Possible Relationship Between Sense of Coherence and Adolescents’ School Adaptation Through Empathy and Parenting: A Moderated Mediation Model

Abstract

Recent research has shown that internal factors are important predictors of adaptation, but little research has studied the relationship between a sense of coherence and school adaptation. The present study examined the mediating and moderating mechanisms underlying this relationship. A total of 1,072 middle students completed self-report questionnaires assessing their sense of coherence, fathers’ and mothers’ parenting, empathy, and school adaptation. The results indicated that a sense of coherence was positively associated with school adaptation. A mediation analysis indicated that empathy mediated the relationship between a sense of coherence and school adaptation. Furthermore, both the effect of a sense of coherence on school adaptation and the effect of a sense of coherence on empathy were moderated by positive parenting. The present study contributes to a better understanding of how and when a sense of coherence promotes adolescents’ school adaptation.

Keywords

sense of coherence empathy parenting school adaptation

Introduction

From early childhood to college, school adaptation is crucial to an individual’s academic performance and well-being (Shoshani & Slone, 2013). School adaptation refers to the degree to which students become comfortable, engaged, and successful in the school environment and is the result of interactions between students and school activities and the school environment (Cui, 2008; Ladd, Kochenderfer, & Coleman, 1997). School adaptation is especially important for early adolescents as they are experiencing a critical transition period from elementary school to middle school and face many significant changes and potential challenges (Gollner et al., 2017). First, interpersonal relationships during adolescence are more complicated than those of childhood, and this change can result in some difficulties with adaptation for many adolescents. One issue is that, after entering middle school, their close friends may be placed in different classes so that they have less contact with each other (Wigfield, Lutz, & Wagner, 2005). In this situation, adolescents may have less support from friends, making them more likely to feel lonely (Benner, 2011). A further problem is that many adolescents perceive that their teachers are less warm and caring. They feel less supported by their teachers, so the teacher-student relationship declines (Wigfield et al., 2005). Second, after entering middle school, adolescents tend to have low academic self-efficacy. Many of them cannot accurately assess their own learning ability, and their academic motivation decreases (Wigfield et al., 2005).

Based on these significant challenges, adolescent in the middle schools are more likely to have school adaptation difficulties. Previous studies revealed that inadequate school adaptability can lead to school conduct problems, poor academic performance, inattention, less responsibility for others, and a lower eagerness to learn (Walters, 2018). Furthermore, students who cannot adapt well to school are more likely to have aggressive antisocial behaviors (Wallinius et al., 2016), whereas students who have good school adaptation show a better attitude toward school and academic engagement (Lopez, Gutierrez, & Ruiz, 2018). They are also more satisfied with life and less likely to feel lonely (Cava, Buelga, & Musitu, 2014). Therefore, school adaptation is conducive to adolescents’ successful completion of their studies and promotes their mental health. Thus, studying school adaptation has important theoretical and practical significance.

The organism-environment interaction model states that the dynamic interactions between internal factors and external environmental factors contribute to a person’s adaptation (Lerner, Lerner, Almerigi, & Theokas, 2006). As a type of adaptation, school adaptation may also be affected by the interaction between internal factors and the external environment. A large number of studies have shown that students’ school adaptation is related to both internal factors, such as personal personality characteristics, and external factors, such as family, peers, and the school environment (e.g., Melchers et al., 2016; Xia et al., 2015). However, previous scholars have placed less emphasis on how the internal (or external) factors that are closely relevant to adolescence relate to school adaptation as well as on the conditions under which the associations between internal (or external) factors and school adaptation will be stronger in adolescent students. With regard to how, some internal individual personality variables and their interactions may have an effect on an individual’s adaptation. In the present study, we focused on two variables that are closely related to adolescence and school adaptation: sense of coherence, which is defined as a global orientation that expresses the extent to which one has a universal, enduring, and dynamic sense of confidence (Antonovsky, 1993), and empathy, which refers to the ability to understand other people’s thoughts and emotional states from the perspective of others and produce consistent emotional responses that generate a feeling of sympathy or concern for others (M. H. Davis, 1983). Although previous research showed that adolescents with a high sense of coherence and empathy are more inclined to integrate into school (Chow, Ruhl, & Buhrmester, 2013; Garciamoya, Rivera, & Moreno, 2013), the effect of a sense of coherence and empathy on school adaptation as well as the possible mediating mechanism is unknown.

With respect to the conditions under which the associations between internal (or external) factors have a stronger association with school adaptation, we included parenting, the most important external factor into our theoretical model. Parenting refers to all child-rearing behaviors and strategies that affect a child’s behavior (Nardi, 1998). When it comes to adolescence, the relationship between adolescents and their parents normally changes, the adolescents tend to keep a distance from their parents and have more relationships, such as peer relationships and romantic relationships (Collins & Laursen, 2004). This could mean that parenting is not the decisive factor affecting the psychological development of adolescents. However, as an important external factor, parenting still plays a role in promoting or hindering individual development (Claes, Luyckx, Baetens, De Ven, & Witteman, 2015). That is, parenting may play a moderating role in the process of individual development. Accordingly, we expect that parenting may moderate the effects of a sense of coherence on school adaptation.

