Staged and Gendered Pathways From Parenting Behaviors to Chinese Students' Creative Thinking: The Roles of Autonomous Motivation and Creative Self-Efficacy

Parenting behaviors play an important role in predicting students' creativity, but little research has explored the simultaneous roles and relative importance that parental autonomy support (PAS) and parental behavioral control (PBC) play in creative thinking (CT). Drawing from the definition of creativity and based on social cognitive theory and stage/person-environment fit theory, we aimed to explore how and when PAS and PBC related to CT. Students (N = 1,728) from three primary schools, two junior high schools and two senior high schools participated in this study and completed measures of PAS, PBC, autonomous motivation (AM), creative self-efficacy (CSE), and CT. We tested the model in the full sample first, then in three stage groups and two gender groups via multigroup analyses. The results indicated that both PAS and PBC contributed to CT positively through the mediating effects of AM and CSE for the full sample, and with equivalent benefit. Further multigroup analyses revealed that staged pathways emerged for the overall sample and gendered pathways for both junior high and senior high school students, and found that PBC in particular played a much stronger effect for junior high school girls and senior high school boys. These findings highlight the importance of providing Chinese students with autonomy support as well as behavioral control via two vital readiness factors (i.e., will and can) to foster CT in Chinese boys and girls at different stages.