College Students' Spiritual and Psychosocial Struggles with Parental Psychological Aggression

116 Pages·2017·0.76 MB·English

by  Serena Wong

COLLEGE STUDENTS’ SPIRITUAL AND PSYCHOSOCIAL STRUGGLES WITH
PARENTAL PSYCHOLOGICAL AGGRESSION:
UNIQUE EFFECTS ON PSYCHOLOGICAL AND RELATIONAL ADJUSTMENT
Serena Wong
A Thesis
Submitted to the Graduate College of Bowling Green
State University in partial fulfillment of
the requirements for the degree of
MASTER OF ARTS
August 2017
Committee:
Annette Mahoney, Advisor
Kenneth I. Pargament
Dara Musher-Eizenman
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ABSTRACT
Annette Mahoney, Advisor
This cross-sectional study examines the relations among college students’ experiences of
parental psychological aggression, spiritual and psychosocial coping, psychological
adjustment, and parent-offspring relationship satisfaction. Separate analyses were
conducted to examine participants’ relationships with their current mother (N = 307) and
father (N = 210) figures. Parental psychological aggression (PPA) is relatively common,
with 59% and 40% of students reporting at least one incident of some type of non-
physical aggression from mothers and fathers, respectively, over the past year. Higher
levels of PPA with both parents were consistently correlated with less relationship
satisfaction and greater depression, anxiety, trauma-related distress, and use of coping
strategies. Spiritual struggles in coping consistently predicted greater psychological
maladjustment, with unique effects on anxiety (father dataset) and trauma-related distress
(mother dataset) that persisted after controlling for PPA and psychosocial struggles.
Interestingly, spiritual struggles in coping also uniquely predicted greater mother-
offspring relationship satisfaction. In accordance with stress mobilization, spiritual
resources were also uniquely predictive of greater anxiety (father dataset), trauma-related
distress (both datasets), and mother-offspring relationship satisfaction, after controlling
for PPA and psychosocial resources.
Keywords: spiritual struggles; parental psychological aggression; coping
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To Barry Wong,
for being my moon.
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The foundation of this project was built upon the good work of researchers before me. I
am grateful to Drs. Annette Mahoney, Kenneth I. Pargament, and Dara Musher-Eizenman for
serving on my committee. Without their expertise and encouragement, this document would have
settled in the recesses of my hard drive. Dr. William O’Brien, though he may never read this, has
also given continued support through a particularly difficult period. I am further grateful to my
clinical cohort who used learning principles to motivate me: Lynnel Goodman, Jessica Hartl-
Majcher, Lindsey Thomas Roberts, Julie Pomerleau, and Sonia Singh. Cjersti Jensen deserves
special mention for her helpful feedback from a developmental perspective. In addition, thanks
go to my strongest pillars, Stella Wong and Barry Wong. Finally, thank you to the many college
students who supplied the raw data for this project. With all of you, I was equipped with the
skills, knowledge, support, and materials to complete this project.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
INTRODUCTION...... ........................................................................................................... 1
Prevalence and Impact of Parental Psychological Aggression (PPA) ....................... 1
Coping with Parental Psychological Aggression (PPA) ............................................ 4
Psychosocial Coping with PPA: Resources and Struggles ............................ 4
Spiritual Coping with PPA: Resources and Struggles ................................... 7
THE PRESENT STUDY ....................................................................................................... 11
METHOD............................................................................................................................... 14
Participants and Procedure ......................................................................................... 14
Measures .................... ............................................................................................... 17
Parental Psychological Aggression ................................................................ 17
Spiritual Struggles and Resources in Coping................................................. 17
Spiritual Struggles in Coping with Parental Aggression ................... 17
Spiritual Resources in Coping with Parental Aggression .................. 17
Psychosocial Struggles and Resources in Coping ......................................... 19
Psychosocial Struggles in Coping with Parental Aggression ............ 19
Psychosocial Resources in Coping with Parental Aggression ........... 20
Psychological Maladjustment ........................................................................ 20
Depression.......................................................................................... 20
Anxiety ............................................................................................... 20
Trauma-Related Distress .................................................................... 21
Relationship Satisfaction ................................................................... 21
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Other Descriptive Variables ........................................................................... 22
Demographic Information .................................................................. 22
Parent-Offspring Relationship Characteristics .................................. 22
General Religiousness Indicators ....................................................... 24
Open-Ended Questions ...................................................................... 24
RESULTS............................................................................................................................. . 25
Descriptive Information ............................................................................................. 25
Prevalence of Parental Psychological Aggression ......................................... 27
Prevalence of Spiritual Coping Struggles and Resources .............................. 33
Prevalence of Psychosocial Coping Struggles and Resources ....................... 39
Bivariate Correlations ................................................................................................ 45
Correlations Among Coping Variables .......................................................... 45
Correlations Among Dependent Variables .................................................... 45
Control Variables ........................................................................................... 45
Correlations Among Parental Psychological Aggression,
Spiritual Coping, and Psychosocial Coping,
with Psychological Maladjustment and Relationship Satisfaction .... 51
Parental Psychological Aggression with
Spiritual and Psychosocial Coping .................................................... 52
Hierarchical Linear Regressions ................................................................................ 54
Unique Effects of Spiritual and Psychosocial Struggles in Coping ............... 54
Depression.......................................................................................... 55
Anxiety ............................................................................................... 55
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Trauma-Related Distress .................................................................... 55
Parent-Offspring Relationship Satisfaction ....................................... 56
Unique Effects of Spiritual and Psychosocial Resources in Coping ............. 58
Depression.......................................................................................... 58
Anxiety ............................................................................................... 59
Trauma-Related Distress .................................................................... 59
Parent-Offspring Relationship Satisfaction ....................................... 59
Open-ended Questions ............................................................................................... 62
DISCUSSION....................................................................................................................... . 69
Research Implications and Future Directions ............................................................ 76
Applied Implications .................................................................................................. 79
Limitations ....... ......................................................................................................... 81
REFERENCES ……………………………………………………………………………. 83
APPENDIX A DEMOGRAPHIC INFORMATION............................................................. 93
APPENDIX B GLOBAL RELIGIOUSNESS AND BIBLICAL CONSERVATISM .......... 94
APPENDIX C PARENT-OFFSPRING RELATIONSHIP CHARACTERISTICS.............. 96
APPENDIX D RECORD OF MALTREATMENT EXPERIENCES ................................... 97
APPENDIX E BRIEF COPE (B-COPE) ............................................................................... 98
APPENDIX F SPIRITUAL RESOURCES AND STRUGGLES ......................................... 100
APPENDIX G RELATIONSHIP SATISFACTION ............................................................. 102
APPENDIX H CENTER FOR EPIDEMIOLOGIC STUDIES –
DEPRESSION (CES-D) SCALE ............................................................................. 103
APPENDIX I GENERALIZED ANXIETY DISORDER 7-ITEM (GAD-7) SCALE ......... 104
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APPENDIX J IMPACT OF EVENTS SCALE (IES) ........................................................... 105
APPENDIX K OPEN-ENDED QUESTIONS ...................................................................... 106
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LIST OF TABLES

