A Research On The Impacts Of Parenting Styles On The Social Adaptability Of College Students

Hardiness, which refers to the tendency in one’s attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors so as to prevent theharm of stressful conditions, was first introduced by Kobasa in1979. Hardiness as a complete personalitystructure comprises three related general dispositions of commitment, control, and challenge, theincompetence in any of which cannot be described as real hardiness. Present researches on hardiness fromhome and abroad mainly focus on its relationship with health and diseases. Individuals with high hardinessare less likely to show symptoms of diseases in the face of stress. This research tries to probe into thefactors leading to the hardiness of college students as well as its connection with one of the issues closelyrelated with them–their social adaptability. A survey was conducted among three colleges in Zhengzhouand Kaifeng. Altogether494students participated in three questionnaires regarding parenting styles,personality hardiness, and social adaptability so as to discover the connection between these three factors.The following results are achieved through this survey.1. Students of different grades show distinct scores in hardiness. The result suggests that freshmenachieves higher scores than sophomores and junior students. Moreover, sex and family location play a vitalrole in dispositions of control and challenge. The disposition of control depends on whether the student isthe only child of his/her family.2. There is correlation between every two factor among parenting style, hardiness, and socialadaptability. Meanwhile, the emotional warmth shown by father and mother in parenting styles is in directand obvious relation with four dispositions of resiliency, devotion, control, and challenge. The score ofsocial adaptability and its three dispositions of study adaptability, future adaptability, and interpersonaladaptability are in direct and obvious relation with the score of hardiness and its four dispositions ofresiliency, devotion, control, and challenge.3. The emotional warmth shown by father and mother in parenting styles plays the role of an obviousindicator of the child’s social adaptability. The hardiness of college students functions as an intermediarybetween the emotional warmth shown by father and mother and social adaptability. This suggests that the emotional warmth shown by father and mother in parenting styles exerts its influence on social adaptabilityof college students through their hardiness.