In brief, the current study integrated a sense of coherence and empathy with parenting into a model and explored the interaction effects of internal factors and external factors on school adaptation. In the following section, we first introduce our theoretical framework, from which we derived hypotheses about the associations between a sense of coherence, empathy, parenting, and school adaptation.

Theoretical Framework and Hypothesis Development

Sense of Coherence and School Adaptation

In early adolescence, a sense of coherence is essential for an individual’s subsequent development. To articulate the role of sense of coherence in the development of school adaptation in adolescence, we borrowed some insights from Erikson’s theory. According to Erikson, the main task in adolescence is to form an ego-identity. The formation of an ego-identity plays a positive role in subsequent development, including promoting adaptive ability (Aburayya, Aburayya, White, & Walker, 2018; Erikson, 1968). In addition, adolescents establish their ego-identity by means of exploration and experimentation during a crisis that is characterized by great physical and social changes. In this process, internal resources play an important facilitating role (Manning, 1988; Marcia, 1983). An adequate sense of coherence, which is an important internal resource, provides internal support for individuals coping with stress and crisis events (Antonovsky, 1993). A higher sense of coherence may be able to solve related issues in the formation of identity (Luyckx, Schwartz, Goossens, & Pollock, 2008). Thus, the higher the level of the sense of coherence in adolescents, the more sufficient the internal resources to cope with crises and to promote the establishment of an ego-identity. That is, a sense of coherence may be a prerequisite for establishing an ego-identity. Based on this theory, the development of a sense of coherence during adolescence may contribute to the subsequent development of an ego-identity and related variables affected by the ego-identity.

A sense of coherence is an effective resource for promoting school adaptation. Having a high sense of coherence helps individuals cope with stress, protects them from the detrimental effects of stressors on health, and promotes school adaptation (Feldt, Leskinen, Kinnunen, & Ruoppila, 2003; Garciamoya et al., 2013). Adolescents with a high sense of coherence perceive events at school as understandable and manageable and thus experience less school-related stress (Torsheim, Aaroe, & Wold, 2001). Evidence from research about school life has demonstrated that a sense of coherence is closely related to adolescents’ global health, which is also a significant indicator of school adaptation. The greater the sense of coherence the adolescents had, the better the global health they reported (Garciamoya et al., 2013). Combining the findings from the school life reviewed above, we came up with the first hypothesis:

Hypothesis 1: Sense of coherence is positively associated with school adaptation.

Mediating Role of Empathy

Empathy develops quickly during adolescence. Adolescents are in the formal operational stage of life; cognitive abilities develop during this period and people become able to understand other perspectives from a third-person perspective (C. M. Davis, 1990). This ability is an indicator of the development of empathy. In other words, adolescence appears to be a critical period for the development of empathy.

During this time of rapid development, empathy begins to play an important mediating role in adolescents’ social abilities. Research has proved that the internal psychological constructs of an individual can be transformed into external behavior through the mediation of empathy (e.g., Johnson, Olivo, Gibson, Reed, & Ashburnnardo, 2009). Thus, empathy may be a mediator of the effects of some internal constructs (i.e., sense of coherence in the current study) on externalized performance (i.e., school adaptation in the current study). In addition, some evidence from related fields may also indicate the mediating role of empathy in the relationship between sense of coherence and school adaptation.

First, a sense of coherence is likely to be a significant predictor of empathy. As stated above, a sense of coherence during adolescence may contribute to the subsequent development of an ego-identity and related variables associated with the ego-identity, such as empathy (Smits, Doumen, Luyckx, Duriez, & Goossens, 2011). Furthermore, empirical research showed that the development of positive empathy is facilitated by the ability to invoke and perceive positive emotions and that the development of this ability benefits from a high sense of coherence (Cai, Zhang, & Li, 2013; Light et al., 2009). More directly, previous studies have demonstrated that the higher the sense of coherence, the greater the empathy (Palsson, Hallberg, Norberg, & Bjorvell, 1996). Based on the above review, it is reasonable to suppose that a sense of coherence could positively promote empathy.

Second, empathy is also closely related to an adolescent’s adaptation. The development of empathy enables adolescents to put themselves in others’ shoes and find the root causes of interpersonal conflicts, so that they can find better ways to solve conflicts, thus promoting school adaptation (Chow et al., 2013). Similarly, empathetic adolescents show greater intimacy skills, resulting in closer friendships, which are crucial for school adaptation (Chow et al., 2013). Furthermore, students with high levels of empathy have more positive interactions in school, which could significantly contribute to a student’s overall adaptation to school (Melchers et al., 2016). In line with the literature described above, it is reasonable to expect a significant relationship between empathy and school adaptation.

