The Relationship Between Filial Piety and the Academic Achievement and Subjective Wellbeing of Chinese Early Adolescents: The Moderated Mediation Effect of Educational Expectations

Abstract

A successful student has been defined as one who not only performs well in academics but is also happy. Hence, how to promote adolescents’ academic success and wellbeing is an important issue with which researchers have been concerned. A few studies have explored the relationship of filial piety to the academic achievement or life satisfaction of Chinese adolescents. However, in view of the close relationship between the two outcomes, the unique effects of filial piety on academic achievement and subjective wellbeing and their underlying mechanisms need to be further clarified. Based on a sample of 677 students in Grade 6 (Mage = 12.24, SD = 0.36) and their parents in Beijing, China, this study examines how adolescents’ reciprocal filial piety (RFP) and authoritarian filial piety (AFP) are related to their academic achievement and subjective wellbeing. It also examines the mediating role of adolescents’ educational expectations in these relationships, and the moderating role of parents’ educational expectations in the relationships of adolescents’ filial piety to educational expectations and of adolescents’ educational expectations to academic achievement and subjective wellbeing. The results indicate that, when the two outcome factors are considered simultaneously, RFP is positively related to academic achievement and subjective wellbeing. In contrast, AFP is negatively related to academic achievement but not significantly related to subjective wellbeing. Moreover, adolescents’ educational expectations play a mediating role in the relationships of both RFP and AFP to academic achievement and subjective wellbeing. In addition, the positive effect of adolescents’ educational expectations on subjective wellbeing is stronger when mothers’ educational expectations are higher, supporting the moderating role of parents’ educational expectations. Our findings provide new insights into and implications for the moderated mediation mechanism underlying the links between filial piety and early adolescent development.

An ideal sense of self: Proposition of holistic self and holistic mindset from the unique anthropological–sociocultural perspective of life and death education.

“…Collectivism, in contrast, imparts collectivist thinking, whereby individual attainment (e.g., enrollment in medical school) is simply not for one's own self-gratification. Existing literatures often associate the position of collectivism with the theoretical concept of "filial piety" (W. W. Chen & Ho, 2012;Chow & Chu, 2007;Guo et al, 2022;Tam, 2016), which emphasizes the importance of family values, social relationships, and fulfillment of dutiful obligations.…”

“…Existing literatures often associate the position of collectivism with the theoretical concept of “filial piety” (W. W. Chen & Ho, 2012; Chow & Chu, 2007; Guo et al, 2022; Tam, 2016), which emphasizes the importance of family values, social relationships, and fulfillment of dutiful obligations.…”

Impact of filial piety on residents’ subjective well-being in China considering the moderating effect of income level

“…The filial piety, which has been formed in China for a long time, has a significant impact on residents' SWB. [5][6][7] Since Confucius established the connotation of filial piety as "serving parents well," filial piety has been promoted by the ruling class, demonstrated by the intellectual class, and practiced by the general public in the long traditional society. [8] In the modern China, most of studies focus on how filial piety should be adapted to the status and value concepts of modern people.…”

“…[9] Yuan analyzed relationship between intergenerational co-residence and the SWB of elders based on the individual-level panel data collected from the Chinese Longitudinal Healthy Longevity Survey from 2002 to 2014. [6] Guo et al [7] uncovered the relationship of filial piety to the academic achievement or life satisfaction of Chinese adolescents. If we only discuss how to adapt traditional ethics to modern life, the value of filial piety will only be retained at a negative level.…”

The interdependence of happiness and filial piety within the family: a study in Vietnam

“… Yan and Chen (2018) focused on studying the relation between filial piety and life satisfaction of 481 Taiwanese college students and confirmed that both RFP and AFP had a positive association with life satisfaction. Research by Guo et al (2022) on middle school students and their parents about the relationship between RFP and AFP showed that RFP was positively correlated with school achievement. On the other hand, AFP was found to be negatively correlated with academic achievement, but not correlated with children’s perceived happiness.…”