| The purpose of the present study was to explore the effect of parenting styles and students' personality on students' thinking styles. 196 secondary school students in Shanghai participated in this study and responded to the Thinking Styles Inventory (Sternberg, Wagner & Zhang, 2007), to the NEO Five-Factor Inventory (Costa & McCrae, 1992), and to the Authoritative Parenting Measure (Steinberg et al., 1994). Results were shown as follows:(1) Parenting styles had effect on students' thinking styles. Specifically, parents' responsiveness was positively related to students' Type I thinking styles, while parents' demandingness was positively related to students' Type II thinking styles. Different types of parenting styles also had different influence on some thinking styles.(2) Significant relationships are identified between students' personality traits and their thinking styles. Specifically, positive correlations were confirmed between openness to experience and Type I thinking styles and between neuroticism and Type II thinking styles. Extraversion was associated with Type III thinking styles, and conscientiousness was associated with both some Type I thinking styles and some Type II thinking styles.(3) Further analysis by Structural Equation Model also supported that the level of responsiveness in parenting styles influenced the development of students' Type I thinking styles partially through its effect on students' personality.All of these results indicated that both parenting styles and students' personality had influence on students' thinking styles, and students' personality partially mediated the influence of parenting styles on students' thinking styles. These findings contributed to a growing body of literature on thinking styles, parenting styles, personality and bioecological theory, and provided parents, teachers and educators with more information and foundation to take effective strategies to optimize the development of students' thinking styles. |
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