The role of perceived parenting styles in thinking styles

Learning and Individual Differences 32 (2014) 204–211

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Learning and Individual Differences journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/lindif

The role of perceived parenting styles in thinking styles Jieqiong Fan ⁎, Li-fang Zhang Faculty of Education, The University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam Road, Hong Kong

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Article history: Received 23 August 2012 Received in revised form 4 February 2014 Accepted 17 March 2014 Keywords: Thinking style Parenting style Style socialization

a b s t r a c t The main objective of this study was to explore the relationships between parenting styles and thinking styles after controlling for students' gender, academic major, and socioeconomic status. Three hundred and forty-one university students from mainland China responded to the Thinking Style Inventory — Revised II and the Parenting Style Index, and provided a range of demographic information. Results indicated that the dimension of parental acceptance/involvement was positively associated with students' creativity-generating styles (known as Type I thinking styles) and styles that could be either creativity-generating or norm-conforming (known as Type III thinking styles). Moreover, in terms of the specific types of parenting styles, students who perceived their parents as using the neglectful parenting style had significantly lower scores in Type I thinking styles than students who perceived their parents as using the other three parenting styles (authoritative, authoritarian, and indulgent). Implications and limitations of this study were discussed. © 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction 1.1. Research Background As an individual-difference variable in human performance, the style construct, defined as people's preference for processing information and dealing with tasks (Zhang & Sternberg, 2005), has appealed to considerable researchers and practitioners. However, this field has been fragmented rather than unified (Coffield, Moseley, Hall, & Ecclestone, 2004), with various style constructs that overlap as well as being distinct from one another. Many scholars have realized the necessity of integrating existing style theories in order to advance the development of style research (Rayner, 2011; Riding, 2000). Among these endeavors of integration, one of the recent integrative models is the threefold model of intellectual styles (Zhang & Sternberg, 2005). In this threefold model, the term “intellectual styles” is used as an encompassing term that represents various existing style constructs, including cognitive styles, learning styles, personality styles, and thinking styles, among others. These style constructs mostly fall into three traditions: cognition/ ability-centered {e.g., Witkin's (1962) field dependence/independence}, activity-centered {e.g., Biggs (1978) learning approaches}, and personality-centered {e.g., Myers and McCaulley's (1988) personality types} (Grigorenko & Sternberg, 1995). In the threefold model, intellectual styles are classified into three types according to the nature of styles manifested in numerous studies. Type I intellectual styles are normally characterized by cognitive ⁎ Corresponding author at: 101 Hui Oi Chow Science Building, Faculty of Education, The University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam Road, Hong Kong. Tel.: +852 6641 6889. E-mail address: [email protected] (J. Fan).

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.lindif.2014.03.004 1041-6080/© 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

complexity, nonconformity, autonomy, and low degrees of structure (e.g., field independence, deep learning approach). In contrast, Type II intellectual styles are normally featured by cognitive simplicity, conformity, authority, and high degrees of structure (e.g., field dependence, surface learning approach). Unlike Type I and Type II styles, Type III intellectual styles' characteristics are not static. They manifest the characteristics of either Type I or Type II styles depending if individuals are interested in the tasks or if the stylistic demands of the tasks are favored. Among these three types of intellectual styles, Type I styles are considered to carry more adaptive value than Type II styles, Type II intellectual styles tend to be less adaptive in many situations than Type I styles, and Type III styles tend to be value differentiated, depending on the nature of the task (Zhang & Sternberg, 2006). Also in this threefold model, three major controversial issues concerning the nature of styles were explicitly identified. The present study concerned one of the three issues: whether or not styles can be socialized or modified, known as the issue of style malleability. To contribute to the discussion of this issue, it is necessary to identify potential antecedents of styles firstly. One of the possible socialization factors was parenting style (Sternberg, 1997).

