Understanding the Relations Between Parental Conditional Regard, Teacher Autonomy Support, and Adolescent Well-Being: a Self-Determination Theory Perspective

Abstract

Based on the self-determination theory, many studies have attempted to uncover the contextual features that satisfy adolescents' basic psychological needs. Most of these, however, have focused on one aspect of the social context, either the school or the family environment, and focused on either the issue of need frustration or need satisfaction and their implications on well-being. Therefore, in this study, we aimed to investigate whether adolescents' perceptions of parental conditional regard (both positive and negative regards) and teacher autonomy support were associated with need frustration and need satisfaction, which in turn, would be related to adolescents' well-being (both subjective stress and life satisfaction). To test our hypotheses, we recruited 340 Turkish adolescents (Mage = 16.88 years, SD = 0.86). Results of structural equation modeling showed that parental conditional negative regard was positively related to need frustration, which in turn, was associated positively with adolescents' subjective stress, and negatively with life satisfaction. However, parental conditional positive regard was related to neither need satisfaction nor need frustration. Moreover, teacher autonomy support was positively related to need satisfaction, which in turn, was positively associated with life satisfaction. The results indicate that future research should consider both parent- and teacher-related contexts together in relation to adolescents' basic needs and their well-being. One way for adolescents to have higher life satisfaction could be that teachers satisfy adolescents' basic psychological needs, by providing them meaningful choices and understand and respect their perspectives. One explanation for adolescents to report higher stress and lower life satisfaction could be that parents frustrate adolescents' basic psychological needs, by showing less affection and attention when the adolescents fail to exhibit desired behaviors. Both parents and teachers should adopt certain desired behaviors because they play crucial roles in adolescents' subjective stress and life satisfaction by means of satisfying or frustrating their basic needs.