关键词: 家庭社会经济地位, 自我效能感, 家庭支持, 性别, 青少年

Abstract: Self-efficacy is the core concept in social cognitive theory. It refers to the belief in one’s ability to achieve goals. Self-efficacy has significant influence on individual’s attributional style, motivation, and behavior as well as school and job performance. In accordance with the family stress model, economic hardships and pressures for the family with low socioeconomic status can exacerbate child and adolescent maladjustments. Low self-efficacy is one of the maladjustments and empirical studies repeatedly confirm that family socioeconomic status (FSES) consistently predicts adolescent’s self–efficacy in various countries. Although many studies have focused on the direct association between FSES and self–efficacy, little is known about the underlying mediating mechanism (i.e. how FSES influences self–efficacy) and moderating mechanism (i.e. for whom the influence would be stronger). According to the family stress model, the influence of FSES on adolescent maladjustment is primarily through parents’ interpersonal conflict and disrupted parenting. Empirical studies also find that parents of low FSES are worse in parental involvement, emotional warmth and understanding for their children. Meanwhile, social support is closely related to self-efficacy for adolescents. Therefore, this study hypothesized that family support could mediate the link between FSES and self-efficacy. In addition, the adverse impacts of low FSES is stronger for girls due to son preference tendency in China. And there is a decline of parents’ gender inequalities along with family economic growth. Therefore, this study further hypothesized that gender could moderate the relationship between FSES and family support. To test the hypotheses, the present study constructed a moderated mediation model to examine the effect of FSES on self–efficacy for adolescents. Specifically, the present study examined the mediating role of family support in the relation between FSES and self–efficacy of adolescents, and tested whether the indirect effect was moderated by gender. A sample of 520 high school students completed a battery of self–report questionnaires measuring their FSES, self–efficacy, family support, and gender. All the measures showed good reliability and validity in this study. Data were analyzed using SPSS 23.0, Mplus 8.1 and the SPSS macro PROCESS. The results were as follows: (1) FSES was positively correlated with family support and self-efficacy, and family support was also positively correlated with self-efficacy; female adolescents were higher in family support while lower in self-efficacy comparing with the male counterparts; no difference was found in FSES between male and female adolescents. (2) FSES significantly exerted direct effect on self–efficacy; and there was indirect effect on self–efficacy through the mediation of family support as well. (3) The indirect effect of family support was moderated by gender, and the effect was stronger for female adolescents. The study highlighted the mediating role of family support and the moderating role of gender in the effect of FSES on self–efficacy. It contributes to a better understanding of the effects as well as its paths and conditions of FSES on self–efficacy of adolescents. Moreover, it also provided some constructive suggestions for protecting and improving self–efficacy of adolescents from family of lower socioeconomic status.

Key words: family socioeconomic status, self–efficacy, family support, gender, adolescents