1.2. Parenting styles It is well known that family is one of the proximal environments where individuals' socialization or development takes place (Bronfenbrenner & Ceci, 1994). Among various socialization factors in family environment, parenting styles, defined as “a constellation of attitudes towards the child that are communicated to the child and that, taken together, create an emotional climate in

J. Fan, L. Zhang / Learning and Individual Differences 32 (2014) 204–211

which the parent's behaviors are expressed” (Darling & Steinberg, 1993, p.488), have been widely studied. Early work on parenting styles has been conducted through using the dimensional approach. Various parenting dimensions were proposed at that time, such as emotional warmth/hostility and detachment/involvement (Baldwin, 1948); love/hostility and autonomy/ control (Schaefer, 1959); and, warmth and indulgentness/strictness (Sears, Macoby, & Levin, 1957). However, some scholars such as Baumrind (1966, 1971) noticed that the dimensional approach has limitations in detecting the interactional influence of different parenting dimensions and began to adopt the typological approach to study parenting styles. The most widely used taxonomy of parenting types nowadays is from Maccoby and Martin (1983) based on Baumrind's (1966, 1971) work. They categorized parenting styles based on two dimensions: responsiveness (warmth) and demandingness (control). The dimension of responsiveness is characterized by affection, acceptance, and care. The dimension of demandingness is characterized by restriction, intrusion, and discipline. The intersection of these two dimensions creates four types of parenting styles: authoritative parenting style (high in both demandingness and responsiveness), authoritarian parenting style (high in demandingness but low in responsiveness), indulgent parenting style (high in responsiveness and low in demandingness), and neglectful parenting style (low in both responsiveness and demandingness). Among research on parenting styles, it has been repeatedly found that parenting styles play an important role in various individual developmental outcomes (Collins, Maccoby, Steinberg, Hetherington, & Bornstein, 2000; Steinberg & Morris, 2001). From a dimensional perspective, it was found that children's positive developmental outcomes were almost always related to parents' supply of nurture (i.e., warmth, responsiveness), encouragement of independence (i.e., democratic, autonomy), and proper control (e.g., Baldwin, 1948; Sears et al., 1957). From a typological perspective, the authoritative parenting style was repeatedly found to be the most beneficial for student development (e.g., self-esteem, psychological wellbeing, and academic performance) while the neglectful parenting style was repeatedly found to be the most detrimental for student development (Lamborn, Mounts, Steinberg, & Dornbusch, 1991; Steinberg, Lamborn, Darling, Mounts, & Dornbusch, 1994; Steinberg & Morris, 2001). The indulgent parenting style was found to contribute to some positive developmental outcomes (e.g., self-confidence, social competence) and also some negative developmental outcomes (e.g., school misconduct, substance abuse) (Lamborn et al., 1991). Although the authoritarian parenting style has been found to be related to negative developmental outcomes (e.g., low selfesteem, negative self-concept, and poor skills with peers) of children in the Western context (Steinberg et al., 1994), it was claimed that in the Chinese context the authoritarian parenting style was not always detrimental to child development, especially regarding academic achievement (Chao, 2001; Spera, 2005). Concerning the cultural difference in the effect of the authoritarian parenting styles on individual development, Chao (1994) proposed the Chinese concept of “guan” (training). Because the rationale of the authoritarian parenting style seems to be congruent with collectivist cultures that emphasize compliance to authority (Rudy & Grusec, 2001), children in the Chinese culture (a typical collectivist culture) tend to perceive “guan” as a manifestation of parental care and involvement (Chao, 1994). The argument of Chao (1994) was partially supported by empirical research demonstrating that the parenting dimension of “guan” was more correlated with parental warmth than with parental control in Chinese context (Stewart et al., 1998). However, the examination of the concept of “guan” among Western participants also suggested the positive relationship between “guan” and parental warmth (Stewart, Bond, Kennard, Ho, & Zaman, 2002), which implied that the positive perception of “guan” may be more universal than indigenous and this concept cannot fully explain the inconsistent results

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regarding the different effects of the authoritarian parenting style on child development (especially academic achievement) across cultures. An alternative possible explanation about the positive relationship between the authoritarian parenting style and children' academic achievement could be that the authoritarian parenting style may influence children's development of Type II styles (norm-conforming styles) that have been found to positively contribute to Chinese students' academic performance (e.g., Cheung, 2002; Zhang, 2001, 2004a; Zhang & Sternberg, 1998). The examination of this speculation entails the examination of the relationship between parenting styles and intellectual styles.

