ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Psychol.
Sec. Human Developmental Psychology
This article is part of the Research TopicThe Power of Relationships in Human Development: From Prenatal Bonding to Attachment Across the LifespanView all 13 articles
Perceived parental relationship quality and adolescent conscious bias: Important links between affect, agency, gender, and race/ethnicity
Provisionally accepted
- 1University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, United States
- 2University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Lincoln, United States
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
Qualtrics online panel data from 702 18-year-old youth to explore the direct and indirect effects of perceived parent-adolescent relationship quality on youths' conscious bias towards individuals facing socioeconomic or minority-related challenges. The data encompassed responses regarding parental relationship quality, negative affect, human agency, gender, race/ethnicity, attitudes towards those experiencing economic hardship, and acknowledgment of minority adversities. The findings revealed that strong parent-teen bonds indirectly influenced conscious bias through psychosocial well-being. However, while negative emotions were universally influential, the impact of human agency varied depending on gender and race/ethnicity. This underscores the necessity for a more comprehensive understanding of human agency as personal empowerment, considering gendered socialization practices and cultural nuances across different racial/ethnic groups. Additionally, there's an important need to integrate diversity, equity, and inclusion principles into parental education initiatives.
Keywords: adolescents, Parenting, attitudes, Prejudice, minority, Human agency, Bias
Received: 09 Jun 2025; Accepted: 29 Oct 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Terrell, Merten and Wickrama. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Michael Merten, michael.merten@unl.edu
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.