Influence of Parental Beliefs on Resilience of Chinese Adolescents: Family Functioning As a Mediator

Purpose: Walsh (2006) has identified key family processes in building family resilience, including family beliefs systems, organizational patterns and communicative processes. However, studies in examining beliefs systems and family processes in influencing adolescents’ resilience in Chinese communities are severely lacked. They are especially important as Chinese family beliefs are embedded in the Chinese culture where Confucianism and Taoism are stressed. Furthermore, Chinese family processes are different from the West with their emphasis of hierarchical family decision-making and negligence of emotional expression. In addition, the mechanism through which family beliefs influence adolescent development is not comprehended thoroughly. Against this background, the present study aimed at examining the relationships among parental beliefs about adversity, family functioning and adolescents’ resilience in Chinese families.

Methods: A cross sectional study was conducted with a sample of 1,804 families in Shanghai, China during the period between October 2013 and January 2014. The sample was recruited from five secondary schools, with students at the ages of 11 – 15 and their parents (caregivers) participated in the study. Parents were requested to fill in the Chinese Making Sense of Adversity Scale (Pan et al., 2008) and General Family Functioning Scale of Chinese Version of McMaster Family Assessment Device (Shek, 2001), while adolescents were requested to fill in the Chinese version of 10-item Connor–Davidson Resilience Scale (Wang et al., 2010). Based on the work of Baron and Kenny (1986), the mediation effect of family functioning between the influence of parental beliefs about adversity and adolescents’ resilience was examined. Sobel test (Sobel, 1982) and bootstrapping mediation test (Preacher & Hayes, 2008) were used to assess the mediational significance.

Results: The results indicated that positive meaning-making about adversity of parents directly influenced adolescents’ resilience (β = 0.07, p < 0.01) and family functioning (β = 0.46, p < 0.001) respectively. Furthermore, better family functioning positively predicted more adolescents’ resilience (β = 0.14, p < 0.001). However, when family functioning was added to the regression equation of prediction of parents’ meaning-making about adversity to adolescents’ resilience, the direct effect was no longer significant (β = 0.01, p > 0.05). The standardized indirect effect via family functioning was found significant (β = 0.14, p < 0.001). A significant z value (z = 4.83, p < 0.001) in Sobel test and a non-zero value between upper and lower bounds of bias corrected 95% confidence intervals of indirect effect in bootstrapping meditational test suggested that family functioning served as mediator in the influence of parental beliefs about adversity on adolescents’ resilience in Chinese families.

Conclusion and Implications:  Echoed with Walsh’s framework of family resilience, research findings identified that parents’ positive beliefs about adversity and family functioning were building blocks for developing adolescents’ resilience in the Chinese communities. However, family positive beliefs about adversity could only influence adolescents’ resilience when effective family functioning was ensured.  Hence, social workers may need to enhance more effective family functioning so as to instill positive family beliefs about adversity to Chinese adolescents.