1.3. Research on parenting styles and intellectual styles Despite ample studies regarding the influence of parenting styles on various student developmental outcomes, research on the role of parenting styles in students' intellectual styles is still quite limited. Within these limited studies (e.g., Dreyer, 1975; Stansbury & Coll, 1998; Witkin & Goodenough, 1981), most studies explored the influence of different dimensions of parenting styles on field-dependence/independence (FDI, known as cognition-centered intellectual styles). Some studies indicated that paternal involvement and the children's autonomy granted by their parents had a positive effect on children's development of field independence (Type I style) (e.g., Dreyer, 1975; Dyk & Witkin, 1965; Laosa, 1980; Páramo & Tinajero, 1998). It was also indicated that punishment and coercion in parenting tended to encourage field dependence (Type II style) among children (Witkin & Goodenough, 1981). However, there are also some inconsistent findings. For example, Moskowitz, Dreyer, and Kronsberg (1981) found that parenting styles had no significant impact on children's FDI. In addition, FDI has been criticized that it actually represented ability rather than styles (McKenna, 1984; Zhang, 2004b). Unlike other studies that explored the relationships between parenting styles and intellectual styles, one study (Stansbury & Coll, 1998) adopted the typological approach rather than the dimensional approach to examine parenting styles. Stansbury and Coll (1998) examined the association between types of parenting styles and personality types as assessed by Myers and McCaulley's (1988) Myers–Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI). Although the MBTI was designed to describe personality types, it has been treated as personality-centered intellectual styles in the field of styles because of its different tone from traditional theories of personality traits (Coffield et al., 2004). Stansbury and Coll (1998) found that the authoritarian parenting style (characterized by low responsiveness and high demandingness) was positively correlated with introversion (a tendency to focus on the internal world of oneself — a Type III style) and judging (a tendency to control life under structure — a Type II style). However, in Stansbury and Coll's (1998) study, the types of parenting styles were assessed by merely one question. The reliability and validity of this measure are questionable. In addition, the MBTI has been frequently criticized for its poor reliability and validity as well (Kozhevnikov, 2007). The existing studies that investigated the relationships between parenting styles and intellectual styles have two major limitations. First, there is a lack of research that explored the relationships of parenting styles to intellectual styles by examining types of parenting styles as opposed to dimensions. To further explore the interaction of parenting dimensions, the present study adopted the typological approach as well as the dimensional approach. Second, all of the existing studies on the relationships between parenting styles and intellectual styles are based on limited models of intellectual styles (e.g., FDI, MBTI). These models are out-dated and both of them have been criticized for being too cognition-centered or too personality-centered (Sternberg, 1997). Therefore, as a recent and general model of intellectual styles that involves all of the three traditions (cognition-centered, personality-

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centered, and activity-centered), Sternberg's (1997) theory of mental self-government was selected for the present study.

styles because they may carry either positive value or negative value depending on specific context.

1.4. The theory of mental self-government

2. Methods

The theory of mental self-government describes 13 thinking styles that fall along five dimensions: functions, forms, levels, scopes, and leanings (Sternberg, 1997). Corresponding with the classification of the three types of styles in the threefold model of intellectual styles, these 13 thinking styles have been reconceptualized into three types (Zhang, 2002). Type I thinking styles include the legislative, judicial, hierarchical, global, and liberal styles, Type II thinking styles include the executive, local, monarchic, and conservative styles, and Type III thinking styles include the anarchic, oligarchic, internal, and external styles. Descriptions of these 13 thinking styles are presented in the Appendix A. Coffield et al. (2004) used to criticize the theory of mental selfgovernment for the lack of empirical evidence and low reliability of its instrument. However, during the last decade, increasingly more empirical evidence has been accumulated (Zhang & Fan, 2011) and the modified inventory has achieved much improved psychometric properties (Zhang, 2009, 2010, 2013).

