Prediction Of Teaching Behavior And Psychological Capital On Adolescents’ Mental Health

The development of positive psychology lead to a dual-factor approach in combining subjective well-being(SWB)and psychopathology for a more comprehensive understanding of mental health.Psychological capital(PsyCap)and teaching behaviors(TB)are focus of latest research as to their impact on adolescents’mental health indicators.In our cross-sectional study we investigated 760 Chinese middle school students from grades 7 and 8 on self-report scales as to their spread on four mental health groups in a dual-factor model(complete mental health,vulnerable,symptomatic but content,and troubled).The four groups differed significantly in PsyCap,as well as in instructional(IB),socio-emotional(SEB),and organizational behavior(OB).As predictors PsyCap,followed by the two subscales of positive teaching IB and OB respectively,showed the strongest prediction on the outcome variables SWB and psychopathology.PsyCap significantly moderated the relationship of negative teaching and psychopathology,in particular externalizing symptoms.As another main finding,PsyCap proved to be a partial mediator between positive teaching and psychopathology,and totally mediated the relationship of positive teaching and SWB.No mediating effect was found for negative teaching.Practical implications relate to education and intervention approaches for facilitating adolescents’mental health,screening programs,and resource management.