In conclusion, the above discussion indicates that the sense of coherence is likely to affect empathy as well as that empathy can promote harmonious interpersonal relationships and thus affect school adaptation in adolescents; thus, empathy is likely to be a mediating variable between the sense of coherence and school adaptation. Based on this, we hypothesized:

Hypothesis 2: Adolescents’ sense of coherence positively promotes empathy.

Hypothesis 3: Empathy is positively associated with adolescents’ school adaptation.

Hypothesis 4: Empathy mediates the relationship between a sense of coherence and school adaptation.

Moderating Role of Parenting

Although a sense of coherence may affect empathy and school adaptation, this effect may differ between individuals. According to the organism-environment interaction model, adolescents’ adaptation is affected by the interaction between internal factors and the external environment (Lerner et al., 2006). As an important external factor that promotes or hinders individual psychological development, it is important to explore the moderating effect of parenting on school adaptation.

In previous literature, Arrindell et al. (1999) divided parenting into three dimensions: rejection, overprotection, and emotional warmth. Following Arrindell et al. (1999), Jiang, Lu, Jiang, and Xu (2010) retained these three dimensions while adapting them to fit the Chinese culture. Specifically, emotional warmth refers to parents’ encouragement, praise, and closeness to their children; rejection is a parenting behavior in which parents criticize, abuse, and punish their children; and overprotection refers to excessive worry and anxiety about the safety of the child (Arrindell et al., 1999; Jiang et al., 2010). Furthermore, because both parental rejection and overprotection have negative aspects that are detrimental to children’s development, Lian, You, Huang, and Yang (2016) combined rejection and overprotection into negative parenting in their research and used emotional warmth to represent positive parenting and then explored the role of positive and negative parenting in students’ mental health problems.

In addition to the different dimensions, there are differences in the parenting of fathers and mothers. In terms of parenting behavior, mothers express more positive emotions toward their children, while fathers show less warmth in parenting than mothers (Conrade & Ho, 2011). In terms of their impacts on a child, a father’s positive parenting seems to be more important for the development of perspective-taking abilities, while a mother’s positive parenting is more important for the development of empathic concern (Miklikowska, Duriez, & Soenens, 2011). Therefore, although father’s and mother’s parenting have a common effect on the individual in many cases, based on these findings, it is necessary to discuss the role of fathers’ and mothers’ parenting separately.

Studies have already shown that different kinds of parenting have different effects on individuals. In the previous literature, positive parenting promoted the development of empathy (Padillawalker & Christensen, 2011). However, inadequate parenting is more likely to have an adverse impact on a child’s development. For example, children who experience negative parenting have difficulty forming a sense of identity and adapting to school (Mccoy, George, Cummings, & Davies, 2013). For the effects on adaptation, Xia et al. (2015) demonstrated that appropriate parenting promotes school adaptation. However, negative parenting may lead to adolescents’ problem behavior.

From the perspective that internal factors interact with external factors, researchers have also found significant interaction effects between sense of coherence and parenting on various psychological constructs. For instance, the sense of coherence could affect social skills together with the mother’s positive parenting (Hosokawa, Katsura, & Shizawa, 2017). Research has also demonstrated that the interaction between a sense of coherence and proper parenting could promote the social adaptation of migrant children (Li, 2014). However, negative parenting is related to lower family cohesion, which is, in turn, negatively related to a student’s sense of coherence and can lead to emotional problems (Sharabi, Levi, & Margalit, 2012). Therefore, the effect of a sense of coherence on some related outcome constructs can be expected to be moderated by parenting. Specifically, the two paths that are related to the sense of coherence including that from the sense of coherence to empathy and that from the sense of coherence to school adaptation in the current study may be moderated by parenting. Combining the fact that different roles should be played by fathers and mothers, we hypothesized:

Hypothesis 5: Although there may be some differences in the individual paths of the moderation model, both mothers’ parenting (Hypothesis 5a) and fathers’ parenting (Hypothesis 5b) should moderate the association between the sense of coherence and empathy and the association between the sense of coherence and school adaptation.

The Current Study

Using an adolescent student sample, this study integrated sense of coherence, parenting, empathy, and school adaptation into a model: we first tested the direct effect of the sense of coherence on school adaptation and then examined whether empathy was a potential mediator of the relationship between the two variables. We included parenting to determine whether the direct and indirect relationships between sense of coherence and school adaptation through empathy would vary as functions of parenting. This approach can address both the mediating (i.e., how a sense of coherence could promote adolescents’ school adaptation) and moderating (i.e., under which conditions the effect of sense of coherence is most potent) mechanisms underlying the association between the sense of coherence and school adaptation. However, as mentioned above, even with the same parenting, the effects of a father’s parenting and a mother’s parenting on an individual’s psychological development differ (e.g., Miklikowska et al., 2011). To explore specific moderating effects, we investigated whether the direct and indirect relationships between the sense of coherence and school adaptation via empathy would vary depending on the father’s or the mother’s positive or negative parenting. Figure 1 illustrates the conceptual model.

