Abstract
We investigated whether and how adolescents’ perceived parental psychological control and autonomy support influence their maladaptive academic functioning through their achievement goal orientations. Participants were 845 tenth-grade students (447 boys, Mage = 15.20 ± .54 years; 398 girls, Mage = 15.13 ± .47 years) in China. Data were collected on their reported achievement goal orientations, perceived parental psychological control and autonomy support, and academic-related beliefs, strategies, and behaviors. Bootstrapping with resampling strategies was used for testing multiple mediators’ model and examining mediation effect. Results indicated that, compared with girls, adolescent boys perceived higher parental psychological control. Moreover, we found distinct effects of parental psychological control and autonomy support on adolescents’ maladaptive academic functioning through achievement goal orientations. Specifically, parental psychological control led to adolescents’ maladaptive academic functioning, mainly through adolescents’ performance-approach goal orientation (.06, BC 95% CI [.03, .09]) and performance-avoidance goal orientation (.02, BC 95% CI [.01, .03]) rather than mastery goal orientation (-.00, BC 95% CI [-.01, .01]); while parental autonomy support reduced adolescents’ maladaptive academic functioning, mainly through their mastery goal orientation (-.02, BC 95% CI [.11, .19]) rather than performance-approach goal orientation (.01, BC 95% CI [-.01, .03]) and performance-avoidance goal orientation (.01, BC 95% CI [-.01, .02]). The results suggest that adolescents will benefit from parents ameliorating maladaptive academic functioning through fostering mastery goal orientations, and be harmed from parents facilitating maladaptive academic functioning through enhancing performance-approach and performance-avoidance goal orientations.
Highlights
Among the many constructs of parenting, psychological control and autonomy support have been the primary focus of many studies
Follow-up univariate analyses revealed that boys had higher scores on parental psychological control and maladaptive academic functioning (η2 = 0.00–0.02) than girls did
The results showed that parental psychological control was related significantly positively to students’ performance-approach goal orientation (PAP) (r = 0.27, p < 0.01), performance-avoidance goal orientation (PAV) (r = 0.22, p < 0.01), students’ maladaptive academic functioning (r = 0.29, p < 0.01), and not significantly to mastery goal orientation (MAS) (r = −0.01, p > 0.05)
Summary
Among the many constructs of parenting, psychological control and autonomy support have been the primary focus of many studies. Psychological control and autonomy support first appeared in the Children’s Report of Parental Behavior Inventory (Schaefer, 1965). Many scholars equated psychological control and the absence of autonomy support, computing one variable by Parenting and Adolescents’ Academic Functioning reversing the other (Gray and Steinberg, 1999). A bulk of evidence has indicated that parental psychological control is detrimental, while parental autonomy support is beneficial for children’s academic motivation and learning (e.g., Tynkkynen et al, 2012; Vasquez et al, 2016). This study investigated the relations between parental psychological control, autonomy support, and academic functioning in a sample of Chinese adolescents
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