Paternal Parenting Styles and Filial Piety Toward Fathers Among Chinese Adolescents: The Roles of Conscientiousness and Moral Identity.

Abstract

Background: Previous studies have demonstrated that caregivers' parenting styles are associated with children' filial piety toward parents. However, the underlying mechanisms linking parenting styles to filial piety toward parents remain largely unspecified. Additionally, prior research commonly classifies family parenting styles into positive parenting and negative parenting, neglecting the potential differential impacts and pathways of different types of paternal parenting styles on filial piety toward fathers.

Purpose: Drawing on theoretical and empirical evidence, this study investigated the relationship between two types of paternal parenting styles (positive and negative) and filial piety toward fathers among Chinese adolescents, employing serial mediation models that included conscientiousness and moral identity as potential mediators.

Methods: A total of 467 Chinese senior high school students aged 14-19 years (male 47.1%) completed anonymous questionnaires assessing demographics, paternal parenting styles, conscientiousness, moral identity and filial piety toward fathers. Serial mediation analyses were conducted using Mplus8.3 and bootstrap procedures.

Results: After controlling for gender, age, and only-child status, the results indicated that both positive and negative paternal parenting are significantly associated with adolescents' filial piety toward fathers. Furthermore, positive paternal parenting correlates with adolescents' filial piety toward fathers through two independent mechanisms: an indirect pathway mediated by moral identity and the serial mediating pathway of conscientiousness and moral identity. In contrast, the association between negative paternal parenting and adolescents' filial piety toward fathers operates only through a direct pathway.

Conclusion: Both positive and negative paternal parenting were significantly correlated with adolescents' filial piety toward fathers. However, the serial mediating path from conscientiousness to moral identity is only significant across the model examining positive paternal parenting as a predictor of filial piety toward fathers. Conscientiousness does not function as a viable mediator linking paternal parenting to adolescents' filial piety toward their fathers. Likewise, moral identity fails to mediate the association between negative paternal parenting and filial piety toward fathers. This study verifies that fathers constitute a pivotal figure in the formation of adolescents' filial piety within the Chinese cultural context and shed light on the asymmetric dynamic between distinct paternal parenting styles and filial piety among Chinese adolescents. These findings advance our understanding of the distinct functions of divergent paternal parenting styles as a critical familial environmental factor, which shapes adolescents' filial piety through the intrapersonal pathway of personality traits and moral identity.