Figure 1.

Hypothesized model.

Method

Participants

The participants came from middle schools of Shaanxi Province, China. All students from Grade 7 to Grade 9 were invited to participate in the survey. In total, we collected 1,092 samples. After removing the participants whose missing values exceeded 10% or who did not fill in the entire scale, a total of 1,072 valid participants were obtained (518 boys and 554 girls, mean age = 13.84, SD = 1.12). Of the participants, 626 were from cities and 446 were from rural areas. Among them, 43%, 31%, and 26% of the total households were in the low economic income (<50,000 RMB), middle-income range (50,000-100,000 RMB), and high economic income (>100,000 RMB), respectively. With respect to the parents’ education, 68% of the fathers and 65% of the mothers had received more than 9 years of education with the remainder having had fewer than 9 years.

Measures

Sense of coherence

The sense of coherence perceived by the students was assessed by an adapted version of the Sense of Coherence scale, which has been found to be of satisfactory reliability and validity in a Chinese context (Bao & Liu, 2005). The original scale is developed by Antonovsky (1993). This scale consists of 13 items (e.g., Do you often have very complex, mixed feelings and thoughts?); each item is rated on a 7-point Likert-type scale, ranging from 1 = always to 7 = never. After reverse scoring the negatively stated items and summing across all the scale items, higher scores indicated a greater sense of coherence. Cronbach’s α coefficient for the whole scale was .87 in the current study.

Empathy

The Chinese version of the Interpersonal Reactivity Index-C was used to assess students’ empathy, which was adapted from the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (M. H. Davis, 1983; Zhang, Dong, Wang, Zhan, & Xie, 2010). The scale consists of 14 items (e.g., I often have tender and caring feelings for those less fortunate than me); each item is rated on a 5-point scale, from 1 = not at all to 5 = completely suitable. After reverse scoring the negatively stated items and summing all the items, the higher the score, the higher the empathy. Cronbach’s α coefficient was .79 in the current sample.

Parenting

Parenting was measured with the Chinese version of the short-form Egna Minnen Betraffande av Barndoms Uppfostran scale (Jiang et al., 2010), adapted from the version developed by Arrindell (Arrindell et al., 1999; Jiang et al., 2010). The scale consists of 42 items, including three subscales: rejection (12 items, a sample item is “My father or mother often treats me in a way that makes me embarrassed”), overprotection (16 items, a sample item is “I hope my father or mother doesn’t worry too much about what I’m doing”), and emotional warmth (14 items, a sample item is “I can tell from my father’s or my mother’s words and expressions that he or she loves me very much”). Each item is answered on a 4-point Likert-type scale ranging from 1 = never to 4 = always. The students rated the items for both their fathers and mothers. The final score was calculated by averaging the item scores, the higher the score, the higher the degree of the corresponding dimension. Among them, emotional warmth was representative of positive parenting, and rejection and overprotection were representative of negative parenting (Lian et al., 2016). In the current study, the Cronbach’s α coefficients were as follows: fathers’ positive parenting = .89, fathers’ negative parenting = .78, mothers’ positive parenting = .92, mothers’ negative parenting = .82.

School adaptation

We measured the students’ school adaptation using the Chinese version of the School Adaptation Scale (Cui, 2008). It is a 27-item rating scale; each item of which is assessed using a 5-point scale that ranges from 1 = not at all to 5 = completely suitable. Items such as “I will finish my homework carefully” are included in the scale. After reverse scoring the negative items and summing the item results, a high score indicates high school adaptation. Cronbach’s α coefficient for the whole scale was .93 in the current study.

Covariates

In addition to the above variables, we also included information about whether adolescents live with their parents (yes or no) and if their parents worked outside the cities (yes or no).

Procedure

The study was conducted in the students’ middle schools. During the survey, an administrator informed the participants that the data would be kept confidential and instructed them about how to complete the questionnaires. The participants were also informed that their participation was voluntary and could be withdrawn at any time without any negative impact. Then they completed the questionnaire in a quiet environment to avoid being affected by external factors. The current study was conducted with the consent of both the parents and the participants and approved by the Committee on Ethics of Research in Humans of the institute for which the authors work.

