Adolescent well-being subjective indicators of relationships in a Romanian and Spanish adolescent sample.

Sergiu Bălţătescu*, Ferran Casas**, Adrian Hatos*, Irma Bertran**, and Mònica González** *Department of Sociology and Social Work. University of Oradea (Romania)**Research Institute on Quality of Life. Universitat de Girona (Spain)

Thirs ISCI conference, York July 26-29, 2011

Relationships• Of most importance throughout life• Critical in childhood and adolescence• The meaning , intensity and scope of relationship is changing

with developmental stages• In adolescence, peer relationship become salient while

influence of parents is lowering• Unselective peer-group relationships give way to the selective

personal relationships, then with relationship with adolescents from another sex• There is an emotional (romantic) life without a proper

relationship

General model

MethodSpainTwo-stage cluster sample (Compulsory

Secondary Education (ESO) Centres/classes). Four provinces of Catalonia. N=1945

Romania• N=930• Bihor county • Stratified sample of the urban high-school

population

Questionnaire The Personal Well-Being Index (PWI) scale (Cummins,

2003; Cummins et al., 2003), 7 items versionSatisfaction with relationship with:

peers friends teachers parents

Overall satisfaction with relationships (included in Personal Wellbeing Index).

Satisfaction with emotional lifeA single item on overall life satisfaction (OLS).Several items on satisfaction with other aspects of

life and life domains, including a set of school-related items.

All are measured on an 11-points scale (0 to 10)

Sample

sex * Age (13-16) * Country Crosstabulation

Count

96 108 144 119 467

83 97 129 164 473

179 205 273 283 940

273 290 239 130 932

300 350 234 136 1020

573 640 473 266 1952

male

female

sex

Total

male

female

sex

Total

CountryRumania

Spain

13 14 15 16

Age (13-16)

Total

Results: Personal well-being Index (from: Casas, Baltatescu at al. 2009) Means Romania Spain

boys girls boys girls

With your health 8,6 8,1 8,4 8,3

With your standard of living 8,7 8,6 8,4 8,3

With what you have achieved in life 7,9 7,8 7,8 7,8

With how safe you feel 8,5 8,6 7,7 7,3

With groups of people you belong to 8,4 8,7 8,3 8,5

With your future security 8,4 8,5 7,4 7,2

With your personal relationships 8,4 8,5 8,1 8,2

With your sentimental life 8,2 8,2 7,1 7,0

PWI-7 84,6 84,2 80,4 79,9

With your overall life 8,9 9,0 8,1 8,0Note: Standard errors for all computed coefficients, except PWI are less than 0,1. For PWI the standard errors vary between 0,44 and 0,82.

Resultsrelationship items  Means Romania Spain

boys girls boys girlsWith your personal relationships 8,4 8,5 8,1 8,2

With the relationship with school peers 7,8 7,9 8,0 8,2

With the relationship with teachers 7,3 8,0 6,9 7,3

With your sentimental life 8,2 8,2 7,1 7,0

With your family relationships 9,0 9,0 8,3 8,1

With your relationships with your friends 8,7 8,8 8,6 8,8

Satisfaction with personal relationships by age & gender

Satisfaction with personal relationships by age & gender

Comparisons• Relationships

with friends highest

• Relationships with professors - the lowest

• Romania: family relationship – very high

• Spain: sentimental life – very low

Evaluation of the possibility of the inclusion of a new PWI item• Item: satisfaction with sentimental life • Motivation: • The sentimental life = the affective experiences associated

with the romantic relations. • Useless to stress the importance of this domain for adolescents.

• None of PWI items capture these domains. • The “personal relations”

• too general to capture the romantic relationships. • Often in adolescence and youth the romantic emotions are

consumed outside a (more or less stable) relationship.

Factorial structure

Romania Spain

Unique contribution of domains to life as a whole

Romania (7 items) R2=0,385 Romania (7+1 items) R2=0,405

Unique contribution of domains to life as a whole

Spain (7 items) R2=0,370 Spain (7+1 items) R2=0,398

Evaluation of the possibility of the inclusion of a new PWI item: pros & cons

Pro’s• The item loads on the same

factor as life as a whole and the other PWI items

• With β=.17-.18, the item would be among the most important predictors of the life as a whole

• The item slightly increase the capacity of the Index to predict the levels of life as a whole.

Con’s

• The item would steal a part of the variation from the satisfaction with personal relationships, an item from the same conceptual domain.