2.1. Participants

1.5. The present study The principal purpose of the present study was to explore the relationships between perceived parenting styles (parenting styles hereafter for brevity) and students' thinking styles. Given the importance of parenting styles in the individual socialization process, it was predicted that parenting styles play an important role in thinking styles. Parenting styles perceived by students rather than reported by parents were assessed in this study because individuals' interpretation of the environment where they reside played a more important role in individuals' development than the objective environment itself (Bronfenbrenner & Ceci, 1994). In addition, to explore the unique contribution of parenting styles to thinking styles, relevant demographic factors (e.g., gender, age, academic major, and socioeconomic status) that were found to be related to the key variables in previous studies (See Zhang & Sternberg, 2006 for review) were taken into account when the following hypotheses were examined. In terms of dimensions of parenting styles, given that dimensions relevant to acceptance/involvement and psychological autonomy were frequently found to be related to positive developmental outcomes and Type I thinking styles were considered to carry positive value, it was hypothesized that parental acceptance/involvement as well as psychological autonomy would be positively related to Type I thinking styles (Hypotheses 1 & 2). Given that the dimensions relevant to strictness/supervision were frequently found to be related to negative developmental outcomes and that Type II thinking styles were considered to carry negative value, it was hypothesized that parental strictness/supervision would be positively related to Type II thinking styles (Hypothesis 3). In terms of types of parenting styles, given that the authoritative parenting style was repeatedly found to be the most beneficial type while the neglectful parenting style was repeatedly found to be the most detrimental type for student development, it was also hypothesized that the authoritative parenting style would be positively related to Type I thinking styles (Hypothesis 4) and that the neglectful parenting style would be negatively related to Type I thinking styles and positively related to Type II thinking styles (Hypothesis 5). Because of inconsistent results on the authoritarian parenting style across different cultures and inconclusive findings on the indulgent parenting style in previous studies, no specific hypothesis was made on the relationships between these two types of parenting style and thinking styles. Likewise, no specific hypothesis was made on Type III thinking

Three hundred and forty-one university students from a comprehensive university in Shanghai, China, participated in the study. Among them, 151 were males and 190 were females. The ages of the participants ranged from 16 to 21 years old (mean = 18.94). The distribution of academic majors of the participants is that 28.5% were from humanities and social sciences, 41.5% from science and engineering, 22.4% from economics and management, 6.2% from medicine and pharmacy, and 1.5% from arts. 2.2. Measures All participants responded to a three-part questionnaire, including the Thinking Style Inventory — Revised II (TSI-R2, Sternberg, Wagner, & Zhang, 2007), the Parenting Style Index (PSI, Steinberg et al., 1994), and a range of questions that elicited such demographic information as gender, age, academic major, and socioeconomic status. 2.2.1. Thinking Style Inventory — Revised II The Thinking Style Inventory — Revised II (TSI-R2, Sternberg et al., 2007) is the second revised version of the Thinking Style Inventory (Sternberg & Wagner, 1992) that is based on Sternberg's theory of mental self-government. There are 65 items assessing the 13 thinking styles that have been further classified into three types (see the Appendix A). The sample items are shown in Table 1. Respondents rate themselves on a 7-point scale, with 1 indicating that the statement does not describe them at all and 7 indicating that the statement characterizes them extremely well. The earlier versions of the inventory – the TSI (Sternberg & Wagner, 1992) and the TSI-R (Sternberg, Wagner, & Zhang, 2003) – have been found to possess acceptable reliability and validity in previous studies in different cultures (Zhang & Higgins, 2008; Zhang & Sternberg, 2006), except relatively low reliability for the anarchic scale. As the latest version, TSI-R2 has been applied in Chinese context (e.g., Zhang, 2009, 2010) and the internal consistency for the anarchic scale has been improved. In the present study, the coefficients of the internal consistency of the 13 scales in TSI-R2 are shown in Table 1. The coefficients of four scales were below .70, but they were still close to .70 (ranging from .67 to .69). According to the minimal threshold of internal consistency (Aron, Aron, & Coups, 2006) and given the small number of items (five items) in each scale, these internal consistency data are considered acceptable. 2.2.2. Parenting Style Index The Parenting Style Index (PSI, Steinberg et al., 1994) is designed based on Baumrind's (1966, 1971) framework and subsequent research (e.g., Maccoby & Martin, 1983). It has three dimensions: acceptance/involvement, strictness/supervision, and psychological autonomy granting. The dimension of acceptance/involvement corresponds to responsiveness, and the dimension of strictness/supervision corresponds to demandingness. Because psychological autonomy was found not to be simply contrary to strictness/supervision as it had been thought (Barber, 1996), it was proposed as a distinct dimension. There are 9 items respectively in the acceptance/involvement dimension and the psychological autonomy granting dimension, and 8 items in the strictness/supervision dimension (see sample items in Table 1). The means of the scores of acceptance/involvement and strictness/supervision were used to partition parenting styles into the four types: authoritative, authoritarian, indulgent, and neglectful.


