Virtues, Psychological Problems, and Resilience Among Orphan and Non-orphan Adolescents

Abstract

Introduction: Due to parental deprivation orphan adolescents undoubtedly deserve to be considered an at-risk population. Character strengths help individuals thrive. However, there is a dearth of studies that explore character strengths in orphan adolescents compared to those done on non-orphan adolescents. The objectives of the present study were are (a) to explore the interaction of gender (male and female) and group (orphan and non-orphan) on virtues; (b) to explore whether gender and virtues predict psychological problems and resilience among orphan and non-orphan adolescents. Material and Methods: A purposive sample of 300 orphan and 300 non-orphan adolescents, both boys and girls, in the age group 12–17 years were recruited for the present study. The participants completed self-report measures of psychological problems, character strength, and resilience. Results: Two-way ANOVA main effect results revealed that females were higher on virtues such as courage, justice, temperance, and transcendence; non-orphan adolescents were higher on all the virtues compared to orphan adolescents. Interaction effect revealed that non-orphan adolescent boys had higher scores in virtues including, wisdom and knowledge, courage, humanity, temperance, and transcendence than other counterparts apart from the virtue justice. Multiple linear regression analyses revealed that orphan girls positively predicted psychological problems, while non-orphan girls negatively predicted resilience. Humanity negatively predicted psychological problems and positively predicted resilience in orphan adolescents. Temperance negatively predicted psychological problems and positively predicted resilience in non-orphan adolescents. Conclusion: The results of the present study revealed that distinct virtues predict psychological problems and resilience in the expected direction. Also gender influences both psychological problems and resilience. Further research should focus on developing interventions based on virtues for promoting positive adaptation among both orphan and non-orphan adolescents.