The Relation of Parental Attitudes to Life Satisfaction and Depression in Early Adolescents: The Mediating Role of Self-esteem

The purpose of this study is to determine whether self-esteem in adolescence has a mediator role in the relationship between parental attitude and life satisfaction and depression. Data was collected from 360 secondary school students ages ranging from 11 to 14 (M = 12.67, SD=.97) out of which 216 of them were female and 144 male. The Satisfaction with Life Scale, Children's Depression Inventory, The Self Esteem Scale, and The Parental Attitudes Scale were administered in the study. Structural equality modeling was used to analyze the data. Data were analyzed using measurement and structural models (a two-step modeling method) thus artificial factors were produced for each scale matching the item counts. As a result, the confirmatory analysis confidence intervals led to acceptable levels. Complete and partial models were tested for structural modeling. The consistency values of all three models led to satisfactory levels. The results indicated that while self-esteem in early adolescents has a partial mediator role in authoritative parental attitude and in life satisfaction and depression; however, no mediator role was found in accepting parental attitude and in life satisfaction.