Data Analysis

First, in the preliminary analysis, we used SPSS 20.0 to test the correlation between the variables. Second, to verify whether the hypothesis model was appropriate, we established several relevant models by interchanging the positions of the hypothesis model variables and then used PROCESS macro to test and compare the goodness of fit of these models. Previous studies revealed that whether adolescents live with their parents and whether their parents worked outside the cities might be expected to affect school adaptation (Alswat, Alshehri, Aljuaid, Alzaidi, & Alasmari, 2017; Su, Li, Lin, & Zhu, 2017). Therefore, both variables were coded as dummy variables (0 = yes, 1 = no) and were included in the subsequent analyses as covariates. According to Hagquist and Stenbeck (1998), R ² can be used to assess the goodness of fit of a linear regression model; the higher the R², the better the model fits the data. So, we used R² to compare the models to determine the one that best fit the data. Third, after selecting the best model, we used the PROCESS macro (Model 4), which provides bootstrap estimates of indirect effects with bias-corrected confidence intervals, to test the mediating effect. This macro test of the mediation effect based on a bootstrapping method produced 95% bias-corrected confidence intervals for the indirect effect from 5,000 resamples of the data. If the confidence interval did not include zero, the indirect effect was considered statistically significant. Then, the PROCESS macro (Model 8), which allowed us to calculate the direct and indirect effects of the independent variable on the dependent variable simultaneously, was conducted to investigate whether this mediation process was moderated by parenting. For descriptive purposes, this study plotted and predicted the independent variable against the dependent variable, separately for the low (1 SD below the mean) and high (1 SD above the mean) levels of the moderators. Confidence intervals that did not include zero meant that the moderation was statistically significant.

Results

Assessment of Common Method Variance

To control for response bias, the adolescents completed the questionnaire about parenting separately for their fathers and mothers. We first distributed a booklet including the father’s parenting subscale and other questionnaires. After the participants completed the booklet, we collected the booklets and then distributed the subscale about the mother’s parenting.

We used Harmen’s one-factor test to examine the common method variance. An exploratory factor analysis was performed on all the variables. If the number of factors extracted is greater than one and if the variance contribution rate of the first factor does not exceed 40%, it is generally considered that there is no common method variance. In the present study, the results showed that when more than one factor was extracted, the first factor accounted for only 18.13% of the variance, indicating that there was no common method variance in this study.

Descriptive Statistics

Means, standard deviations, and correlations for all variables are presented in Table 1. Preliminary analyses indicated that school adaptation was positively correlated with a sense of coherence and empathy. Moreover, sense of coherence, empathy, and positive parenting were positively correlated with each other, while negative parenting was significantly negatively correlated with a sense of coherence, empathy, and school adaptation.

Table 1.

Descriptive Statistics and Correlations for the Main Variables.

	M	SD	1.	2.	3.	4.	5.	6.
1. SOC	58.24	13.86
2. EMP	52.69	8.33	.36***
3. SA	113.16	16.85	.52***	.41***
4. FPP	2.99	0.74	.30***	.32***	.46***
5. FNP	1.85	0.43	−.18***	−.14***	−.26***	−.32***
6. MPP	3.23	0.75	.31***	.31***	.39***	.50***	−.19***
7. MNP	1.94	0.49	−.23***	−.13***	−.23***	−.22***	.47***	−.37***

Note. SOC = sense of coherence; EMP = empathy; SA = school adaptation; FPP (MPP) = father’s (mother’s) positive parenting; FNP (MNP) = father’s (mother’s) negative parenting.

***

p < .001.

Model Comparison

To validate the hypothesized model, we established several competing models. First, based on the hypothesized model (M0), to test which variable was more suitable as an independent variable, we established five additional models by changing the positions of each variable included in the hypothesized model: M1, which exchanged the positions of sense of coherence and empathy on the basis of M0; M2, in which school adaptation was the independent variable, empathy was the mediating variable, and sense of coherence was the dependent variable; M3, which exchanged the positions of school adaptation and empathy on the basis of M2; M4, in which school adaptation was the independent variable, sense of coherence was the mediating variable, and empathy was the dependent variable; and M5, which exchanged the positions of school adaptation and sense of coherence on the basis of M4. Then we compared the R² of the independent and mediation variables acting on the dependent variable. Since the R² here reflects the model fit of the relationship between the independent variable and the mediation variable to the dependent variable, the results for M0 and M1, M2 and M3, and M4 and M5 should be the same. The results showed that the R² for M0 and M1 was .330, M2 and M3 was .294, and M4 and M5 was .202. From this result, we concluded that M0 and M1, in which school adaptation was the dependent variable, were better than the other models.

After determining that school adaptation is the most appropriate dependent variable, we needed to explore which variable was more suitable as an independent variable of sense of coherence and empathy, so we compared the R² reflecting the model fitting of the relationship between the independent variable and the mediation variable in M0 and M1. The results showed the R² of sense of coherence as the independent variable in M0 was .135; the R² of empathy as the independent variable in M1 was .132. That means that, although the difference is not particularly large, when school adaptation was the dependent variable, sense of coherence was more appropriate as the independent variable and the hypothesis model was the best model. Then we conducted the subsequent analyses based on the hypothesized model.

