FLOURISHING AND SOCIAL RELATIONSHIPS DURING EMERGING ADULTHOOD IN SPAIN Parra, A., de la Fuente, R., Sánchez-Queija, I. & Díez,M. University of Seville. Seville, Spain Psychosocial flourishing is a recent conceptualization of social and psychological well-being. Flourishing is a combination of feeling good and working effectively. Individuals who are flourishing learn effectively, work productively, have better relationships, are more likely to contribute to their community, and have better health and life expectancy (Diener et al., 2009; Huppert, 2009) Social relationships, and specially, social support from friends and family, as well as romantic relationships, play an important role as predictor of positive development in emerging adulthood. In this way, these social relationships contribute to wellbeing and flourishing in this stage of development (O`Connor et al., 2011; Schulenberg et al., 2004) Emerging Adulthood is a period of instability and exploration in which young adult will probably have more distanced relationships with their parents than in previous years, and romantic partners will irrupt as important figures for their development. Regarding transition to adulthood Spain, it would be represented by the Mediterranean model (Scabini, Marta, & Lanz, 2006, p. 21; Parra et al, 2015), which is characterized by living in the family home until well over the age of twenty and leaving that home, generally, to live with a partner. This study pursues the research on emerging and adulthood in Spain, a non-Anglo-Saxon context which lacks of studies about it The main goal of this paper is to know if social relationships among emerging adults, particularly, the perceived social support from parents and friends and the quality of romantic relationship, have an effect on the psychological flourishing of a sample of Spanish emerging adults. SAMPLE Project: Transition to Adulthood in Spain (TAE) N = 278 young adults Age: 18 to 29 years of age (Mean 22.03; SD: 2.65) Sex: 70.9% female INSTRUMENTS Flourishing scale (Diener, Wirtz, Tov, et al., 2010) = .79 Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support (Zimet et al., 1988) family support =.86 friends support =.89 Experience of Close Relationship (ECR-R, short; Wei et al., 2007). anxiety = .60 avoidance =.50) Flourishing of young adults is positively related to the perceived social support of family and friends, and negatively related to the anxiety in romantic relationships. Flourishing related to sex: women showed higher levels of flourishing than men. Nevertheless, the regression equations showed that, once family support, anxiety in romantic relationships and friends support are included, sex ceased to be influential. Thus we may conclude that during emerging adulthood flourishing is closely linked to their social network, specifically to the family, romantic and friends relationships, in that order. Results Table 1. Pearson Correlations between Flourishing and Family support, Friends support , Anxiety and Avoidance in romantic relationship. Note: **p < .01 Table 2. Beta coefficients from multiple regression analyses Predictors Beta R2 Family support .33** 0.11 Family support / Anxiety -Attachment .31** -.17 0.14 Family support / Anxiety -Attachment / Friends support .28** -.15* .15* 0.16 Social Support Family Support Friends Support Anxiety /Attachment Avoidance /Attachment Flourishing .36** .33** .24** -.20** .05 Note: **p < .01; *** p < .001 BACKGROUND AIMS t (115,51) = -2.96**; Cohen’s d = .42 (Medium size) Method These first results point out the significance of social relationships for flourishing in Spanish emerging adulthood. It is especially important the family role. Family influence remains essential at these ages, contributing to flourishing more than peer support and romantic relationships. However, more research with larger samples is necessary to explain the factors determining flourishing during the emerging adulthood in diverse cultural contexts. Conclusion •Alonso-Arbiol, I., Balluerka, N. & Shaver, P.R. (2007) A Spanish version of the Experiences in Close Relationships (ECR) adult attachment questionnaire. Personal Relationships, 14, 45-63 •Arnett, J. (2000). Emerging Adulthood: A theory of development from the late teens through the twenties. American Psychologist, 55, 469-480. •Diener, E., Helliwell, J., Lucas, R. & Schimmack, U. (2009) Well-being for Public Policy. USA: Oxford University Press. •Diener, E., Wirtz, D., Tov, W., Kim Prieto, C., Choi, D. W., Oishi, S., & Biswas Diener, R. (2010). New wellbeing measures: Short scales to assess flourishing and positive and negative feelings. Social Indicators Research, 97(2), 143-156 •Huppert, F. A. (2009). Psychological well-being: Evidence regarding its causes and consequences. Applied Psychology: Health and Well-being, 1, 137–164. •Parra, A., Oliva, A., & Sanchez-Queija, I. (2015). Development of emotional autonomy from adolescence to young adulthood in Spain. Journal of Adolescence, 38, 57–67. •O’Connor, O. M., Sanson, A., Hawkins, M. T., Letcher, P., Toumbourou, J. W., Smart, D., Vassallo, D., Olsson, C. A. (2011). Predictors of positive development in emerging adulthood. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 40, 860–874. •Schulenberg, J., Bryant, A. & O`Malley, P. (2004). Taking hold of some kind of life: How developmental tasks relate to trajectories of well-being during the transition to adulthood. Development and Psychopathology, 16(4), 799-806 •Zimet, G. D., Dahlem, N. W., Zimet, S. G., & Farley, G. K. (1988). The multidimensional scale of perceived social support. Journal of personality assessment, 52(1), 30-41 References Corrrespondence to:
[email protected] Osuna University School. Campo de Cipreses, 1. Apdo. 152 C.P. 41640 Osuna, Sevilla (Spain) This work was supported by grant from the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (EDU 2013-45687-R)
