Parenting approaches and feelings of autonomy among adolescents in two cultures

While research has demonstrated the importance of parental autonomy support and psychological control for children’s adjustment, their implications of such parenting practices for children’s subjective feelings of autonomy remain less well understood. Focusing on American and Chinese adolescents, the current research examined the longitudinal associations between parenting and adolescents’ feelings of autonomy, with attention to adolescents’ endorsement of parent-oriented reasons for doing well in school as a possible underlying mechanism. At three time points over 1.5 years, American (n = 332) and Hong Kong Chinese (n = 235) adolescents reported on their parents’ use of autonomy-supportive and psychological controlling parenting practices, their reasons for doing well in school, and their feelings of autonomy. Autoregressive path analyses were conducted to examine longitudinal associations and test for indirect effects. Results revealed that, in both the American and Chinese samples, parental autonomy support predicted increases in adolescents’ feelings of autonomy, whereas psychological control predicted decreases. In the Chinese sample only, autonomy support also predicted a greater endorsement of parent-oriented reasons for doing well in school, which, in turn, was associated with reduced feelings of autonomy over time. Findings highlight both the universal and culture-specific pathways through which parenting practices shape adolescents’ autonomy development. While autonomy support fosters a sense of volition across cultures, its motivational significance may vary depending on cultural norms and the extent to which adolescents internalize parental expectations.