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Table 1 Sample items and the estimates of the reliability of the TSI-R2 and the PSI. Scale

Sample item

Cronbach's alpha

TSI-R2 Legislative Executive Judicial Global Local Liberal Conservative Hierarchical Monarchic Oligarchic Anarchic Internal External

When faced with a problem, I use my own ideas and strategies to solve it. I like to figure out how to solve a problem following certain rules. I like situations where I can compare and rate different ways of doing things. I tend to emphasize the general aspect of issues or the overall effect of a project. I like problems where I need to pay attention to details. I like to challenge old ideas or ways of doing things and to seek better ones. When faced with a problem, I like to solve it in a traditional way. When there are many things to do, I have a clear sense of the order in which to do them. I tend to give full attention to one thing at a time. When there are several important things to do, I pick the ones most important to my friends and colleagues. I tend to give equal attention to all of the tasks I am involved in. I like to work alone on a task or a problem. I like to participate in activities where I can interact with others as a part of a team.

.83 .69 .73 .71 .67 .87 .80 .90 .77 .69 .68 .79 .76

PSI Acceptance/involvement Psychological autonomy granting Strictness/supervision

My parents spend time just talking with me. My parents say that you shouldn't argue with adults.a How much do your parents try to know what you do with your free time

.64 .71 .70

a

Reversely scored.

The PSI has been used in different cultures and has shown good reliability and validity data (e.g., Chao, 2001; Milevsky, Schlechter, Netter, & Keehn, 2007; Steinberg et al., 1994). Recently, this inventory was translated into Chinese and applied successfully among high school students in China (Chen & Fan, 2010). In the present study, university students responded to the PSI according to their experiences in the first 16 years of their life. The alpha coefficients of the internal consistency are shown in Table 1. The reliabilities of two scales were desirable, but the reliability of the scale of acceptance/involvement was relatively low, which suggests that further improvement of this scale is needed. The interpretation of the remaining results related to acceptance/involvement should be in light of this.

3. Results 3.1. The relationships between demographic factors and key research variables Gender and academic major were examined by multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) while age and socioeconomic status (SES) were examined by Pearson's correlations to see whether or not these factors mattered in the key variables. It was found that students' perceptions of parenting styles were significantly related to gender and SES. Specifically, males perceived that their parents exhibited less acceptance/involvement (F = 10.55, p = .001), less psychological autonomy (F = 23.29, p b .001), and less strictness/supervision (F = 16.49, p b .001) than females. Moreover, students from higher SES families perceived their parents as having higher acceptance/involvement (r = .22, p b .001) and higher strictness/supervision (r = .14, p b .05) than their counterparts. Students' thinking styles were significantly related to gender, major, and SES. Specifically, males scored higher on the legislative (F = 10.35, p = .001), liberal (F = 24.34, p b .001), monarchic (F = 7.21, p b .01), and internal (F = 9.14, p b .01) scales than females. Students from different majors had different levels of conservative thinking style (F = 4.55, p = .001) with students who majored in medicine and pharmacy scoring significantly higher than the ones from other majors. In addition, students from higher SES families scored lower in the executive (r = −.14, p b .05), conservative (r = − .13, p b .05), and monarchic styles (r = − .13, p b .05), and scored higher in the anarchic style (r = .12, p b .05). Although the magnitude of the above relationships was not large, it still reached the

statistical level of significance. Therefore, gender, major, and SES were statistically controlled in the subsequent data analyses.

3.2. Predicting thinking styles from dimensions of parenting styles Multiple regressions were conducted to examine if three dimensions of parenting styles statistically predicted thinking styles with gender, major, and SES in control. Results showed that parenting styles explained 3% to 6% of the variance in thinking styles. Specifically, parental acceptance/involvement was positively associated with four of the five Type I thinking styles (legislative, judicial, liberal, and hierarchical) and two Type III thinking styles (anarchic and external), while psychological autonomy was negatively associated with two Type III thinking styles (oligarchic and anarchic). In addition, strictness/supervision was positively correlated with one Type II thinking style (conservative) (see Table 2).

3.3. Types of parenting styles and thinking styles Multivariate analysis of covariance (MANCOVA) with gender, major, and SES being controlled was conducted to see if types of parenting styles made differences in students' thinking styles. Results indicated that types of parenting styles did make a difference in thinking styles (F = 1.93 p = .001). Results from Least Significant Difference posthoc tests showed that students who perceived their parents using the authoritative parenting style or the indulgent parenting style scored significantly higher on three Type I styles (legislative, judicial, and hierarchical) and one Type III style (external) than students who perceived their parents as using the neglectful parenting style did. Students who perceived their parents' parenting styles as being authoritarian also scored significantly higher in two Type I thinking styles (legislative and hierarchical) than students who perceived their parents' parenting styles as being neglectful did. In addition, students with the perception of authoritative parenting styles scored significantly higher on one Type I thinking style (hierarchical) than students who perceived their parents as using the authoritarian parenting style did. As for one Type II style (executive), students who perceived their parents as using the neglectful parenting style scored significantly lower than students who perceived their parents' parenting styles as being authoritative or authoritarian did (see Table 3).

