Facilitating Adolescent Well-Being: A Review of the Challenges and Opportunities and the Beneficial Roles of Parents, Schools, Neighborhoods, and Policymakers

Abstract

Adolescents face exceptional challenges and opportunities that may have a lifelong impact on their consumption and personal and societal well-being. Parents, community members (schools, and neighborhoods), and policymakers play major roles in shaping adolescents and influencing their engagement in consumption behaviors that are either developmentally problematic (e.g., drug use and unhealthy eating) or developmentally constructive (e.g., academic pursuits and extracurricular activities). In this paper, we discuss two main topics: (1) the challenges and opportunities that characterize adolescence, based primarily on research in epidemiology and neuroscience, and (2) the ways that parents, community members, and policymakers can facilitate positive adolescent development, based on research from many disciplines including marketing, psychology, sociology, communications, public health and education. Our goal is to summarize the latest scientific findings that can be used by various stakeholders to help adolescents navigate this turbulent period and become well-adjusted, thriving adults.

Openness Personality as a Mediator of the Influence Social Support Toward Subjective Well-Being

“…Low life satisfaction, lack of help, appreciation, and attention from the closest people or society, as well as more dominant negative affect such as depression, confusion, and symptoms of other mental health disorders are characteristics that adolescents tend to have low subjective well-being (Pechmann et al al., 2020) . This condition has implications for teenagers to commit deviant acts.…”