Keywords

expectations, communication, college adjustment, parent-college student, discrepancies

Abstract

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.

Notes

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Graduation Date

2005

Semester

Summer

Advisor

Renk, Kimberly

Degree

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.)

College

College of Arts and Sciences

Department

Psychology

Degree Program

Psychology

Format

application/pdf

Identifier

CFE0000556

URL

http://purl.fcla.edu/fcla/etd/CFE0000556

Language

English

Release Date

August 2005

Length of Campus-only Access

None

Access Status

Doctoral Dissertation (Open Access)

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Included in

Psychology Commons

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