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Table 2 Predicting thinking styles from dimensions of parenting styles with relevant demographic factors being controlled (N = 341). TSI R2Total R2demo R2PS βinvol βpsych βsuper F df F for change in R2

Legislative (I) .09 .04 .05 .23⁎⁎⁎

3.56⁎⁎⁎ 339 6.26⁎⁎⁎

Judicial (I)

Liberal (I)

.07 .02 .04 .22⁎⁎⁎

.12 .09 .03 .19⁎⁎⁎

2.57⁎⁎ 339 5.22⁎⁎

4.97⁎⁎⁎ 339 3.85⁎⁎

Hierarchical (I) .07 .01 .06 .21⁎⁎⁎

2.72⁎⁎ 339 7.11⁎⁎⁎

Conservative (II) .10 .07 .03

.16⁎⁎ 4.15⁎⁎⁎ 339 4.08⁎⁎

Oligarchic (III) .05 .02 .03 −.18⁎⁎ 1.92⁎ 339 3.29⁎

Anarchic (III) .07 .03 .05 .15⁎ −.21⁎⁎⁎ 2.93⁎⁎ 339 5.45⁎⁎⁎

External (III) .05 .01 .04 .21⁎⁎⁎

1.88 339 4.30⁎⁎

Note. R2Total = contribution of gender, major, socioeconomic status (SES), and parenting styles to thinking styles; R2demo = contribution of gender, major, and SES to thinking styles; R2PS = the unique contribution of parenting styles to thinking styles; invol = acceptance/involvement; psych = psychological autonomy; super = strictness/supervision; I = Type I thinking style; II = Type II thinking style; III = Type III thinking style; regression models that were not significant were excluded. ⁎ p b .05. ⁎⁎ p b .01. ⁎⁎⁎ p b .001.

4. Discussion The results of the present study largely support the major prediction that perceived parenting styles have a statistically significant relationship with students' thinking styles. In particular, some of the hypotheses were supported, but others were not. Based on the dimensional approach, it was found that parental acceptance/involvement is the most important statistical predictor for students' thinking styles, especially for Type I thinking styles, which strongly supports the research hypothesis (Hypothesis 1). It is understandable that when parents' acceptance and involvement provide a warm and safe environment, children tend to explore the world around them without fear, which would facilitate children to develop thinking styles characterized by high levels of creativity, autonomy, and low levels of conformity (Type I styles). By the same token, when parents supervise children strictly, children may be afraid to challenge authority and existing rules, which tends to promote the development of Type II styles, such as the conservative thinking style (Hypothesis 3). Psychological autonomy was not found to be related to Type I thinking styles as hypothesized (Hypothesis 2). The lack of this significant relationship is probably due to the different attitudes towards psychological autonomy in collectivist cultures that emphasize interdependence compared with individualist cultures that emphasize independence (Stewart et al.,

2003). However, this conjecture needs further research that directly compares the relationships between psychological autonomy granted by parents and students' thinking styles among collectivist cultures and those among individualist cultures. In terms of Type III styles, parental involvement and psychological autonomy served as significantly statistical predictors. Results suggest that with parental love and care, students tend to manage multiple tasks in a random way (anarchic) and prefer to work with others (external). In addition, students who perceive high psychological autonomy from their parents tend to organize their life less in a random way (anarchic) and tend to depend less on others to arrange the priorities of their tasks (oligarchic) than their peers. However, in general, it has to be admitted that the variance in thinking styles explained by parenting styles is not much. This finding was resonant with that in Zhang's (2003) study that identified significant relationships between parents' thinking styles and children's thinking styles but the magnitude of the identified relationships was small as well. The significant but weak relationships of parents' characteristics or behaviors to thinking styles imply that there are other potential antecedents rather than parental factors that influence thinking styles. Based on a typological approach, the relationships between parenting styles and thinking styles were further identified. As

