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Parents, Siblings, or Friends? Exploring Life Satisfaction among Early Adolescents

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Abstract

This study analyzes 2,617 10–15 year olds surveyed in wave 1 of the United Kingdom Household Longitudinal Study (UKHLS). Specifically, it tests the associations of three variables with life satisfaction among early adolescents: parent–child relationship quality, being a perpetrator or victim of sibling bullying, and being a perpetrator or victim of friend bullying. The results suggest that all of these social relationships have significant associations with life satisfaction, both individually and in combination. Of the three, parent–child relationship quality explained the most variance in predicting life satisfaction. This is followed by friend victimization (i.e., being bullied by friends), whereas the influence of sibling victimization is significant but not as strong. This study also tests the interaction effects between parent–child relationship quality, sibling bullying, and friend bullying. The association of parent–child relationship quality with life satisfaction is found to be stronger among adolescents who were either victims of sibling bullying or of friend bullying, highlighting the protective importance of parent–child relationship quality. Lastly, when testing whether the influences of sibling bullying, friend bullying, and parent–child relationship quality vary between male and female adolescents, this study finds some significant gender differences. Specifically, the positive associations of lower friend victimization and better parent–child relationship quality with life satisfaction are found to be stronger among female adolescents.

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Notes

  1. Around 60 % of the youth in the UKHLS fit this criterion, while the other 40 % live in either single parent households or in step-family households.

  2. A significant association between family structure and perceived life satisfaction has also been found. Adolescents living with two biological parents tend to have higher life satisfaction (Demo and Acock 1996; Sastre and Ferriere 2000), whereas living with one biological parent and a stepfather/stepmother or other adults, and living without any parent, are both significantly related to lower life satisfaction (Zullig et al. 2005; Bradley and Corwyn 2004; Flouri and Buchanan 2002). Therefore, focusing only on adolescents with two biological parents might lead to higher reports of life satisfaction, which is already reported under descriptive statistics. The evidence shows that the quality of parenting and of parent–child relationships often diminishes with separation and stepfamily formation. This is reflected in a lack of warmth and support, less involvement, harsher discipline, and inconsistency (Emery 1982; 1994; Hetherington 1989, 1993; Simons and Associates 1996, all cited in Pryor and Rodgers 2001). The quality of parenting and parent–child relationships reflects the impact of other stressors such as parental conflict, maternal mental health, and socio-economic disadvantage (Pryor and Rodgers 2001). Thus, for non-intact families, consistent with some prior research, peers might have an even greater influence on adolescents than do siblings and parents, particularly if family relationships are weak (Conger and Rueter 1996; Elliott et al. 1985). Thus, given our sample, the effect of parent-adolescent relationship quality on adolescents’ life satisfaction might be overestimated.

  3. The indicators that measure one of the key independent variables, sibling relationship quality, are only asked to those children who have at least one sibling. Therefore, the sample is restricted to those who have at least one sibling in the household.

  4. Self-reports of sibling bullying and victimization have been used in some prior research (Wolke and Skew 2011, 2012; Duncan 1999; Menesini et al. 2010; Wolke and Samara 2004). To test the reliability of these reports, we first ran Cronbach's alpha for the four questions that we use for sibling victimization, and found the internal reliability is 0.80. Next, we ran Cronbach's alpha for the four questions we use for sibling bullying, and found the same internal reliability: 0.80. To test validity, we ran EFA with varimax rotation. The results suggest that the first four items load on one factor, whereas the other four items load on a second factor. We name these factors sibling victimization and sibling bullying, respectively. Finally, we ran two CFA models, where we first used these two factors separately and then combined them into one factor. When comparing these two models, the results (and fit indices) suggest that the first model-- where we use the two factors separately-- fits the data better. Some fit indices from this CFA model are as follows: χ 2 = 87.643 (df = 15), p < 0.001; CFI = 0.99, RMSEA = 0.04. These tests suggest that these two factors must be used separately as two separate constructs.

  5. White refers to “British, English, Scottish, Welsh, Northern Irish, Irish, Gypsy or Irish traveller, and any other White background." Asian or Asian British refers to "Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi, Chinese, and any other Asian background." Black/African/Caribbean/Black British refers to "Caribbean, African, and any other Black background.” Mixed refers to “White and Black Caribbean, White and Black African, White and Asian, and Any other mixed background” whereas Other refers to “Arab, and any other ethnic group.”

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  1. Department of Sociology, William Paterson University of New Jersey, 300 Pompton Road, 465 Raubinger Hall, Wayne, NJ, 07470, USA

    Deniz Yucel

  2. Department of Sociology, Virginia Tech University, 560 McBryde Hall (0137), 225 Stanger Street, Blacksburg, VA, 24061, USA

    Anastasia S. Vogt Yuan

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Yucel, D., Yuan, A.S.V. Parents, Siblings, or Friends? Exploring Life Satisfaction among Early Adolescents. Applied Research Quality Life 11, 1399–1423 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11482-015-9444-5

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