Degree

Master of Science (MS)

Department

Psychology

Document Type

Thesis

Abstract

The aim of the current study was to extend the understanding of the well-being of adolescents and to further information on the psychological relationships between wellbeing, spiritual health, intersectionality, and Westernization. A total of 315 students from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette were recruited via SONA to participate in a study entailing of a five-part online survey through Qualtrics, and 301 respondents in total were measured. The survey measured five aspects of each participant’s health through the perspective of their adolescent selves; well-being, spiritual health, subjective socioeconomic status, and their perception of their race/ethnicity and gender. Well-being is a variable that will be defined by five domains, as introduced in the definition offered by Kern et al. (2016). The domains being engagement, perseverance, optimism, connectedness, and happiness. Kern et al. (2016)’s EPOCH Measure of Adolescent Well-being will be utilized to measure this variable. Spiritual health will be measured utilizing the Junior Spiritual Health Scale, developed by Francis et al. (2011). This scale measures the four defined relational domains in spiritual health; personal (relationship with self), communal (relationship with other people), environmental (relationship with the environment), and transcendental domain (relationship of the self with something or someone beyond the human level). The transcendental domain is the most complex, defined by a sense of trust, faith, adoration, or worship with something at the heart of the universe. Multiple linear regressions were conducted to examine the significance of the relationships between spiritual health and well-being, each demographic variable and well-being, and the interaction between these five variables. Results revealed significant relationships between spiritual health and adolescent well-being, and subjective socioeconomic status and adolescent well-being. The remainder of the results yielded non-significance; it will be noted that this does not deter the existing evidence for the hypotheses and their relations with adolescent well-being, especially for minority students. Results may also indicate that an alternative psychological variable be sought in the future to further examine the effects of Westernization on adolescents’ psychological health via its interactions with these demographic archetypes.

Date

2-6-2026

DOI

https://proquest.com/docview/3347908914

First Committee Chair

Manyu Li

First Committee Member

Christie Charles

Second Committee Member

David Perkins

Third Committee Member

Joseph Salande

Fourth Committee Member

Mary Farmer-Kaiser

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Psychology Commons

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