Relationship Of Parenting Styles And Child's Personality From The Perspective Of Collectivism And Individualism

From the perspective of collectivism/individualism,this study investigated the mechanism of cultural impact upon children's personality between China and Australia.Combining the quantitative and qualitative methods,it investigated how culture influenced children's personality through parenting style:one of the most important socialization mediation.It is hoped that this study would contribute to children's education in the multi-cultural world.There were 4 studies altogether.Study 1 was a cross-cultural study on personality between Chinese and Australian 4～5 year-old children.There were two objectives in this study:the first,it was to adapt "teacher's assessment of children's personality"to Australian version,exploring its reliability and validity;the second,it was to compare the 4～5 year-old children's personality on 4 dimensions and 11 traits,trying to explain children's personality characteristics with the theory of individualism and collectivism.The result showed:(1) The Australian version of"teacher's assessment of children's personality" had acceptable reliability and validity;(2) Chinese children got higher scores in prosocial dimension than Australian children,and Australian children got higher scores in both intellect and emotion dimensions than Chinese children;there was no significant differences between two cultures on self-control;(3) Chinese children were better developed than Australian children in the traits of sympathy,humiliation and aggression,while not as well-developed as the Australian children in anxiety,and Australian children were better developed in independence and extraversion.The result showed that Chinese children's personality formation was in agreement with collectivism while Australian children's personality formation was in agreement with individualism.Study 2 was the comparison of educational values between Chinese and Australian parents.Its objective was to investigate the similarities and differences in educationsl values between Chinese and Australian parents by means of open-ended interviews.The result showed that the educational values were in agreement with culture values respectively.Chinese parents emphasized "virtue cultivation","training and directives","caring for children" and "emphasis on education"ect,which reflected the collectivism,while Australian parents emphasized"equalily","emotional support","disciplining","communication","individuality" and "values"etc,which were in agreement with individualism.Study 3 was the comparison of parenting style between Chinese and Australian parents.It was divided into 2 tasks:first,it was the adaptation of questionnaire.After the statistical analysis of parenting style questionnaire(English) that includes two dimensions and 20 items,it was revealed that this questionnaire could be used in Chinese context.Second,on the basis of questionnaire adaptation,a comparison was made on parenting style between Chinese and Australian parents.The result showed that Chinese parenting style was training while the Australian parenting style was authoritative,the parenting styles were in agreement with culture respectively.Study 4 was the comparison of relationships between parenting style and children's personality.On the basis of study 1 and study 3,the effects of parenting style on children personality was investigated with regression.The result showed that in China,training had positive influence on traits of collectivism such as aggression, persistence,sympathy and humiliation,meanwhile,training had positive influence on universal traits such as intelligence and conscienciousness.In Australia,authoritative parenting had positive influence on individualistic traits such as independence, extraversion and anxiety,besides,it had positive influence on such universal traits as intelligence,conscientiousness and sociability;training had positive effects on collectivistic traits such as aggression and persistence and on universal traits such a intelligence and conscientiousness.This result showed that cultural influenced children's personality through parenting style.On the basis of four studies,it is tentatively concluded that through the mediating variable of parenting style,culture drives children's personality to be in agreement with its values.