Table 3 Differences of types of parenting styles in thinking styles with relevant demographic factors being controlled (N = 341). TS

F

PS (A)

Mean (A)

PS (B)

Mean (B)

Mean difference (A–B)

Legislative (I)

4.56⁎⁎

5.08L

3.56⁎

Neglectful

4.87L

Judicial (I)

4.02⁎⁎

Neglectful

4.68L

Hierarchical (I)

6.52⁎⁎⁎

Neglectful

4.68L

External (III)

3.47⁎

5.35H 5.32H 5.54H 5.13H 5.25H 4.99H 5.11H 5.34H 5.02H 5.16H 5.34H 5.04H 5.27H

Neglectful

Executive (II)

Authoritative Authoritarian Indulgent Authoritative Authoritarian Authoritative Indulgent Authoritative Authoritarian Indulgent Authoritative Authoritative Indulgent

Authoritarian Neglectful

5.02L 4.76L

.26⁎⁎ .23⁎⁎ .46⁎⁎⁎ .26⁎ .38⁎⁎ .30⁎ .43⁎⁎ .66⁎⁎⁎ .33⁎ .48⁎⁎ .32⁎ .28⁎ .51⁎⁎

Note. PS = parenting styles; H = higher mean; L = lower mean; I = Type I thinking style; II = Type II thinking style; III = Type III thinking style; the relationships that were not significant were excluded. ⁎ p b .05. ⁎⁎ p b .01. ⁎⁎⁎ p b .001.


expected, the authoritative parenting style (high responsiveness and high demandingness) was superior to the neglectful parenting styles in terms of facilitating Type I thinking styles (legislative, judicial, and hierarchical) (Hypothesis 4). It was also found that the indulgent parenting style (high responsiveness and low demandingness) played a similar role as the authoritative parenting style in promoting these Type I thinking styles. These results again stress the important role of parental acceptance and involvement in facilitating thinking styles that require creativity and cognitive complexity (Type I). In other words, students whose parents are highly involved in their lives and show much love and care tend to try their own ideas and conduct creative strategies (legislative), prefer to evaluate things with critical thinking (judicial), and like to deal with multiple tasks simultaneously in an organized order (hierarchical). However, when parental acceptance/involvement is low, the level of supervision makes a difference in students' Type I thinking styles. This result suggests that, compared with the neglectful parenting style (low responsiveness and low demandingness), the authoritarian parenting style (low responsiveness and high demandingness) might be superior in promoting Type I thinking styles (legislative and hierarchical) that are always considered to carry positive values. This result echoes the previous finding that the Chinese manifestation of supervision complements children's perceptions of parental care and love (Chao, 1994; Stewart et al., 1998, 2002). However, the question about whether the positive role of the authoritarian parenting style in more adaptive thinking styles (Type I styles) is cultural-specific or universal still requires further crosscultural studies. Regarding Type II styles, unexpectedly, the neglectful parenting style did not promote Type II styles (Hypothesis 5). On the contrary, students with parents who neither care nor supervise their children (neglectful) tend less to develop the executive style than students whose parents using the authoritative or authoritarian parenting styles. On the one hand, with the characteristics of the authoritarian parenting style in mind, it is not surprising that students whose parents supervise children strictly and stress authority tend to conform to instructions and guidance (executive). As the executive style has been found to play a positive role in Chinese students' academic achievement (e.g., Cheung, 2002; Zhang, 2001), the finding about the relationship between the authoritarian parenting style and the executive style somewhat lent support to the speculation that the positive effects of the authoritarian parenting style on Chinese students' academic achievement may take place partially through its influence on students' thinking styles. Future studies could be conducted to further examine this issue. On the other hand, the study found unexpectedly that the authoritative parenting style also facilitated the executive thinking style. Such a result was also found in another study conducted among high school students in China (Fan & Wu, 2009). It may imply that children also tend to obey instructions when authoritative parents provide convincing explanations on things about relevant issues. In terms of Type III styles, it was indicated that children develop a preference for working with others and dealing with interpersonal tasks (the external style) when their parents are highly involved in their lives (i.e., responsiveness) regardless of the level of supervision (i.e., demandingness). 5. Conclusions, implications, and limitations The primary purpose of this study was to understand the role of perceived parenting styles in students' thinking styles. Results support that parenting styles are significantly related to students' thinking styles, but the magnitude of the significant relationships is small. As for the specific relationships,

