THE ROLE OF PARENTING STYLES AND SOCIAL MEDIAAFFINITY IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF ANTISOCIAL BEHAVIORS AMONG SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS

Cohesive and strong families are prone to develop physically and emotionally healthy individuals. The study examined the role of parenting styles; authoritative, authoritarian, permissive, and social media afnity in developing the three subtypes of antisocial behavior; Social Aggression (SA), Physical Aggression (PA), and Rule-Breaking Behavior among secondary school students. The study utilized 140 secondary school students between 18 and 19 years in Sri Lanka who lived with their parents and were in touch with social media. The data was collected through the Subtypes of the Antisocial Behavior Scale (STAB), Perceived Parenting Style Scale (PPSS), and social media afnity scale. The results of the study revealed that parenting styles and social media afnity had a relationship with Antisocial Behavior (AB). Furthermore, signicant predictors of SAwere authoritative and authoritarian parenting; PA was authoritarian parenting, and authoritative parenting predicted Rule-breaking behavior. Throughout the study, authoritative parenting results had a negative relation. The study exclusively found that permissive parenting and social media afnity did not impact AB development. Therefore, the study recommends that parents should endeavor to adopt an authoritative parenting style. The study contributes to authorities dealing with students with behavior problems to take necessary actions by building effective interventions/strategies.