PARENTAL PSYCHOLOGICAL CONTROL, INTERNALIZING AND EXTERNALIZING BEHAVIORS, NEED SATISFACTION, AND FRUSTRATION AMONG ADOLESCENTS

Abstract

Aim: This paper attempts to explore the relationship between parental psychological control and the need frustration and behavioral problems of adolescents. Demographic variables such as age, grade earned, and hours on social media are hypothesized to be likely associated with study variables like parental psychological control, need frustration, and behavioral problems in adolescents. Further, demographic factors are going to predict both externalizing and internalizing behaviors among adolescents. Moreover, need frustration is going to mediate the relationship that exists between adolescent behavioral problems and parental psychological control. Methodology: The research design was a descriptive correlational one. For the population, 250 adolescents were taken from private and public schools and colleges of Lahore, including 117 boys and 133 girls. The study tools included the Parental Psychological Control Scale-Youth Self-Report (Barber, 1996), the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (Goodman et al., 1998), and the Psychological Need Frustration and Satisfaction Scale (Chen et al., 2015). The analysis was done with the help of SPSS version 21.0. Findings: Overall, the findings indicated that there was a significant positive association of parental psychological control with overall need frustration. Results from the regression analyses showed that grades earned, parental psychological control, and need frustration were strong predictors of behavioral problems in adolescents. Need frustration was partially determined to mediate the relationship between parental psychological control and behavioral problems. The implications of the study are that parents and educators can help teens move through stages of self-control and reduce externalizing behaviors by using strategies designed to meet autonomy, competence, and relatedness needs. Furthermore, parents play an important role in either preventing or maintaining externalizing and internalizing disorder.