Sense of Coherence and School Adaptation

We used linear regressions to test Hypothesis 1 and found that a sense of coherence was positively associated with school adaptation (b = .51, SE = 0.03, t = 19.54, p < .001). Thus, the data showed that the higher the level of sense of coherence, the better the school adaptation. Therefore, Hypothesis 1 was supported, that is, a sense of coherence was positively related to adolescents’ school adaptation.

Mediation Analysis of Empathy

We expected that empathy would mediate the relationship between sense of coherence and school adaptation and used Hayes’s (2013) PROCESS macro to examine our hypothesis. The results revealed that a sense of coherence was positively related to empathy (b = .36, SE = 0.03, t = 12.46, p < .001, 95% CI = [0.300, 0.412]) and that empathy was positively associated with adolescents’ school adaptation (b = .26, SE = 0.03, t = 9.51, p < .001, 95% CI = [0.203, 0.309]). In addition, the residual direct effect of sense of coherence on school adaptation was still significant (b = .42, SE = 0.03, t = 15.62, p < .001, 95% CI = [0.368, 0.473]). The above results supported Hypotheses 2 and 3. Furthermore, the bias-corrected percentile bootstrap method showed that the indirect effect of sense of coherence on school adaptation via empathy was significant (b = .09, SE = 0.01, 95% CI = [0.065, 0.120]). The empirical 95% CI did not include zero, indicating that empathy mediated the association between sense of coherence and school adaptation, which supported Hypothesis 4.

Moderating Effects of Parenting

We used a moderated mediation analysis with PROCESS to further examine the effects of parenting on the relationships between sense of coherence, empathy, and school adaptation. Specifically, we tested the moderating effect of parenting on (a) the association between sense of coherence and adolescents’ school adaptation and (b) the association between sense of coherence and empathy. According to Preacher, Rucker, and Hayes (2007), moderated mediation would be established if the interaction between sense of coherence and parenting was significant and the bootstrapped confidence intervals did not contain zero.

The results are shown in Table 2. The interaction between sense of coherence and father’s positive parenting as well as that between sense of coherence and mother’s positive parenting had significant effects on empathy. Similarly, the interaction between sense of coherence and father’s positive parenting as well as that between sense of coherence and mother’s positive parenting had significant effects on school adaptation. The interactions between sense of coherence and either father’s or mother’s negative parenting styles were not significant. Then we further investigated the significant moderating effects separately. The results partially support Hypothesis 5.

Table 2.

Moderated Mediation Effects of the Sense of Coherence on School Adaptation (N = 1,072).

Regression equation		Fitting index			Significance of regression coefficient
Outcome variable	Moderate variable	R	R ²	F	β	SE	t	BootLLCI	BootULCI
EMP	SOC × FPP	.44	.20	43.04***	0.10	0.03	3.82***	0.051	0.158
	SOC × FNP	.38	.14	29.64***	−0.05	0.03	−1.75	−0.105	0.006
	SOC × MPP	.43	.18	39.71***	0.08	0.03	2.79**	0.023	0.129
	SOC × MNP	.37	.14	28.18***	−0.02	0.03	−0.69	−0.070	0.033
SA	SOC × FPP	.64	.41	107.30***	−0.10	0.02	−4.41***	−0.150	−0.058
	SOC × FNP	.60	.36	83.89***	0.03	0.02	1.41	−0.014	0.083
	SOC × MPP	.61	.37	88.84***	−0.07	0.02	−3.07**	−0.121	−0.027
	SOC × MNP	.59	.34	79.59***	0.04	0.02	1.80	−0.004	0.087

Note. Bootstrap sample size = 5,000; LL = low limit; UL = upper limit; CI = confidence interval; EMP = empathy; SOC = sense of coherence; FPP = father’s positive parenting; FNP = father’s negative parenting; MPP = mother’s positive parenting; MNP = mother’s negative parenting; SA = school adaptation.

**p < .01, ***p < .001.

To further examine the moderating effects, we used simple slope tests to explore the effect of sense of coherence on school adaptation at different levels of positive parenting. The association between sense of coherence and empathy was stronger for the father’s high level of positive parenting and the mother’s high level of positive parenting than those for a low level of father’s positive parenting and a low level of mother’s positive parenting (see Table 3 for details).

Table 3.

The Effects of the Sense of Coherence on School Adaptation at Different Levels of Positive Parenting (N = 1,072).

