The Relation Between Family, Peer Factors And Adolescent's Future Orientation In The Context Of Contemporary China

Orientation towards future events or outcomes is an important feature of individuals'thoughts and behaviors. Future orientation, defined as how adolescents anticipate and construct their personal future, is a multidimensional and multistage phenomenon that can be described in terms of motivation, planning, and evaluation. Previous research indicates that adolescents'orientation towards the future is particularly important for many aspects of their development. The development of individual future orientation is a process of socialization. Recently, influenced by the notions of developmental system theories, researchers focus more on the development of adolescents'future orientation in the specific context and its developmental diversity, especially in the contemporary society with rapid social and economic changes. In the last two decades, adolescents'future orientation has received a great deal of attention among developmental psychologists. However, an overwhelming majority of the research in this area was with adolescents in western cultures, and most of studies were descriptive. Studies on the development of Chinese adolescents'future orientation and its'mechanism have been rare. In present thesis, first, a brief introduction was made on the conception and function of future orientation, especially its importance on adolescent's current and later development. Then a comprehensive review was conducted with regard to the theoretical claims and the important empirical findings. A further analysis was executed focusing on the limitations of previous research. On the basis of these analyses, two related studies were designed to explore the impacts of interpersonal context on adolescent's future orientation, by which to reveal the mechanism of future orientation with a contextual perspective among adolescents in contemporary China.Study 1 focused on common adolescents to identity the interpersonal-contextual influences on future orientation. Three sub-studies were presented. Study 1-a was designed to explore the relation between family factors and adolescent's future orientation, Study 1-b was designed to explore the relation between peer factors and adolescent's future orientation, and Study 1-c was designed to construct the theoretical model of the relation between interpersonal context and adolescent's future orientation. 1834 Chinese adolescents from five junior high schools and five senior high schools in Jinan City and Yantai City, Shandong Province were employed to complete the questionnaires. Seven self-reported questionnaires were administered, including a modified version of Future Orientation Questionnaire, Parenting Style Inventory, Parent-Adolescent Communication Questionnaire, Questionnaire of Positive Peer Affiliation with High Achievement Motivation, Deviant Peer Affiliation Questionnaire, Questionnaire of Communication with Friends, and familial background (i.e., family structure, family socioeconomic status). The indicators of future orientation included adolescents'exploration and commitment to three life domains, i. e. future education, occupation and marriage/family, and the affects concerning individual development in these three life domains. The indicators of family and peer factors included family socioeconomic status, parenting style, the frequency of communications with father, mother, and friends, positive peer affiliation with high achievement motivation, and deviant peer affiliation.The main findings were as follows:(1) Different developmental patterns were observed for adolescents'future orientation concerning future education, occupation and marriage/family during adolescence. Females reported more commitment to future education and less exploration to future occupation, while males reported more exploration and commitment to future marriage/family, and also more optimistic affects about future marriage/family. Urban adolescents reported more exploration and commitment to future education, while rural adolescents reported greater commitment to future marriage/family.(2) The positive family and peer factors played the protective roles in adolescents'future orientation. Higher SES, more positive parenting, and more communications with parents predicted more exploration and commitment to future education and occupation, as well as more optimistic affects about future development. Affiliation with more high achievement motivation friends and less deviant friends predicted more exploration and commitment to future education and occupation, as well as more optimistic affects, and predicted less exploration and commitment to future marriage/family. More communications with friends predicted more exploration and commitment to all three life domains, as well as more optimistic affects.(3) The impact of family factors on adolescent's future orientation was partly mediated by peer factors. Among the family factors, higher SES predicted adolescents'more exploration and commitment to future education directly, while parenting and communications with parents as the proximal context for adolescents could mediate the associations between SES and adolescent future orientation concerning future education and occupation. Among the peer factors, the characteristics of peer affiliation predicted adolescents'future orientation directly, while communication with friends could mediate the associations between peer affiliation and adolescent's future orientation.(4) In the domains of future education and occupation, comparing with exploration, the associations between parenting style, peer affiliation and adolescents'commitment were stronger, while the associations between communications with parents and adolescents'exploration were stronger. In the domain of future marriage/family, the associations between peer affiliation and commitment were stronger, while the association between communications with friends and exploration was stronger.(5) The impacts of father-adolescent communication and mother-adolescent communication on adolescents'future orientation varied by adolescents'gender. In brief, comparing with father-adolescent communication, more mother-adolescent communication predicted more positive development of male's future orientation concerning future education and occupation, and more positive development of female's future orientation concerning future occupation, while females who reported more communications with their fathers explored and committed more to future education as compared to males and as compared to females who perceived less communications.Study 2 explored the contributions of family and peer factors to future orientation among social disadvantaged adolescents. Measures used in Study 2 were the same with Study 1. Three sub-studies were designed in Study 2. In Study 2-a, 113 adolescents from poor urban families and 118 common adolescents for comparison were employed. In Study 2-b, 86 adolescents from single-parent families and 93 adolescents from intact families for comparison were employed. In Study 2-c, 69 migrant adolescents from rural areas to urban areas and 109 urban adolescents for comparison were employed. The main findings were as follows:(1) Some differences emerged between disadvantaged adolescents and common adolescents on some aspects of future orientation. Adolescents from poor families reported less commitment to future education and less optimism about future occupation and marriage/family than the comparison. Migrant adolescents reported less optimistic affects about future occupation, and reported more exploration and commitment to future marriage/family than the comparison. Adolescents from single-parent families reported more exploration and commitment to future occupation than those from intact families.(2) Family and peer factors had less effect on some aspects of future orientation among disadvantaged adolescents. Disadvantaged adolescents even reported more positive in the context of negative interpersonal context than common adolescents with the same context in some aspects of future orientation.The conclusions were as follows: (1) Microsystems of family and peer as a system influenced the development of adolescents'future orientation. (2) The effects of family and peers on adolescents'future orientation varied according to the specific life domain. (3) Specific mechanism of the development of future orientation existed among disadvantaged adolescents. (4) The development and mechanism of adolescents'future orientation in contemporary China showed cultural uniqueness.This dissertation project was the first design to explore the interpersonal mechanism of future orientation on the perspective of developmental system among contemporary Chinese adolescents. The findings and conclusions that drew on this dissertation project played an important role on the constructing theoretical model of future orientation and the education on life-span planning.