The Impact of Parenting on the Development of Adolescents' Future Orientation

An important developmental task of adolescence & young adulthood is to think about & set future hopes, goals, & expectations. In this pilot study the future orientation of Hungarian youngsters (N = 145; mean age: 21.4 years) was explored in relation to parental education. Subjects filled in the short version of the Future-Orientation Questionnaire (Nurmi, Poole, & Seginer, 1995). Our results showed that subjects mentioned most frequently hopes related to education, future work, future family, friends & occupations. Regarding fears, they mostly gave descriptions of future work, family, their own health status & self-relevant issues. The different aspects of future-orientation, ie, contents, time extension, & control were also analyzed. The interrelation between these aspects revealed that subjects are able to control those goals (hopes & fears) that are closer to the present in time. Realizing goals related to the more distant future always include more uncertainty. Only a few gender differences were observed in the aspects of future orientation. The main objective of the study was to reveal the role of parenting dimensions in the formation of future-orientation. The results clearly show that hopes & fears relating to the family are the most important issues where parenting dimensions play a key role. The lack of a conflict-ridden family atmosphere & consistent parenting attitudes are considered to produce a pervasive effect on future-orientation. Other aspects of future-orientation, like education & future work, are supposed to be influenced by other socializing influences, eg, school & peer relationships. 3 Tables, 2 Figures, 32 References. Adapted from the source document.