Abstract
The present three-wave longitudinal study examined the contributions of indigenous personality traits and parenting style to life satisfaction in Chinese adolescents. Seven hundred and ten junior high school students (Mage = 11.39, SDage = 0.53; 53.2% girls) were administered self-report measures of personality, parenting styles, and life satisfaction in Grade 6. Data on life satisfaction were collected again in Grades 7 and 8, respectively. Latent growth model analyses indicated that life satisfaction decreased over time. Regression analyses showed that the initial level of global life satisfaction was positively predicted by personality factors of dependability and interpersonal relatedness; the slope of global life satisfaction was positively predicted by personality factors of emotional stability whereas negatively predicted by interpersonal relatedness. The initial levels and slopes of different domains of life satisfaction were predicted by personality factors and parenting styles to different extents. Meanwhile, paternal and maternal parenting styles had different effects on adolescents’ life satisfaction. The study provided valuable information about the contributions of indigenous personality and both paternal and maternal parenting styles to psychological adjustment in the Chinese context. The implications of the findings concerning the associations among personality, parenting styles, and life satisfaction were discussed.
Highlights
Life satisfaction reflects individuals’ subjective evaluations about their general satisfaction with the whole life (Diener et al, 1999)
The overall effects of time, gender, and their interactions on life satisfaction in three waves were examined through mixed repeated multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA)
Correlation results showed that, in general, social potency, dependability, emotional stability, interpersonal relatedness, and authoritative parenting style were positively correlated with life satisfaction
Summary
Life satisfaction reflects individuals’ subjective evaluations about their general satisfaction with the whole life (Diener et al, 1999). Among junior secondary school students, Xie et al (2016) reported positive relationships of emotional stability, dependability, and interpersonal relatedness to global life satisfaction They found that different domains of life satisfaction were predicted by different personality dimensions. Xie et al (2016) reported a positive link between authoritarian parenting style and school satisfaction in a group of Chinese adolescents In other contexts, such as Indonesian (e.g., Abubakar et al, 2015) and French (e.g., Gherasim et al, 2017) contexts, no significant relationship between authoritarian and life satisfaction was found. As for permissive parenting style, Xie et al (2016) and Lavricand Naterer (2020) reported that permissive parenting was positively associated with life satisfaction in Chinese adolescents and Romanian youths, respectively.
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