School Children's Attributions of Intentions for Parental Behaviors: Development of a Measure.

The present study developed a new scale to measure children's attributions of intentions for parental behaviors. The scale has 180 items (18 intentions that children may use to explain why parents perform each of 10 parental behaviors), and was administered to 1973 Chinese students (age range = 9-16 years; M = 12.5, SD = 1.70; 1024 boys and 949 girls). Using half of the sample, 10 exploratory factor analyses were conducted (variance accounted for ranged from 64.24% to 73.32%, M = 69.9%), each on the 18 items associated with one of the 10 parental behaviors. Four factors with eigenvalues over one emerged. The items associated with two of the 10 stimulus behaviors were selected to form a short version. Using the other half of the sample, confirmatory factor analyses on the short version were conducted and provided further support for the four-factor structure. Concurrent validity was assessed by correlations with parental psychological and behavioral control, and gender, age, and grade of the respondents. Test-retest reliability was assessed among 159 of the respondents over a one-month separation.

An exploratory study on school children's intent attributions for parental structuring behaviors.

This paper begins by proposing a theory-driven, two-dimensional model of children's intent attributions for parental structuring behaviors. The two dimensions are parent-centered intents vs child-centered intents and instrumental goals vs social-emotional goals. These two dimensions imply four categories of intent attribution for parental structuring behaviors. An exploratory study was conducted to examine school children's intent attributions for parental structuring behaviors. Responses in the four proposed categories were observed. Additionally, two new categories emerged from the data: parental structuring behaviors for the sake of the parents' intangible benefits and parental structuring behaviors for the sake of social interests. Research implications of these findings are discussed.

Correlates of identity statuses among Chinese adolescents in Hong Kong.

This study investigates correlates of Hong Kong Chinese adolescents' identity statuses with (i) parental and school contexts and (ii) major psychosocial developmental outcomes. Data were collected from 1260 Secondary 2-4 (equivalent to Grades 8-10 in the US school system) students through a questionnaire survey. Results of hierarchical regression analysis indicated that parental attributes of acceptance, values and goals, and psychological control, and school contextual factor of task orientations predicted identity achievement, whereas parents' acceptance, psychological and firm control, and teacher's support predicted identity foreclosure. Regarding the impact on psychosocial development, another series of regression analyses revealed that (i) identity achievement predicted low depression, high self-esteem, and high self-efficacy; (ii) moratorium predicted low self-esteem; and (iii) foreclosure predicted high self-efficacy. Overall, the findings shed light on adolescent identity development in Hong Kong, facilitating discussions on identity-related issues.

A comparison of fathers' and mothers' contributions in the prediction of academic performance of school-age children in Hong Kong.

Asystematic study of the linkages between gender issues and parenting is made among Chinese families. This study examines sex differences in parenting attributes across fathers and mothers and towards sons and daughters, and compares the contributions of fathers and mothers to the prediction of academic performance across boys and girls. Four parenting attributes are included: nurturance, psychological control, parental involvement in education, and parental academic efficacy. Data were collected from 461 Chinese father-mother-child triads of children studying Grade 3 to 5 in Hong Kong. Findings of this study, based on multivariate analysis of variance, showed that parental roles followed traditional Chinese cultural expectations. Compared to the fathers, Chinese mothers of school-age children in Hong Kong were more loving and caring, more involved in children's education, and more efficacious in promoting children's academic performance. Results of hierarchical regression analysis examining the role of child's sex as a moderator showed cross-sex influence in parental contribution to academic performance with respect to parental psychological control and academic efficacy. Specifically, boys benefited more from maternal efficacy than girls did and they were also more hampered by mothers with high psychological control, while girls' academic performance was more enhanced by paternal academic efficacy than boys. A gender-balance approach that highlights the significance of gender in moderating parental contributions to academic performance was thus supported. Future research should continue to focus on psychological control and domain-specific parental attributes as potential sources of gender-linked parent-child associations. Investigations should also explore other cognitive and noncognitive domains of child outcome, different child age groups, as well as Chinese populations in various geographical regions.

Parenting style of Chinese fathers in Hong Kong: correlates with children's school-related performance.

This study investigates parenting styles among Chinese fathers in Hong Kong as perceived by their school-age children. Four parenting styles, namely inductive, indulgent, indifferent, and dictatorial parenting, are assessed using the Parent Behavior Report (1988). Data were collected through a questionnaire survey on a sample of 1011 Primary Three to Five Chinese students from six schools in Hong Kong and 471 fathers. Findings show that among Chinese fathers, the least common parenting style is inductive, while the other three styles are of similar occurrence. Chi-square analysis shows no significant association between children's grade level and father's parenting style. However, there is a significant association with gender, with fathers more likely to be perceived as dictatorial with boys and indulgent with girls. The effect of paternal styles on children's school-related performance is also examined. MANOVA results show that significant differences are found among children of the four paternal style groups with respect to academic performance, interest in school work, aspiration for education, involvement in extracurricular activities, and efficacy for self-regulated learning. Post-hoc tests reveal that children's performance is similar between the groups with indulgent and inductive fathers, and between children of indifferent and dictatorial fathers, with the former groups performing better than the latter in general. Findings are discussed with regard to research on parenting style and paternal behavior, as well as understanding the roles of fathers in Chinese families in the socio-cultural context in Hong Kong.