College students' well being: The role of parent -college student expectation discrepancies and communication

• Main Author: Agliata, Allison Kanter
• Format: Dissertation
• Language: English
• Subjects: psychology, clinical; psychology, social
• ISBN: 9780542406935; 0542406934

Parental influence on college students' well being is underestimated frequently in the developmental literature. College students often set social and academic goals according to their perception of what their parents expect from them. The discrepancy between college students' performance and their perceptions of parents' expectations can impact their quality of life. The purpose of this study was to examine various parent-college student expectation discrepancies and communication levels as predictors for college students' psychological well being. Results revealed that college students reported experiencing higher levels of anger, depression, and anxiety and lower levels of self-esteem and college adjustment when higher expectation-performance discrepancies were present. Results also indicated that a higher perceived level of communication, particularly by the college student, served as a predictor of distress and was related to lower levels of affective distress and higher levels of self-esteem and college adjustment. Such findings underscore the importance of teaching assertive communication skills to college students and their parents as a means of diminishing the deleterious effects of perceiving one another inaccurately.