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Parental support, coping strategies, and psychological adjustment: An integrative model with late adolescents

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Abstract

The purpose of this study was to apply an Integrative predictive model to examine interrelationships among parental support, adaptive coping strategies, and psychological adjustment among late adolescents. Findings using new measures of parental support and adaptive coping with 241 eighteen-year-old college freshmen supported hypotheses. Social support from both mother and father and a nonconflictual relationship between parents were positively associated with adolescents' psychological adjustment. Adolescents with high parental support were better adjusted and less distressed than were those with low parental support. Additionally, an integrative structural equation model showed that parental support was associated with psychological adjustment both directly and indirectly through a higher percent of approach coping strategies.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, University of Texas at Austin, 78712, Austin, Texas

    Charles J. Holahan (Professor)

  2. Vanderbilt University, 37202, Nashville, Tennessee

    David P. Valentiner (Postdoctoral Fellow in Developmental Psychopathology)

  3. Department of Veterans Affairs, Stanford University Medical Center, 94304, Palo Alto, California

    Rudolf H. Moos (Research Career Scientist, Professor)

Authors
  1. Charles J. Holahan
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  2. David P. Valentiner
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  3. Rudolf H. Moos
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Additional information

This work was supported in part by grants from the Hogg Foundation for Mental Health, the University Research Institute, University of Texas at Austin, and the William T. Grant Foundation.

Received Ph.D. in clinical psychology from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Research interests include stress and coping processes among adolescents and adults and coping with chronic illness.

Research interests include adolescent coping and development and anxiety processes.

Received Ph.D. in clinical psychology from the University of California, Berkeley. Research interests include social ecological perspectives on psychological functioning, health services research and evaluation, depression, and alcoholism.

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Holahan, C.J., Valentiner, D.P. & Moos, R.H. Parental support, coping strategies, and psychological adjustment: An integrative model with late adolescents. J Youth Adolescence 24, 633–648 (1995). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01536948

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01536948

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