Abstract
The influence of self-concept and relationships with parents and school on life satisfaction of adolescents was explored in 1156 Chinese junior high school children in Hong Kong. Adopting the multidimensional approach, self-concept was measured globally as well as in four specific aspects, namely, academic ability, social ability, physical ability, and physical appearance. Results show that all self-concept measures are correlated with life satisfaction, but the strongest correlation was found between general self-concept and life satisfaction. This pattern is consistent with American findings in that a higher self-concept was related to more life satisfaction, but the correlation obtained was much weaker in the present study. In a series of regression analyses, it was found that relationship with parents dominated the prediction of life satisfaction, and only the social ability component of self-concept was able to account for a small amount of extra variance. Relationship with school was not related to life satisfaction in any significant way. Implications of these results are discussed.
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This study was supported by the Centre for Hong Kong Studies, The Chinese University of Hong Kong through a Social Policy Research Programme on Policy for Prevocational Education in Hong Kong.
Received Ph.D. from Massey University, New Zealand. Research interests include educational psychology, operant conditioning, behavior modification, and rehabilitation.
Received Ph.D. from University of Illinois in social, industrial, and organizational psychology. Research interests included cross-cultural psychology, social justice, and the psychology of adolescence.
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Leung, J.P., Leung, K. Life satisfaction, self-concept, and relationship with parents in adolescence. J Youth Adolescence 21, 653–665 (1992). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01538737
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01538737