Poster #71 - The role of parental psychological control and autonomy support in adolescents’ parent-oriented motivation

• In Event: Poster Session 13

Abstract

Various forms of motivation, ranging from extrinsic to intrinsic, underlie children’s desire to succeed in school (Deci & Ryan, 2000). Recent work revealed that a special form of social motivation – parent-oriented motivation – predicts adolescents’ engagement and achievement in school (Cheung and Pomerantz, 2012). When children have heightened parent-oriented motivation, they strive to succeed in their schoolwork for reasons such as pleasing their parents or avoiding parents’ anger. Despite positive relationships between parent-oriented motivation and both extrinsic and intrinsic motivation, scant research examined the precursors of parent-oriented motivation.

The present study investigated the longitudinal associations between parenting practices and children’s parent-oriented motivation. We focused on parental autonomy support and psychological control given these practices were predictive of children’s school adjustment (Ryan et al., 2015). Children in China and the United States were included in the study due to differences in children’s self-construals in the two countries. Children in China (vs. US) tend to include significant others, such as their parents, in their self-views (Pomerantz et al., 2009). Such differences in children’s concepts about themselves can influence of children’ approaches to school, including their motivation to do well in school (Markus & Kitayama, 1991).

Participants were 567 children in the 6-8th grades, recruited through schools in China and the US. Two times over the course of 1 year, children reported on their parents’ use of autonomy support (e.g., “my parents allow me to decide things for myself”), psychological control (e.g., “my parents are less friendly with me, if I do not see things their way”), and the reasons why they try to do well in school (e.g., “to please my parents.”). All measures had acceptable to good reliability, αs = 0.687 to 0.960. The measures also attained metric invariance, such that valid comparisons of the associations can be made between the two countries.

While parental autonomy support was associated with parent-oriented motivation in both countries, the strength of the association was stronger in China, t = 2.78, p < 0.01. In contrast, the associations between parental psychological control and parent-oriented motivation did not differ between the two countries, t = 0.094, ns. Using a series of hierarchical linear regressions, the longitudinal associations between parenting and adolescents’ parent-oriented motivation were evaluated, with children’s parent-oriented motivation measured at a prior time point controlled for statistically. Replicating the correlational findings, in China, the more autonomy supportive parents were, the more children had parent-oriented motivation six months later, b = 0.21, p < .05. This was not the case in the US, b = -0.01, ns. In both China and the US, parental psychological control did not predict parent-oriented motivation over time, bs = 0.10- 0.11, ns. Findings indicate that parental autonomy support may be functionally distinct in China and the US, such that autonomy supportive practices can heighten children’s desire to do well in school for parent-oriented reasons in countries where children’s self-construals are more closely tied to their parents.

Authors

• Danyang Ma, University of California - Riverside
  Presenting Author

• Cecilia Cheung, University of California - Riverside