A new study published in Psychological Reports has shed light on the way present fathers play a positive role in adolescent psychological development. The researchers observed that when adolescents grow up with fathers present, they experience more ‘failure learning’, which supports the development of resilience.
Adolescence is a difficult time, with new social and academic pressures emerging. Resilience, or the capacity to cope with and recover from challenges, has been identified as a critical component to success in adolescence.
They explored the mediating effects of four subfactors of failure learning: failure cognition, reflection and analysis, experience transformation, and prudent attempt.
Failure cognition is the understanding and perception of a failure event. It includes recognising the occurrence of a failure and understanding the causes.
Reflective analysis involves evaluation of the events leading to the failure, and critically analysing one’s own actions and decisions. This helps identification of mistakes and areas for improvement.
Experience transformation involves taking the insights from reflective analysis and transforming the experience of failure into a learning opportunity.
Prudent attempt involves putting the lessons learned into practice, and taking calculated risks to improve subsequent performance. This component emphasises the importance of persistence and not being put off by prior failures.
Using questionnaires, the researchers assessed 626 Chinese middle school students, average age 14. They measured levels of father presence, resilience, and failure learning. The researchers found that: (1) there was a significant association between father presence, failure learning, and resilience; (2) failure learning played a mediating role between father presence and adolescents’ resilience; (3) the mediating effect of experience transformation and prudent attempt between father presence and adolescents’ resilience was significant, but not failure cognition and reflective analysis.
The researchers posited that the presence of a father helped to mediate resilience, especially in the two aspects of failure learning most linked to resilience. By supporting the decisions made around the failure, they help their adolescent children to recognise that a prudent attempt was made and to accept the failure.
Limitations included being the adolescents being exclusively Chinese, with cultural factors that may not be applicable to adolescents of other cultures. Additionally, the effect of mothers was not accounted for, and it was possible that the positive effects were only possible through the co-parenting support of a mother,
Source: PsyPost
