantaged families. The findings revealed that controllable NLEs were associated with LS, while uncontrollable events did not affect LS. The association between controllable NLEs and LS was mediated by family cohesion rather than by self-efficacy. However, self-efficacy was positively associated with LS. The results remained unchanged even after controlling for baseline LS, gender, grade, family structure and psychological distress. The results suggest that, in term of confronting controllable NLEs, strengthening the quality of family relationships may be an effective way to increase LS of economically disadvantaged adolescents in Chinese culture. Keywords Economically disadvantaged adolescents · Family cohesion · Life satisfaction · Negative life events · Self-efficacy
1 Introduction Negative life events (NLEs), usually viewed as specific types of stressors, have been found to be crucial predictors of increased mental health problems and lower life satisfaction (LS) in adults (Kendler et al. 1999; Marum et al. 2014) as well as in the adolescent population (Low et al. 2012; Ng et al. 2018). In the stress exposure literature, NLEs are divided * Fang‑Hua Jhang [email protected] 1
Department of Law and Social Work, Minjiang University, Shangjie Town, No. 200, Xiyuangong Road, Fuzhou, Fujian, China
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into uncontrollable and controllable events (Liu and Alloy 2010; Ng et al. 2018). The former refers to those events whose occurrence is outside the individual’s control (also called independent events, e.g., the unemployment of parents or the death of a relative). The latter denotes life events linked to the individual’s behaviors where, to a great extent, the occurrence of events could have been controlled by the individual (also called dependent events, e.g., an increase in the number of arguments with family members and making failing grades). Among Taiwanese adolescents, the most frequently reported negative events tend to be controllable events related to poor academic perfo
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