Reported father involvement and indicators of subjective well-being in transition to adulthood

ABSTRACT

This study examined the possibility of predicting the indicators of adolescents’ subjective well-being (satisfaction with life and frequency of positive and negative experiencing) based on the reported father involvement, which was the reason for verifying the factor structure and examine the psychometric properties of the Slovak version of the Reported Father Involvement Scale (R-FIS) in adolescents. The research sample consisted of 400 students (290 girls), aged 15 to 18 years (M = 16.51, SD = 1.06). Regarding the Slovak version of the R-FIS, the results of the reliability (McDonald’s ω) estimation were acceptable. The CFA (using polychoric correlations, DWLS method) results supported the 1-factor structure of the scale, which was used in further analyses. The results of the analyses confirmed our expectations, since the father involvement, when controlling for the intervening variables (gender, age, and cohabitation with the father), proved to be one of the significant predictors of subjective well-being indicators.

KEYWORDS:

• Father involvement
• subjective well-being
• adolescents
• the Reported father involvement scale

Acknowledgments

We thank all the schools and students for participating in this study.

This article was supported by VEGA grants: VEGA 1/0719/20: The role of the father in the social, cognitive and emotional development of the child in the current society; Specifics of the transition to adulthood in the context of goals and selected personality variables and their impact on the subjective well-being of young adults.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

Data, analysis script, supplementary tables and descriptions are available at the OSF (in the text of the manuscript we provide a link where it is not possible to identify the authors; https://osf.io/xctsw/?view_only=96bb836679fa408fbee0da4bb357553b).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Vedecká Grantová Agentúra MŠVVaŠ SR a SAV [1/0719/20].

Notes on contributors

Martina Semešiová

Martina Semešiová is a PhD. student of Psychology in the Department of Psychology, Faculty of Arts at the Pavol Jozef Šafárik University in Košice. With a focus on developmental psychology.

Beáta Ráczová

Beáta Ráczová is anassociate professor and Vice-Dean for Education of Faculty of Arts,University of Pavol Jozef Safarik in Košice, Slovakia. PreviouslyHead of Department of Psychology, Faculty of Arts, UPJŠ in Košice.Her research interests include the topic of perception and experienceof developmental transitions and the implementation ofself-regulation within these transitions.

Peter Babinčák

Peter Babinčák is aprofessor at the Institute of Psychology, Faculty of Arts, Universityof Prešov. His research interests include the subjective quality oflife from both an individual and family perspective, as well as theissue of fatherhood and the role of fathers in a child’s well-being.