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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Psychol.
Sec. Developmental Psychology
Volume 15 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1387698
This article is part of the Research Topic How Children Learn from Parents and Parenting Others in Formal and Informal Settings: International and Cultural Perspectives - Volume II View all 10 articles

Parental conflict and adolescents' socially adverse emotions: the mediating role of family functioning

Provisionally accepted
Rong Kong Rong Kong 1*Ruihua Chen Ruihua Chen 2Lingling Meng Lingling Meng 3
  • 1 Tianjin Normal University, Tianjin, China
  • 2 Beijing Polytechnic, Beijing, China
  • 3 Shanxi Trade School, Taiyuan, China

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Objective: To examine the process of how parental conflict and family functioning influence adolescents' socially adverse emotions (shyness and loneliness). Methods: Stratified cluster sampling was used to conduct a questionnaire survey among 1,100 junior high school students from three junior high schools in Beijing, Chongqing and Shijiazhuang, China. Results: (1) The overall experience of adolescents' socially adverse emotions was at the moderate level; boys' experience of shyness and loneliness was significantly higher than that of girls; the experience of shyness and loneliness in the second grade was significantly higher than that in the first grade; (2) Parental conflict was significantly negatively correlated with family functioning and significantly positively correlated with adolescents' socially adverse emotions, while family functioning was significantly negatively correlated with adolescents' socially adverse emotions; (3) Family functioning partially mediates the relationship between parental conflict and adolescents' shyness and completely mediates the relationship between parental conflict and adolescents' loneliness. Conclusion: Compared to adolescents' shyness, family functioning plays a more important mediating role in the relationship between parental conflict and adolescents' loneliness.

    Keywords: parental conflict, family functioning, shyness, Loneliness, adolescents, Mediation

    Received: 18 Feb 2024; Accepted: 23 Sep 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Kong, Chen and Meng. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Rong Kong, Tianjin Normal University, Tianjin, China

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