Quantity and Quality of Relationships With Important Nonparental Adults: The Mediating Role of Youth Intentional Self-Regulation and Hopeful Future Expectations for Positive Youth Development

• In Event: Adolescent–Adult Relationships as Developmental Spaces: Mechanisms Underlying Positive Development for Diverse Youth

Abstract

The presence of important non-parental adults (VIPs) in young people’s lives influences adolescent development (e.g., Greenberger et al., 1998). Influential VIPs are perceived as warm mentors (DuBois and Silverthorn, 2005; Rhodes et al., 1992). However, prior studies have not simultaneously examined both the quantity and quality of VIP relationships in predicting youth outcomes, nor have prior studies considered explanatory mechanisms between indices of VIP relationships and youth outcomes. The present study addresses these limitations using data from the 4-H Study of Positive Youth Development (PYD) (e.g., Lerner et al., 2005). Empirical evidence supports the role of both intentional self regulation (ISR) and hopeful future expectations (HF) in predicting youth outcomes (e.g., Bowers et al. in press; Schmid et al., 2010), and the influence of relations with adults on youth ISR and HF (e.g., Lewin-Bizan et al., 2010; Rhodes et al., 2002). Therefore, path analyses were conducted to model the relationships among quantity and quality of VIP relationships, ISR and HF, and PYD (See Figure 1).

Method
Participants were included in the analyses if they had data for at least two times of testing across Grades 9 to 11 of the 4-H Study, yielding a sample size N = 1,032 (67.5% female). In Grade 9, the mean age of participants was 14.91 (SD = .99). The race/ethnicity of youth were 72.5% European American; 7.3% African American; 4.5% Latino/a, 15.7% other.

Measures. The quantity of VIP relationships was assessed by averaging responses to the question “Not including your parents and teachers, how many adults have you known for one or more years who…?” An example item was “you look forward to spending time with.” To assess quality of VIP relationships, we used the Social Support and Rejection Scale (Roffman et al., 2000), assessing positive interactions, negative interactions, and mentoring. The measure for hopeful future expectations was an average of adolescents’ expectations for positive future outcomes, including having friends you can count on, being healthy, and being safe. The Selection, Optimization, and Compensation (SOC) questionnaire was used (Freund & Baltes, 2002) to measure ISR. SOC-consistent responses are summed to provide an ISR score. To assess PYD, we used a measure derived from the Five Cs model of PYD. This model identifies PYD as an average of scores on five subscales – Competence, Confidence, Connection, Character, and Caring (Lerner et al., 2005).

Analyses and Results. Path Analysis using MPlus was employed to test a saturated model linking indices of VIP relationships to PYD via ISR and HF. Results of these analyses can be seen in Figure 1. We tested simple mediation using 10,000 bootstrap resamples (see Preacher & Hayes, 2007, 2008). Results showed that hopeful future expectations mediated the relationship between quantity of VIPs and PYD (point estimate = .083; 95% CI, .040 - .133).

Conclusions
Results add to the literature linking VIPs to positive outcomes by examining potential mediators. The results also suggest that the quantity of VIPs may be more important than any one youth-adult relationship.

Authors

• Edmond P. Bowers, Tufts University

• G. John Geldhof, Tufts University

• Kristina Schmid, Tufts University