Chinese Parental Involvement and Adolescent Learning Motivation and Subjective Well-Being: More is not Always Better

The Impact of Academic Achievement and Parental Practices on Depressive Symptom Trajectories Among Chinese Adolescents

“…Consequently, Chinese parents tend to focus their educational involvement, autonomy support, and psychological control on their children's learning achievements more than do their Western counterparts (Cheung & Pomerantz, 2011 ; Wang et al, 2007 ). They also devote substantial time and energy to children's learning (Li et al, 2020 ), such as checking children's homework against their will. Influenced by these cultural norms, Chinese adolescents may perceive parental control and involvement as an expression of love and care (Cheung & McBride-Chang, 2008 ; Cheung & Pomerantz, 2011 ).…”

“…In modern Chinese society, however, being the subject of high levels of parental psychological control is considered detrimental to children's and adolescents' psychological well-being and social-emotional development (Cheung & Pomerantz, 2011 ; Li et al, 2020 ). Moreover, given that adolescents strive for autonomy and independence (Smetana & Daddis, 2002 ), a lack of parental autonomy support may exacerbate adolescents' depressive symptoms (Liu & Merritt, 2018 ).…”

“…Even though the low-increasing profile might be considered less maladaptive than the high-stable profile, this finding may indicate that, for some adolescents, higher levels of autonomy-granting work out adversely to some extent. A potential explanation is that these adolescents feel that their parents give them too much autonomy or that their parents expect them to independently take decisions about issues that are not age-appropriate (Li et al, 2020 ; Ryan & Deci, 2017 ). They may feel alone in coping with these decisions or tasks, which may trigger depressive symptoms over time.…”

“…A potential explanation for this non-significant finding may be that the items used in our study reflect parents' investment in children's learning, which may measure the quantity rather than the quality of educational involvement (Cheung & Pomerantz, 2015 ). Parents can be highly involved in their adolescents' academics: for example, buying learning materials for their children (i.e., high quantity); however, some such parents can also be relatively critical or demanding, possibly increasing adolescents' stress and hence their depressive symptoms (Li et al, 2020 ). Other parents who show high levels of educational involvement may provide high-quality feedback or positively stimulate their children and affirm their academic competence.…”

Associations of hedonic and eudaimonic orientations with subjective experience and objective functioning in academic settings: The mediating roles of academic behavioral engagement and procrastination

“…Unsurprisingly, students who engaged more in academic activities achieved better performance (Chase et al, 2014;van Rooij et al, 2017). Active participation in study and better achievement also satisfied students' basic psychological needs (Wang et al, 2019), thus, eliciting positive emotions and decreasing negative emotions (Datu and King, 2018;Li et al, 2020). In contrast, extensive research has demonstrated that procrastination is generally maladaptive, with a wide range of consequential outcomes.…”