Impact of adolescents' filial self-efficacy on quality of family functioning and satisfaction

In this prospective study, we tested a structural model in which adolescents' perceived self-efficacy to manage parental relationships affected their satisfaction with family life both directly, and indirectly, through its impact on family practices. Findings based on 380 Italian adolescents showed that perceived filial self-efficacy was linked directly and indirectly to satisfaction with family life, and that these relations held both concurrently and longitudinally. In particular, the greater adolescents perceived their self-efficacy, the more they reported open communication with their parents, the more accepting they were of their parents' monitoring of their own activities out-side the home and the less inclined they were to get into escalative discord over disagreements. Regardless of whether perceived filial self-efficacy was placed in the conceptual structure as a contributor to the quality of family interactions or as a partial product of family functioning, it consistently predicted satisfaction with family life. Copyright © 2005, Society for Research on Adolescence.