title: Reconsidering Parenting in Chinese Culture: Subtypes, Stability, and Change of Maternal Parenting Style During Early Adolescence.
abstract: Parenting in Chinese culture has been a central topic and there have been debate on whether western-derived parenting style is applicable to Chinese cultures in terms of both behavioral profiles and their relationships with child and adolescent adjustment. This study identified the subtypes of Chinese maternal parenting style and examined their stability and changes over the transition to early adolescence. In an urban Chinese sample (N = 2173, 48% girls), four waves of longitudinal data were collected when the adolescents were in the fifth (M = 11.27 years), sixth, seventh, and eighth grades. Latent profile analysis identified four subtypes of parenting style: authoritative, authoritarian, average-level undifferentiated, and strict-affectionate. Adolescents of authoritative mothers exhibited the best overall adjustment, while adolescents of authoritarian mothers showed the worst adjustment. Adolescents of strict-affectionate mothers generally adjusted as well as those of authoritative mothers, except they showed lower academic achievement. The strict-affectionate parenting represented a culture-specific subtype of parenting style in Chinese culture. Latent transition analysis revealed high stability of parenting styles during early adolescence, but transitions between subtypes were also evident. These findings highlight the importance of revisiting Chinese parenting and examining the developmental course of parenting style.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Shandong Normal University, Jinan, China.
authors.forename: Wenxin
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Shandong Normal University, Jinan, China.
authors.forename: Xing
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Wei
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Shandong Normal University, Jinan, China. sdjlq@126.com.
authors.forename: Linqin
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Ji
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Shandong Normal University, Jinan, China.
authors.forename: Liang
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Shandong Normal University, Jinan, China.|Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, University of Massachusetts Amherst, Amherst, MA, USA.
authors.forename: Kirby
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Deater-Deckard
mesh_terms: D000223:Adaptation, Psychological; D000293:Adolescent; D001318:Authoritarianism; D002681:China; D003466:Cultural Characteristics; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009034:Mother-Child Relations; D009035:Mothers / Q000523:psychology*; D016487:Parenting / Q000523:psychology*; D012917:Social Adjustment; D012945:Social Values
keywords: Chinese culture; Early adolescence; Parenting style; Strict-affectionate parenting