The role of psychological wellbeing in adolescence: Its relation to psychological symptoms/behaviors

Holistic frameworks of mental health emphasize that decreasing or ameliorating symptoms is not enough to achieve optimal mental health. Rather, theoretical, empirical, and applied psychological efforts should additionally conceptualize and promote positive well-being. Notably, studies of positive wellbeing have overwhelmingly focused on adult populations, rendering a translation down to adolescence difficult. The studies undertaken within this dissertation represent a foundational step towards conceptualizing holistic mental health well-being by investigating how positive and internalizing/externalizing indices of mental health co-exist and manifest over time within an adolescent context. The first study explores the empirical cross-sectional relation between psychological symptoms/behaviors and positive wellbeing within adolescence, with an intentional focus on the impact of identity. These aims were answered by a meta-analysis encompassing studies of symptoms/behaviors and psychological wellbeing (PWB) within adolescence (i.e., youth aged 10-17; 18 unique datasets, 5880 total participants, average mean age: 15.19 years). The second study extended this research by exploring the between-person relations, as well as within-person short-term, prospective relations between symptoms/behaviors and PWB within adolescence (i.e., youth aged 12-18, mean age: 14.97 years). These aims were addressed using a community sample of 553 adolescents participating in a 3-wave, 1-year survey study. Results from Study 1 (meta-analytic approach) revealed an overall negative and moderately sized effect size between symptoms/behaviors and PWB. In line with conclusions from other studies that have examined the relation between symptoms/behaviors and PWB, the magnitude of this relation suggested that PWB and symptoms/behaviors represent distinct aspects of mental health within adolescence. Notably, studies focused on samples with greater individualistic tendencies demonstrated significantly stronger negative relations, suggesting wellbeing and symptoms/behaviors tended to act more antagonistically within these populations relative to studies conducted in countries that tend to be more collectivistic culturally. Building upon this study, between-person findings from Study 2 (longitudinal data-analysis) also demonstrated significant, negative between-person relations between symptoms/behaviors and PWB, thus replicating the antagonistic relations identified in Study 1. At the within-person level, inconsistent cross-sectional relations emerged across time between symptoms/behaviors and PWB. In contrast, consistent positive prospective relations were identified for violent behaviors and PWB, such that increases in individual levels of violent behaviors tended to forecast higher levels of psychological well-being at the next follow-up. Overall, gender and racial/ethnic identities did not moderate any findings in Study 1 and Study 2, suggesting the relation between symptoms/behaviors and well-being is robust across these two demographic constructs. The examination of between- and within-person effects across studies indicated that public health efforts may benefit from employing primary and secondary/tertiary efforts that encourage decreasing symptoms/behaviors and increasing PWB at the population level, and a careful examination of increases in externalizing behaviors to best promote holistic mental health at the individual level. As such, the current set of studies lays the foundation for comprehensive empirical and applied mental health efforts at the national and international level, with several future directions highlighted in the manuscript.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Psychology

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2024

Author dc:creator

• Thakur, Hena

Contributors dc:contributor

• Cohen, Joseph
• Dubois, David
• Fairbairn, Catharine
• Hankin, Benjamin
• Kwapil, Thomas

• adolescence
• holistic mental health
• longitudinal
• multi-method

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright 2024 Hena Thakur

Language dc:language

en

Handle dc:identifier

https://hdl.handle.net/2142/125651

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/125651