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Perceived Parental Psychological Control and Learned Helplessness: The Role of School Self-efficacy

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Abstract

Relatively few studies have examined the mechanisms through which psychological control creates impairments in the scholastic and academic areas of children’s and adolescents’ functioning. The purpose of this study was to highlight the relation between psychological control and learned helplessness (LH), and also to test school self-efficacy as a mediator in the relation between psychological control and LH. A total of 186 students (103 males and 83 females) aged between 14 and 18 (M = 16.22, SD = 1.21) completed self-report questionnaires assessing socio-demographic characteristics, parental psychological control, school self-efficacy, and LH. Both maternal and paternal psychological controls were negatively associated with self-efficacy and positively associated with LH. This statement is consistent with our hypotheses. Furthermore, structural equation modeling showed that school self-efficacy was a full mediator in the relation between perceptions of parental psychological control and LH. These results extend previous studies on parental psychological control in a school context and provide evidence for the relation with LH, identifying self-efficacy as a variable that accounts for the relation between parental psychological control and LH.

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Acknowledgments

The authors wish to express their thanks to Dr. Paola Raccuglia for data collection.

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  1. Department of Human and Social Sciences, University of Messina, Via Tommaso Cannizzaro, Messina, Italy

    Pina Filippello, Luana Sorrenti, Caterina Buzzai & Sebastiano Costa

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  1. Pina Filippello
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  3. Caterina Buzzai
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  4. Sebastiano Costa
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Correspondence to Luana Sorrenti.

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Filippello, P., Sorrenti, L., Buzzai, C. et al. Perceived Parental Psychological Control and Learned Helplessness: The Role of School Self-efficacy. School Mental Health 7, 298–310 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12310-015-9151-2

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