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Do parents’ collectivistic tendency and attitudes toward filial piety facilitate autonomous motivation among young Chinese adolescents?

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Abstract

The present study investigates the association of Chinese parents’ collectivistic tendency, attitudes towards filial piety (i.e., children respecting and caring for parents (RCP) and children protecting and upholding honor for parents (PUHP)), parenting behaviors (i.e., autonomy granting (AG) and psychological control (PC)) with young adolescents’ autonomous motivation. Participants were 321 Chinese parents and their eighth-grade children who independently completed a set of surveys. Results showed that parents' collectivistic tendency indirectly and positively contributes to children's autonomous motivation through the mediation of AG and PC, respectively. Parents' attitude toward RCP has an indirect and positive contribution to children's autonomy motivation through the mediation of AG while parents' attitude toward PUHP shows an indirect and negative contribution to children's autonomous motivation through the mediation of PC. The findings suggest that different cultural emphases in collectivist-based societies play different roles in adolescents’ autonomy development. The implications of the findings are discussed.

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Acknowledgments

The study was funded by a grant to the first author from the Department of Education Ministry of the People’s Republic of China for Liberal Arts and Social Sciences Research (09YJCXLX014). We are especially grateful to the schools, parents, and students who participated in this study.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Sociology and Social Work, College of Public Policy, Xiamen University, Xiamen, People’s Republic of China

    Yingqiu Pan

  2. Department of Psychology, University of California at Riverside, Riverside, CA, USA

    Mary Gauvain

  3. Leonard M. Miller School of Medicine, University of Miami, Miami, FL, USA

    Seth J. Schwartz

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  1. Yingqiu Pan
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  2. Mary Gauvain
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  3. Seth J. Schwartz
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Correspondence to Yingqiu Pan.

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Pan, Y., Gauvain, M. & Schwartz, S.J. Do parents’ collectivistic tendency and attitudes toward filial piety facilitate autonomous motivation among young Chinese adolescents?. Motiv Emot 37, 701–711 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11031-012-9337-y

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