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Life satisfaction is key indicator of psychological well-being, a central component of positive psychology, and an important correlate of positive development. Concurrent and predictive validity of global and domain-specific life satisfaction reports were explored with respect to social success within the classroom, peer rejection, and externalizing behavior problems. The Brief Multidimensional Students' Life Satisfaction Scale (BMSLSS), which yields an overall subjective life satisfaction score in addition to five domain-specific satisfaction scores (family, friends, self, school, living environment), was administered to a sample of 198 3rd through 8th grade students in an urban public school in a northeastern U.S. city during the fall of 2008 (Time 1) and spring 2009 (Time 2). A friendship survey was also administered at both time points; peer nominations from these surveys were used to calculate individual peer acceptance and peer rejection scores, as well as to identify classroom social networks and students' salience within them. Data were also collected on individual disciplinary incidents throughout the year resulting in a total number of office discipline referrals (ODRs) for each student. Given the abundance of literature suggesting that low levels of self-reported life satisfaction are linked to poor social and behavioral outcomes, it was expected that subjective satisfaction ratings would demonstrate an inverse relationship with peer rejection and disciplinary referrals, and a positive relationship with social success, as measured by peer acceptance and social network centrality. At Time 1, in contrast with the hypothesis, none of the domain-specific or global life satisfaction variables were found to demonstrate any significant relationships with peer rejection or acceptance. However, as expected, Time 1 social network centrality demonstrated a small but significant correlation with satisfaction with self and a moderate correlation with satisfaction with friends. This relationship remained significant with respect to satisfaction with friends and Time 2 social network centrality, but decreased in magnitude. Regression analyses revealed that Time 1 life satisfaction variables were not able to predict a significant portion of the variance in any of the established outcome variables. This research was limited by its use of a single school with a homogenous student population; nevertheless, it provides an exploratory look into the potential of subjective life satisfaction profiles to serve as a screening tool for identifying students that may benefit from targeted social or behavioral interventions. Future research should examine this potential with larger and more diverse samples of students. / School Psychology

Doctor of Philosophy / Department of Special Education, Counseling and Student Affairs / Judy Hughey / Assessment of parenting stress and child acting-out behavior was measured via pretest and posttest over the length of a seven-session parenting program, the Becoming a Love and Logic Parent program (BLLP). All participants (n=86) were randomly placed in either a seven-session BLLP program group (n=56) or placed on a waitlist (n=30) and offered the BLLP program following the completion of the posttest. The BLLP program is a widely used parenting program with limited data available as to the effectiveness of the program. The data that are available utilizes the Becoming a Love and Logic Parent Before and After Questionnaire. A measurement tool designed specifically to measure the BLLP program. This study utilized two measurement tools widely used to evaluate parenting programs, the Parenting Stress Index/Short Form (PSI/SF) and the Eyberg Child Behavior Inventory (ECBI), in hopes of providing data that can be compared to other parenting programs. Levels of parenting stress were measured with a widely used index, the PSI/SF. The PSI/SF provides a Total Stress (TS) score and scores from three scales measuring different aspects of parenting stress: Parental Distress (PD), Parent-Child Dysfunctional Interaction (P-CDI), and Difficult Child (DC). Child acting-out behavior was measured with the ECBI. The ECBI measures disruptive child behavior using two scales: Intensity scale and a Problem scale. The intensity scale provides information regarding the frequency of certain acting-out behaviors, and the problem scale provides information as to whether or not parents view that particular behavior as problematic. All participants were parents or caregivers of elementary school students from a large suburban school district near Kansas City, Missouri. The group was homogenous in nature and had higher income and education levels than the average for the district and state, making it difficult to generalize finding from the study. Due to time and space limitations and attrition, the sample size of the study was small (n=86), which likely contributed to the outcome of the study. The six hypotheses were not supported in this study. Though a decrease in parenting stress occurred for both treatment group and control group participants, there was not a statistically significant difference between the two groups on any of the PSI/SF scales. Child acting-out behavior also decreased for both the treatment group and the control group; however, there was not a statistically significant difference between the two groups. Further study on the effectiveness of the BLLP program is recommended.