Family communication, coping styles and internalizing and externalizing behavior problems in adolescents
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Date
2023
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UMT, Lahore
Abstract
The current study aimed to determine the relationship between family communication, coping styles, and internalizing and externalizing behavioral problems in adolescence. A sample of 300 adolescents (girls = 150; boys = 150), aged 11–19 years (M = 14.70, SD = 2.08) were recruited through stratified sampling. FCS was administered to measure family communication. CSS in Adolescents were used to measure the factors of coping styles of adolescents i.e., problem focused coping, emotion focused coping, spiritual focused coping styles. SCPS was used to assess emotional behavioral and social problems in adolescents. Correlation results indicated a highly positive association of family communication with problem and spiritual focused coping styles (p < .001), and a highly negative association with emotion focused coping styles (p < .001). Furthermore, there is a highly negative association of family communication with internalizing (p < .01) and externalizing (p < .001) behavioral problems in adolescence. In addition, emotional coping styles had a highly positive correlation with internalizing and externalizing problems (p<.001). Moreover, regression analysis revealed that gender, educational sector, family communication and spirituality focused coping styles came out to be significant negative predictors of internalizing behavioral problems while emotion focused coping styles came out to be significant positive predictors of internalizing behavioral problems. Similarly, educational sector and family communication came out to be significant negative predictors of externalizing behavioral problems while emotion focused coping styles came out to be significant positive predictor of externalizing behavioral problems. Results are discussed in terms of the manifestation of adolescents' problems in traditional and collectivistic cultures.