Table Page
1 Demographic characteristics of the sample ............................................................... 72
2 Religious characteristics of the sample ...................................................................... 73
3 Parent-offspring relationship characteristics .............................................................. 74
4 Descriptive data on key constructs ............................................................................ 75
5 Prevalence of specific acts of mother’s psychological aggression reported
in the past year (N = 307) ........................................................................................... 76
6 Prevalence of specific acts of father’s psychological aggression reported
in the past year (N = 210) ........................................................................................... 78
7 Prevalence of spiritual struggles in coping with mothers’
psychological aggression (N = 307) ........................................................................... 80
8 Prevalence of spiritual struggles in coping with fathers’
psychological aggression (N = 210) ........................................................................... 81
9 Prevalence of spiritual resources in coping with mothers’
psychological aggression (N = 307) ........................................................................... 82
10 Prevalence of spiritual resources in coping with fathers’
psychological aggression (N = 210) ........................................................................... 83
11 Prevalence of psychosocial struggles and resources in coping
with mothers’ psychological aggression (N = 307) ................................................... 84
12 Prevalence of psychosocial struggles and resources in coping
with fathers’ psychological aggression (N = 210) ..................................................... 86
13 Zero-order correlations between key constructs
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for mother figures (N = 307) and father figures (N = 210) ........................................ 88
14 Correlations between demographics and key constructs
for mother figures (N = 307) and father figures (N = 210). ....................................... 89
15 T-tests between sex and dependent variables for
mother (N = 307) and father (N = 210) datasets. ....................................................... 90
16 Analysis of variance (ANOVA) between race/ethnicity
and dependent variables for mother (N = 307) and father (N = 210) datasets ........... 91
17 Unique effects of spiritual and psychosocial struggles
in coping with parental psychological aggression. .................................................... 93
18 Unique effects of spiritual and psychosocial resources
in coping with parental psychological aggression. .................................................... 94
19 Negative interactions described by college students
in their parent-offspring relationship(s) in the past year. ........................................... 95
20 How, if at all, have your parents’ negative behaviors impacted you emotionally? ... 96
21 How, if at all, have your negative experiences with your
parents impacted your spirituality or way of being religious? ................................... 97
22 How, if at all, have your parent’s negative behaviors
affected your relationship with your him/her/them? .................................................. 98
23 What have you done to cope with your parents’ negative
behaviors that has worked for you? ........................................................................... 99
24 What have you done to cope that has not worked
or created struggles for you? ...................................................................................... 100