The role of perceived parenting styles in thinking styles

Abstract

The main objective of this study was to explore the relationships between parenting styles and thinking styles after controlling for students' gender, academic major, and socioeconomic status. Three hundred and forty-one university students from mainland China responded to the Thinking Style Inventory — Revised II and the Parenting Style Index, and provided a range of demographic information. Results indicated that the dimension of parental acceptance/involvement was positively associated with students' creativity-generating styles (known as Type I thinking styles) and styles that could be either creativity-generating or norm-conforming (known as Type III thinking styles). Moreover, in terms of the specific types of parenting styles, students who perceived their parents as using the neglectful parenting style had significantly lower scores in Type I thinking styles than students who perceived their parents as using the other three parenting styles (authoritative, authoritarian, and indulgent). Implications and limitations of this study were discussed.