Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2022 Sep 19;19(18):11821.
doi: 10.3390/ijerph191811821.

Understanding the Relationship between Parental Psychological Control and Prosocial Behavior in Children in China: The Role of Self-Efficacy and Gender

Wangqian Fu  1 , Qianqian Pan  2 , Weida Zhang  3 , Lei Zhang  4
Affiliations

Understanding the Relationship between Parental Psychological Control and Prosocial Behavior in Children in China: The Role of Self-Efficacy and Gender

Wangqian Fu et al. Int J Environ Res Public Health. .

Abstract

Objectives: Prosocial behavior is essential for individuals' development, and the study aims to analyze the relationship between parental psychological control and prosocial behavior.

Method: The current study investigated the relationships among Paternal Psychological Control (endogenous variable), General Self-Efficacy (mediator), and Prosocial Behaviors (exogenous endogenous variable) via a moderated mediation modeling approach (gender as the moderator). A total of 1822 Chinese students aged from 7- to 17-year-old (Mage = 12.4 years old, SDage = 1.89, 48.6% girls) were included in the current study.

Results: After controlling participants' age, the only child status, family income, and parent's education level, results revealed that higher levels of parental control were associated with lower levels of students' self-efficacy, which, in turn, reduced students' prosocial behavior intention. Moreover, the relationship between self-efficacy and prosocial behavior intention was moderated by students' gender, where the positive effects of self-efficacy on prosocial behavior intentions were reduced in girls.

Conclusion: Findings highlight the importance of parental psychological control for supporting children's self-efficacy to promote prosocial behaviors on different gender groups.

Keywords: China; gender; parental psychological control; prosocial behavior; self-efficacy.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
(A) diagrams of theoretical model; (B) diagrams of statistical model. Note. SE: self-efficacy; a: effect of parental psychological control on self-efficacy; b1: effect of self-efficacy on prosocial behavior; b2: effect of gender on prosocial behavior; b3: interaction effect of gender and self-efficacy on prosocial behavior; c′: effect of parental psychological control on prosocial behavior; * means a multiplication.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Eisenberg N., Mussen P.H. The Roots of Prosocial Behaviour in Children. Cambridge University Press; Cambridge, UK: 1989.
    1. Carlo G., Randall B.A. The development of a measure of prosocial behaviors for late adolescents. J. Youth Adolesc. 2002;31:31–44. doi: 10.1023/A:1014033032440. - DOI
    1. Penner L.A., Fritzsche B.A., Craiger J.P., Freifeld T.R. Measuring the Prosocial Personality. In: Butcher J., Spielberger C.D., editors. Advances in Personality Assessment. Volume 10. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates; Hillsdale, NJ, USA: 1995. pp. 147–163.
    1. Strenta A., Dejong W. The effect of prosocial label on helping behavior. Soc. Psychol. Q. 1981;44:142–147. doi: 10.2307/3033711. - DOI
    1. Xing X., Sun X., Shao S. Parental psychological control and children’s self-control and problem behavior: A mediated regulation model. J. Psychol. Sci. 2017;40:594–599.

Publication types

LinkOut - more resources