Effects of parental parenting attitudes on adolescents' socialization via adolescents' perceived parenting

Abstract

The domain-specific approach to socialization has classified socialization mechanisms into several domains, including the protection and control domains, and postulates that parent-child interactions that promote socialization in each domain are different. However, there are few empirical investigations of the domain-specific approach. This study examined whether parental parenting attitudes affected early adolescents' empathy, including empathic concern and perspective taking, and social cognitive biases, including cognitive distortion and general beliefs about aggression, through the mediation of adolescents' perceptions. Junior high school students and their parents (N = 448) completed a questionnaire. Results of structural equation modeling indicated (a) parental acceptance and control increased empathy via adolescents' perceived acceptance and control, (b) parental acceptance and control decreased social cognitive biases via adolescents' perceived acceptance and control, and (c) parental control directly increased empathy. In addition, multiple group analyses indicated the validity of gender-and age-invariant models. These findings suggest that parental parenting attitudes are essential for appropriate socialization during early adolescence.