The Study On The Relationship Of Parenting Style And Dysfunctional Thoughts Of Elementary And Middle School Students

Dysfunctional thoughts, which may bring us problems on learning/working, life and personal interactions, are defined as "sick, false, or unreasonable thoughts that cause the appearance of maladjustment and even the emotional disorders. The difference between the conception of dysfunctional thoughts and that of irrational beliefs and cognitive biases lies in its result-orientated perspective, whereas the latter two are defined from a negative emotional perspective. Emotional problem is one of the results that dysfunctional thoughts will lead to but not the inevitable result if we consider the definition. At present the general situation of dysfunctional thoughts in elementary and middle school students are worrying, which the most severe two factors are "over-perfectionism" and "demanding for best treatment". Present study further investigates dysfunctional thoughts in elementary and middle school students, which aims to consider the ecological system which contributes to dysfunctional thoughts in elementary and middle school students from ecological psychology perspective, understand the relationship between dysfunctional thoughts in elementary and middle school students and their parenting styles, discuss the influence of parenting style on dysfunctional thoughts and its mechanism, and find out some causes that lead to elementary and middle school students' dysfunctional thoughts. Such works will better facilitate our understanding of their cognition level, psychological development, and status of mental health at present. Results from this study also have great implication on real school counseling, mental health education and learning instruction for students. They are also beneficial to prevent and overcome dysfunctional behaviors.In present study parenting style and dysfunctional thoughts were respectively investigated through EMBU and Questionnaire of Cognitive Investigation for elementary and middle school students developed by Nijie. 443 participants completed both questionnaires that turned out to be valid. The author used one-way ANOVA to compare the differences of general dysfunctional thoughts scores and scores of each factor between students whose parenting style scores are high or low. The researcher also investigated interactions among parenting style, age and gender.Results of one-way ANOVA are as follows:1. There are no distinct differences in "over-perfectionism", "passive attitude", "attention-seeking" and general score between students who scores high or low respectively on father's "warmth and understanding". Furthermore, there are no significant interactions among father's "warmth and understanding", gender and age. However, there is significant difference in "self-defence" between students who scores high or low respectively on father's "warmth and understanding". What's more, significant interaction is detected between father's "warmth and understanding" and age, which elementary students are influenced much more. Students who scored higher in "demanding for best treatment" are not distinctively different from those scored lower on father's "warmth and understanding". However, there's obvious interaction effect between father's "warmth and understanding" and age, which elementary students are influenced much more. There are no significant differences in "over-perfectionism", "demanding for best treatment", "attention-seeking" and "passive attitude" between students who scores high or low respectively on mother's "warmth and understanding". Furthermore, there are no significant interactions among mother's "warmth and understanding", gender and age. Students who scored higher on mother's "warmth and understanding" are obviously different from those scored lower in one of the factors of dysfunctional thoughts, that is "self-defence", in addition, there is distinct interaction between mother's "warmth and understanding" and age, which turned out that they affect elementary school students much more. There are no significant differences in general score between students who scores high or low respectively on mother's "warmth and understanding", however, obvious interaction effect is detected between mother's "warmth and understanding" and gender, that is girls are influenced much more.2. No significant differences are detected in "self-defence", "demanding for best treatment", "over-perfectionism", "attention-seeking" and general score between students' higher and lower scores on father's "severe punishment", in addition, there's no distinct interaction among father's "severe punishment", gender and age. Students who scored higher on father's "severe punishment" are obviously different from those scored lower in the "passive attitude" dimension, furthermore, father's "severe punishment" obviously interacts with gender, which turned out that they affect girls much more. There are no significant differences in "over-perfectionism", "self-defence", "attention-seeking", "passive attitude" and general score between students' higher and lower scores on mother's "severe punishment", what's more, mother's "severe punishment" does not interacts with gender or age. There is no distinct difference in "demanding for best treatment" on higher or lower scores of mother's "severe punishment", but significant interactions are detected among mother's "severe punishment", age and gender, that is elementary school students and girls are affected much more.3. Students who scored higher on father's "over-interference" are not distinctively different from those scored lower in each factor of dysfunctional thoughts and general score, in addition, there's no interaction effect among father's "over-interference", gender and age. There are no significant differences in each factor of dysfunctional thoughts and general score between students scored higher or lower on mother's "over-interference", furthermore, no interaction effect is detected among mother's "over-interference", gender and age.4. No significant differences are detected in "demanding for best treatment", "self-defence", "attention-seeking" and general score between students' higher and lower scores on father's "denying attitude", in addition, there's no distinct interaction effect among father's "denying attitude", gender and age. Students who scored higher in "demanding for best treatment" are not distinctively different from those scored lower on father's "denying attitude". However, there's obvious interaction effect between father's "denying attitude" and age, which elementary students are affected much more. There is significant difference in the dimension of "passive attitude" between students scored higher or lower on father's "denying attitude", however, there are no obvious interaction among father's "denying attitude", age and gender. No significant differences are detected in each dimension of dysfunctional thoughts and general score on mother's "denying attitude", in addition, there's also no interaction effect among mother's "denying attitude", gender and age.5. Students who scored higher in each dimension of dysfunctional thoughts and general score are not distinctively different from those scored lower on father's "over-protection", furthermore, there's also no interaction effect among father's "over-protection", gender and age.In general, parenting style is closely related to dysfunctional thoughts of elementary and middle school students. These findings will facilitate our better understanding of origins of elementary and middle school students' dysfunctional thoughts and factors affect them. Also such findings will give instructive suggestions to school counseling and mental health education.