	Level	Model 1 (empathy as the outcome variable)					Model 2 (school adaptation as the outcome variable)
		Effect	SE	t	95% CI		Effect	SE	t	95% CI
		Effect	SE	t	LL	UL	Effect	SE	t	LL	UL
FPP	Low	0.18	0.04	4.26***	0.095	0.256	0.47	0.04	13.19***	0.398	0.537
FPP	High	0.38	0.04	9.99***	0.309	0.460	0.26	0.03	7.55***	0.192	0.327
LWP				−0.24	−0.217	0.171			−0.65	−0.221	0.110
FOW				1.37	−0.043	0.239			0.23	−0.106	0.134
MOW				0.52	−0.166	0.285			1.89	−0.007	0.378
MPP	Low	0.21	0.04	4.94***	0.124	0.288	0.45	0.04	12.25***	0.382	0.528
MPP	High	0.36	0.04	9.39***	0.283	0.433	0.31	0.03	8.81***	0.239	0.376
LWP				−0.29	−0.224	0.167			−0.76	−0.239	0.105
FOW				1.30	−0.048	0.235			−0.21	−0.138	0.111
MOW				0.08	−0.217	0.237			1.02	−0.096	0.304

Note. CI = confidence interval; LL = low limit; UL = upper limit; FPP = father’s positive parenting; LWP = whether living with parents; FOW (MOW) = whether father (mother) work outside the home; MPP = mother’s positive parenting.

***

p < .001.

In the path from sense of coherence to school adaptation, the association between sense of coherence and school adaptation was stronger for a low level of father’s positive parenting and a low level of mother’s positive parenting than those for a high level of father’s positive parenting and a high level of mother’s positive parenting (see Table 3 for details).

The results of conditional direct and indirect effects of sense of coherence on school adaptation showed that the indirect effect was stronger at a high level of the father’s positive parenting (b_{ind eff} = .08, SE = 0.01, 95% CI = [0.050, 0.106]) and a high level of the mother’s positive parenting (b_{ind eff} = .08, SE = 0.01, 95% CI = [0.052, 0.109]) than at a low level of father’s positive parenting (b_{ind eff} = .03, SE = 0.01, 95% CI = [0.015, 0.058]) and a low level of mother’s positive parenting (b_{ind eff} = .05, SE = 0.01, 95% CI = [0.021, 0.074]). These results indicated that both the relationship between the sense of coherence and empathy and the relationship between the sense of coherence and school adaptation were moderated by positive parenting.

Discussion

The current study used moderated mediation to analyze the mechanism underlying the relationship between a sense of coherence and school adaptation and the moderating role of parenting. First, we examined the possible relationship between a sense of coherence and school adaptation. As expected, a sense of coherence appeared to promote school adaptation. In earlier documents, researchers revealed that students with a high sense of coherence received more support from teachers and classmates and that they have a harmonious school environment so that they can better adapt to school (Garciamoya et al., 2013). Also, previous studies found that a sense of coherence seems to promote school adaptation by reducing the stress that students face in school (Chu, Khan, Jahn, & Kraemer, 2016). Specifically, individuals with a high sense of coherence have appropriate cognitive and behavioral strategies that enable them to adapt to difficult situations (Mowlaie, Mikaeili, Aghababaei, Ghaffari, & Pouresmali, 2017). Therefore, students with a high sense of coherence can adopt positive strategies for solving the difficulties encountered in school and can better adapt to the school environment. This finding supported our Hypothesis 1 and extended the existing research by showing that a sense of coherence was positively related to school adaptation.

Second, this study found that a sense of coherence was positively associated with adolescent empathy, which in turn is positively related to adolescent school adaptation. That is, empathy mediated the association between sense of coherence and adolescents’ school adaptation. As expected, students with a high sense of coherence may better understand the emotions and needs of others from the perspective of those others, which helps students have harmonious interpersonal relationships, promoting school adaptation. These findings support Hypotheses 2, 3, and 4. In addition to the overall mediation results, the relationship between a sense of coherence and empathy and the relationship between empathy and school adaptation are noteworthy. For the first path of the mediation process (i.e., sense of coherence to empathy), our findings confirmed that a high sense of coherence is related to greater empathy. Palsson et al. (1996) explained that individuals with a high sense of coherence will better understand the problems of others and thus have greater empathy in interpersonal relationships. In light of the present study, adolescents with a high sense of coherence seem likely to view their school environment as comprehensible, which, in turn, could promote their better understanding of others and enable them to develop empathy. For the second path of the mediation process (i.e., empathy to school adaptation), this study revealed that empathy was positively associated with school adaptation. This finding is consistent with previous studies showing that empathy is positively related to personal adaptation (Jenkins, Demaray, & Tennant, 2017). As Blanke, Rauers, and Riediger (2016) suggested, better empathy and higher positive feelings and emotions help individuals adapt to the environment. So highly empathetic students can have a positive experience when communicating with teachers and classmates, and they are likely to adapt to school well.

