Parenting Style, Basic Psychological Needs, and Emotional Creativity: A Path Analysis

Abstract

This study examined the relationship between parental styles and emotional creativity and investigated the mediating role of the fulfillment of basic psychological needs in this relationship. The population included 3372 undergraduate students, among whom, 375 (177 females and 198 males) were selected by multi-stage cluster sampling method. The respondents filled in three questionnaires as follows: 1) the Emotional Creativity Inventory (ECI), 2) the Parents as Social Context Questionnaire (PSCQ), and 3) the Basic Psychological Needs Scale (BPNS). A path analysis showed that the components of parenting style could predict students’ emotional creativity. In detail, the warmth and structure styles of parenting positively and the coercion and chaos styles of parenting negatively predict emotional creativity of students. The dimensions of autonomy and competence (of satisfying the basic psychological needs) had a mediating role between parenting style and emotional creativity. These results showed the importance of factors (parenting style and basic psychological needs) influencing emotional creativity of students. A greater focus on satisfying the dimensions of basic psychological needs (i.e. autonomy and competence) and proper parenting style (i.e. warmth and structure styles) could lead to a higher level of creativity among students.