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first, perceived parental acceptance/involvement is the most important dimension that is positively associated with Type I and Type III thinking styles. Second, when parental acceptance/ involvement is low, students who perceive different levels of strictness/supervision tend to have different levels of Type I thinking styles. As a preliminary investigation in the under-researched area concerning parenting and thinking styles, this study has several limitations. First, as the present study is based on a crosssectional design, it has limitations in excluding other possibilities that are responsible for the relationships between parenting styles and thinking styles. For example, it is also possible that students' thinking styles influence their perceptions of parenting styles besides the possible influence of parenting styles on thinking styles. Another alternative explanation could be that parenting styles are affected by parents' personality while students' thinking styles are related to students' personality that has genetic correlation with their parents' personality, which eventually leads to the associations between parenting styles and thinking styles. It is also possible that students' inborn temperament affects both their thinking styles and their parents' parenting. Therefore, to provide more compelling evidence concerning the effects of parenting styles on students' thinking styles, longitudinal studies and experimental studies are suggested in further research. For example, in a longitudinal study, researchers could assess parenting styles and thinking styles as well as personality or temperament for three or more times so that with initial thinking styles and personality/temperament being controlled, the unique contribution of previously experienced parenting styles to current thinking styles can be detected. Second, the present study used selfreport and retrospective data, which might be subjective and memory-biased. Therefore, more objective data (such as report from teachers and parents and observation of daily behaviors) are required in future studies. Third, because the sample of the present study was selected from one university in China, one should be very cautious when applying findings from this study to other samples. Further studies are recommended to be conducted among other samples, especially in different cultural context, in order to further address the cultural issues emerging from this study, such as the possible difference effects of psychological autonomy and the authoritarian parenting style on students' development of styles. Fourth, the scale of acceptance/involvement in the Parenting Style Index needs to be improved. Despite the above limitations, this preliminary investigation of the relationships between parenting styles and thinking styles still has provided valuable information for this under-researched topic and for the field of the socialization of thinking styles. The statistically significant but weak associations found between parenting styles and thinking styles suggest that parenting styles could be a potential factor as a socialization agent to influence students' thinking styles; but there are other possible important factors (such as learning environments) that may have more powerful contribution to students' socialization of styles. Researchers could evaluate whether or not to include parenting styles when examining the socialization of styles based on the information provided by this study. Furthermore, although it is not reasonable to provide practical advice on parenting students' thinking styles due to the small magnitudes of relevant relationships and the aforementioned limitations, the comparison of this study with studies that found stronger associations between learning environments and intellectual styles (e.g., Gijbels, Segers, & Struyf, 2008; Groves, 2005; Klinger, 2006; Fan & Zhang, 2014) implies that education practitioners should pay more attention to factors in learning environments than to parental factors if they want to cultivate students' specific intellectual styles.

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Appendix A Descriptions of 13 thinking styles in the theory of mental self-government. Dimension

Thinking styles

Key characteristics

Function

Legislative (I) Executive (II) Judicial (I) Hierarchical (I) Monarchic (II) Oligarchic (III) Anarchic (III) Global (I) Local (II) Internal (III) External (III) Liberal (I) Conservative (II)

One refers to work on tasks that require creative strategies; one prefers to choose one's own activities. One prefers to work on tasks with clear instructions and structures; one prefers to implement tasks with established guidelines. One refers to work on tasks that allow for one's evaluation; one prefers to evaluate and judge the performance of other people. One prefers to distribute attention to several tasks prioritized according to one's valuing of the tasks. One prefers to work on tasks that allow complete focus on one thing at a time. One prefers to work on multiple tasks in the service of multiple objectives, without setting priorities. One prefers to work on tasks that would allow flexibility as to what, where, when, and how one works. One prefers to pay more attention to the overall picture of an issue and to abstract ideas. One prefers to work on tasks that require working with concrete details. One prefers to work on tasks that allow one to work as an independent unit. One refers to work on tasks that allow for collaborative ventures with other people. One prefers to work on tasks that involve novelty and ambiguity. One prefers to work on tasks that allow one to adhere to the existing rules and procedures in performing tasks.

Form

Level Scope Leaning

Note. Extracted from Zhang, 2003, p.630; I = Type I thinking style; II = Type II thinking style; and III = Type III thinking style.

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