Finally, we examined the moderating effect of parenting on the indirect relationships between sense of coherence and school adaptation through empathy. We found interesting results that showed that the path between sense of coherence and empathy was stronger for adolescents who have parents with a high level of positive parenting, while the path between sense of coherence and school adaptation was stronger for adolescents with parents who have a low level of positive parenting. The results indicated that internal factors such as a sense of coherence would not necessarily lead to an equal level of school adaptation. According to Brofenbrenner’s (1977) bio-ecological systems theory, as one of the most important components of a microsystem, parenting plays an important role in children’s growth. In terms of the role of internal factors, researchers found that parenting moderates the relationships between internal factors in order to integrate internal factors and promote individual mental health (Chen et al., 2014). In this study, positive parenting can strengthen the positive role of a sense of coherence in empathy so as to integrate individual internal psychological factors. That is, when parents adopt a high level of positive parenting, sense of coherence plays a greater role in empathy.

Interestingly, our results indicate that, with respect to the effects of internal factors on external factors, positive parenting may be complementary to the development of internal factors. In our study, a sense of coherence and positive parenting may play complementary roles in the development of school adaptation. When the parenting is more positive, the sense of coherence plays a smaller role in school adaptation. The organism-environment interaction model states that internal and external dynamic interactions contribute to individual adaptation (Lerner et al., 2006). In other words, an individual’s adaptation is related to both internal and external factors, rather than a single factor, and the co-promotion effect of internal and external factors is not static but dynamic. Based on the findings of the current study, when adolescents receive high levels of positive parenting, they should have sufficient resources for adapting better to school (Xia et al., 2015). That means the higher level of parenting can be expected to provide a more positive external environment for adolescents so that they can adapt well to school and not need to mobilize more internal resources such as a sense of coherence to cope with adaptation problems. That is to say, when the external environment resources are sufficient (e.g., a more positive parenting), school adaptation becomes less sensitive to internal resources such as the sense of coherence, and as a result the association between a sense of coherence and school adaptation is weak. Thus, the role of the sense of coherence in school adaptation is weakened when parents have a high level of positive parenting. The opposite is true for adolescents with low levels of positive parenting. These results partially support Hypothesis 5

We also found some unexpected findings. Neither the father’s nor the mother’s negative parenting moderated the association between sense of coherence and empathy or the association between sense of coherence and school adaptation. This result could be explained by the compensatory model theory. According to this theory, protective factors could weaken negative factors (Fergus & Zimmerman, 2005). In this study, sense of coherence, empathy, and school adaptation are all positive factors. When they have sufficient positive resources, including sense of coherence, which could promote empathy and school adaptation, adolescents should not be as susceptible to negative effects whether they have high or low level of negative parenting. Therefore, the moderating effect of negative parenting was not significant.

Implications and Limitations

The important theoretical and practical implications of this research cannot be ignored. A theoretical implication is that we extended previous studies on school adaptation by confirming that adolescents who have a high sense of coherence can adapt to school well. We also found that positive parenting moderated the relationship between the sense of coherence and empathy and the relationship between the sense of coherence and school adaptation. To the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first attempt to explore the relationship between a sense of coherence and school adaptation from the perspective of internal and external interactions. This can enrich and improve on previous research in the field of school adaptation. As to practical implications, our findings confirmed that empathy mediated the relationship between the sense of coherence and school adaptation. Thus, school adaptation will be easier when adolescents and parents take empathy into consideration and take measures to promote empathy. In addition, parents should pay attention to the important role of positive parenting in children. Being active in daily life and giving their children positive feedback are important. Training the internal qualities of children is equally important.

This study also has some limitations that should be taken into account. First, this study is a cross-sectional study, which prevents making casual inferences. Future studies could use longitudinal studies to examine the effects of the mechanisms between a sense of coherence and parenting on school adaptation. Second, parenting differs in different cultural backgrounds. This study was only concerned with parenting in the current Chinese culture. Whether the current research results are applicable to other cultures is not known. Cross-cultural research should be performed in the future. Finally, all of the data come from the self-reports of adolescents; it would be beneficial to use multiple methods of assessment in future studies. Although this study has some limitations that can be resolved in future studies, it reveals the influencing factors of school adaptation and provides important guidance for promoting students’ school adaptation.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Drs. Rhoda E. and Edmund F. Perozzi for their English language assistance on this paper.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This research was supported by the National Social Science Fund of China (Grant No. 19XSH010).

ORCID iD

Dou Jin

Author Biographies

Dou Jin is a master degree candidate in the School of Psychology, Shaanxi Normal University. Her current research interests are social cognition and social emotion.

Yanling Bi is a professor in the School of Psychology, Shaanxi Normal University. Her current research interests are social emotion and behavioral decision making.

Miao Yan is a master degree candidate in the School of Psychology, Shaanxi Normal University. Her research interests is adolescent mental health.

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