The Role of Value Orientations in Psychological Well-being of Adolescents: Structural Modeling Results

The study is aimed at identifying the contribution of value orientations to the psychological well-being in older adolescents. The structural modeling method (SEM) tested hypotheses about the relationship between subjective well-being, various personal characteristics and value orientations. The study involved 2647 students of professional educational organizations aged 16 to 19 years (mean age=17±1 years, median=17 years), of which 734 people (28%) were female, 1913 were male. Subjective well-being was measured using WHO-5 Well-Being Index and Ryff Scale of Psychological Well-Being. To assess personal characteristics, the Muddy hardiness test, the Tromsø Social Intelligence Questionnaire, and the BPAQ Bass-Perry Aggressiveness Questionnaire were selected. To study value orientations, Schwartz Value Survey was used. Modeling results show that values content and interrelations not only do not contribute to subjective well-being, but are also an "extra" component. The best model (TLI=0,90; SRMR=0,04; GFI=0,95; RMSEA=0,05) shows that the main contribution to the subjective well-being of a person is made by the degree of correspondence between the value orientations of the individual and the reference group (in the country, environment, etc.): if ideas about what values should be coincide with those a person has, then his/her subjective well-being increases.