Family Processes, Parenting Practices, and Psychosocial Maturity of Chinese Youths: A Latent Variable Interaction and Mediation Analysis

Abstract

Development of psychosocial maturity has profound implications for youths’ well-being and positive development in the long run. Nevertheless, little research has investigated the way family socialization contributes to youths’ psychosocial maturity. Both the concepts of family socialization and psychosocial maturity are multifaceted and latent, which may lead to biased results if studied by manifest variables. Also, no existing research has discovered how different family socialization components interact latently to contribute to youths’ psychosocial maturity. The current study, based on a sample of 533 Chinese parent-youth dyads, examined the effects of family socialization by positive family processes and authoritative parenting, and their latent interaction in an integrated moderation and mediation modeling framework on Chinese youths’ psychosocial maturity. Results showed that both positive family processes and authoritative parenting, and their latent interaction significantly predicted the higher psychosocial maturity of Chinese youths. Authoritative parenting acted as a mediator for the relationship between positive family processes and Chinese youths’ psychosocial maturity. Furthermore, the mediating effect of authoritative parenting was conditioned by different contexts of positive family processes, the strongest and least strong effects found in high and low positive family processes, respectively, and moderate effect observed in medium positive family processes. Findings of the current study contribute to our understanding of the complicated family mechanism in relation to youth development, especially in this digital era.

More Similar to My Father, Better Academic Performance I Will Have: The Role of Caring Parenting Style

“… 69 And some studies, conducted in China, found that both warmth and control are beneficial and more conducive to improving children’s academic performance. 70 , 71 Maybe, the different definition of the parental control could account for the controversy. As suggested by Liu et al 49 the present study referred the control parenting as parents’ neglect and rejection, which has a negative correlation with the academic performance.…”

“…27,72 However, this research found parental control had a negative impact on the academic performance, which is inconsistent with some previous studies in Eastern Culture. [69][70][71] Chao found that Chinese American adolescents from strictness without warmth families reported the better academic achievement. 69 And some studies, conducted in China, found that both warmth and control are beneficial and more conducive to improving children's academic performance.…”

“…It is noting that this research demonstrated greater parental care and lower control related with adolescent higher academic performance, which was in line with results conducted in the previous studies. [66][67][68] In fact, the benefits of greater caring are found both in the Eastern Culture [69][70][71] and in the Western Culture. 27,72 However, this research found parental control had a negative impact on the academic performance, which is inconsistent with some previous studies in Eastern Culture.…”

“…57,72 Many studies demonstrated that the strictness could promote children's academic performance in the Chinese cultural context. [69][70][71] Thus, the controversy was not essential.…”

Perfectionism, Self-Esteem, and the Will to Win Among Adolescent Athletes: The Effects of the Level of Achievements and Gender

“…Adolescents spend a considerable amount of their free time with their peers as parental influence decreases (Ridao et al, 2021). Adolescence is not always the same in all cultural contexts, being differences between European and Anglo-Saxon countries compared to Eastern Societies (Yeung, 2021), especially for athletes (Sun et al, 2020). However, parents always remain as an important source of support to their children (Gallarin and Alonso-Arbiol, 2012).…”