Impact of Social Capital on the Psychological Well-Being of Adolescents

This study examines the impact of social capital and individual/family characteristics on the psychological well-being of 12- to 17-year-old adolescents in the United States. The data were provided by the National Survey of America’s Families (NSAF). In order to examine the abovementioned effects, social capital as well as individual/family characteristics are included using ordinary least squares (OLS) regression models. The findings are important since empirical validation of the theoretical relationship between social capital and individual/family characteristics, as well as the psychological well-being of adolescents, is not found in the literature. The concept of social capital in the literature is only elaborated as having three distinct dimensions (bonding, bridging, and linking), which suggests that further research using measurement models should focus on these dimensions in order to explore whether a more precise relationship can be discovered.

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