This study intended to examine the general trend of happiness and the difference in happiness according to individual, family, friend, school, and social-related variables in adolescents. It also aimed to investigate the influence of variables on adol...
This study intended to examine the general trend of happiness and the difference in happiness according to individual, family, friend, school, and social-related variables in adolescents. It also aimed to investigate the influence of variables on adolescents' happiness and provide basic materials for elements influencing happiness perceived by adolescents.
In order to achieve this purpose, the subjects selected were the first and second graders going to four academic high schools located in Gwangju City. A total of 590 questionnaires were distributed and 576 were returned(return rate 97.6%). Of them, insincere questionnaires were excluded and finally 571 were used for analysis data. Data collected produced frequency, mean, standard deviation, and reliability coefficient(Cronbach's α) by using the SPSS/WIN 14.0 program. Duncun-test, ANOVA, correlation analysis, and multiple regression analysis were conducted.
The findings of this study were summarized as follows.
First, the general trend of adolescents' happiness was 3.28, suggesting a relatively high level. This is higher than the levels of happiness that was felt by the past adolescents and no less than that of happiness that is perceived by college students. Considering situations placed by college students and adolescents, it suggested that adolescents' perception of happiness was desirable.
Second, elements related to adolescents' happiness were divided into individual variables(sex, grade, religion, subjective health, satisfaction at an allowance, self-esteem, self-efficacy), family variables(standard of living, mother's employment, proximity to parent, family support, communication with parents, parenting attitude), friend variables(best friends, friend relationship satisfaction, friends support, boy(girl)friend), school variables(school record, teacher support), and social variables(sufficient leisure time, satisfaction at leisure activity) and their difference in happiness was examined. For the personal variables, boy students showed higher happiness in the groups who perceived their subjective health good, satisfied their allowance, and had high self-esteem and high self-efficacy.
For the family variables, the groups who had high standard of living, high proximity to parent, good communication with a father, good communication with a mother, and good parenting attitude showed higher happiness.
For the friend variables, the group who had best friends, high fried relationship satisfaction, high friends support, and a boy(girl)friend showed higher happiness.
For the school variables, the groups had a good school record and high teacher support showed higher happiness.
For the social environment variables, the groups had sufficient leisure time and high satisfaction at leisure activity showed higher happiness.
Finally, the most influential factors on adolescents' happiness was self-esteem, followed by self-efficacy, communication with a mother, communication with a father, friends support, subjective health, sufficient leisure time, satisfaction at leisure activity, and proximity to parents and all showed significant effects. In other words, higher self-esteem, higher self-efficacy, better communication with a mother, better communication with a father, higher friends support, higher subjective health, more sufficient leisure time, higher satisfaction at leisure activity, and better proximity to parents were associated with higher happiness. The explanation of these factors was 60%.
In conclusion, for adolescents' happiness, the present adolescents perceived their happiness higher than the past adolescents, but similar or somewhat higher than researches at the same period. Also, their perception of happiness was relatively higher than college students' perception. Considering college students' freer life environment and more stable psychological state than adolescence, it can be a very desirable result. Also, it was found that individual variables, as well as family, friends, school, and social variables had a great effect on adolescents' happiness. It suggested that although happiness showed a great difference according to individual's subjective viewpoint, the effects of environment as well as self could not be excluded in life. The outcome of this study can be used as reference in developing efficient counselling programs to help adolescents' school adaptation, group counselling programs to improve happiness, programs to help college adaptation, or policy plaining.