The influences of parental acceptance and parental controlon school adjustment and academic achievement for SouthKorean children: the mediation role of self-regulation

Jungyoon Lee • Heekeun Yu • Sumi Choi

Received: 20 November 2010 / Revised: 15 August 2011 / Accepted: 27 August 2011 / Published online: 25 September 2011

� Education Research Institute, Seoul National University, Seoul, Korea 2011

Abstract This study examined the effects of parental

acceptance, psychological control, and behavioral control

on children’s school adjustment and academic achieve-

ment, as well as the possible mediation effect of children’s

self-regulation in those processes. To do so, we examined

388 upper-level elementary school students (mean

age = 11.38 years) in South Korea. In addition, the study

examined whether the influences of parental psychological

and behavioral control on children’s school outcomes were

consistent between Western and East Asian cultures.

Children reported on perceived parental acceptance, psy-

chological control, behavioral control, self-regulation, and

their own school adjustment and academic achievement.

The results showed that parental acceptance, psychological

control, and behavioral control were not directly related to

children’s school outcomes. Parental acceptance and

behavioral control indirectly influenced the children’s

school outcomes but were mediated by the children’s self-

regulation. However, the mediation effect of self-regula-

tion between psychological control and children’s school

outcomes was not statistically significant. These results

suggested that children’s self-regulation plays a more sig-

nificant role vis-a-vis children’s school outcomes than the

direct effects of parenting and that parental psychological

control did not have a negative effect on South Korean

children’s school outcomes.

Keywords Parental acceptance � Psychological control �Behavioral control � School adjustment �Academic achievement � Self-regulation

All parents want their children to adjust well and achieve in

school. South Korean parents are especially concerned

about education, as evidenced by several statistics: private

education spending reached 21.6 trillion won—about 10%

of South Korea’s national budget—and 87.4% of elemen-

tary school children reportedly participate in private edu-

cation (National Statistical Office 2009). Such devotion to

education has its benefits; however, it also produces many

negative side effects and dysfunctions. It is worthwhile to

note that while many South Korean students show

impressive academic achievement during the lower grades

of elementary school, as a result of excessive pressure from

a young age to succeed academically, many lose interest in

learning as they reach the upper grades. Consequently,

their academic achievement levels start to decline and

many face serious problems at school. Cha et al. (2009)

examined 7,262 elementary, middle, and high school stu-

dents in South Korea and found that about 25% of them

were indifferent to academic achievement and intentionally

absent; additionally, about 10% of students had been

exposed to bullying. Faced with such circumstances, it

would be helpful to determine what parents can do to

influence both their children’s adjustment to school and

their academic achievement, especially as they reach the

upper grades in elementary school.

Students’ inborn capabilities and temperaments play

primary roles in how they adjust to school; however, the

parenting that students receive may be just as important.

Furthermore, students need to develop self-regulation to

regulate themselves in spite of distractions and challenges

J. Lee � H. Yu

Sungshin Women’s University, Seoul, Korea

S. Choi (&)

Department of Child Development and Family Studies, Pusan

National University, San 32, Jangjeon-2 dong, Geumjeong-gu,

Pusan 609-735, Korea

e-mail: felizchoi@pusan.ac.kr

123

Asia Pacific Educ. Rev. (2012) 13:227–237

DOI 10.1007/s12564-011-9186-5

if they wish to achieve long-term goals. Students who

possess self-regulation have a greater chance of being

successful in the course of their school lives. Therefore, it

would be meaningful to study how parenting influences

children’s adjustment to school and whether the degree of

self-regulation displayed by the children mediates the

adjustment process.

Recent parenting research has taken a dimension-driven

approach that allows one to examine the specific behaviors

and attitudes of parents (Pettit et al. 2001). Parenting lit-

erature has elaborated on the support and control dimen-

sions of parenting (Barber et al. 2006). The support

dimension includes emotional factors, affectionate caring,

and intimacy, while the control dimension refers to par-

enting behaviors related to regulating and disciplining

children. The control dimension can be further divided into

psychological control and behavioral control, depending on

whether or not the control is exerted with an attitude of

respect toward the self and the child’s autonomy. Wang

et al. (2007) described psychological control as ‘‘control

exerted over children’s thoughts and feelings in the psy-

chological world and [which] intrudes upon children’s

sense of self.’’ According to Smetana and Daddis (2002),

behavioral control has been defined as ‘‘the rules, regula-

tions, and restrictions that parents have for their child and

their awareness of their child’s activities’’, which encom-

passes both parental knowledge and parental expectations

for their child as parts of behavioral control dimensions. In

recent years, there has been much interest in the control

dimension. Steinberg (1990) reports that adolescents are

adversely affected when their psychological autonomy is

violated by their parents’ psychological control, but are

affected positively when parents exert behavioral control

(i.e., place appropriate ‘‘demands’’ on them); Barber

(1996), Barber et al. (2006), meanwhile, provides much

empirical evidence on the negative effects of psychological

control.

The three aforementioned parenting dimensions (i.e.,

parental support or acceptance, psychological control, and

behavioral control) can be matched with those promoted by

self-determination theory (SDT) researchers. Grolnick

(2009), who pioneered the application of SDT to parenting,

argues that involvement, autonomy support, and the pro-

vision of structure promote healthy psychological devel-

opment in children, as well as positive school adjustment.

Involvement is related to the support dimension, autonomy

support to the psychological control dimension, and the

provision of structure to the behavioral control dimension.

Involvement refers to parents having an interest in the

child’s everyday life and playing an active role in it (Wong

2008). Autonomy support is a type of parenting behavior

that encourages the child’s independent problem solving

and decision-making, and it also promotes his or her self-

determination (Reitz et al. 2006). However, there is a

caveat when examining the literature on autonomy support

and psychological control; although autonomy support

relates to psychological control, there has been some

controversy as to whether autonomy support and psycho-

logical control should be seen as factors along the same

dimension (Silk et al. 2003). The absence of psychological

control, after all, does not necessarily imply the presence of

autonomy support. Overall, results from recent studies

suggest that the presence of psychological control relates to

internalization problems, whereas the presence of auton-

omy support relates to better adjustment. Providing struc-

ture refers to parenting behavior that monitors the child’s

activities and limits his or her behavior according to a set

of rules.

According to previous research, these three parenting

dimensions relate to a child’s school outcomes. Parents’

autonomy support and involvement were found to relate

positively to academic achievement among 8–12-year-old

children (Grolnick and Ryan 1989), and a longitudinal

study revealed that the mother’s autonomy support in the

previous 3 years related positively to the child’s reading

performance, as well as his or her social and academic

adjustment (Joussemet et al. 2005). Moreover, the mother’s

personal involvement was found to relate to decreases in

the frequency of the child’s academic problems, and the

mother’s cognitive and personal involvement to the child’s

reading grades (Grolnick et al. 2000). The parental provi-

sion of structure, meanwhile, increased the child’s sense of

academic competence (Fletcher et al. 2004). Parenting

styles were found to affect children’s functioning at school

directly, as seen above; however, parenting styles can also

influence children’s school adjustment in an indirect

manner, by helping them develop certain characteristics.

For instance, an adaptive parenting attitude may promote

children’s adjustment by helping them develop a capacity

to control themselves (Finkenauer et al. 2005).

Self-regulation is a protective factor that precludes

children from engaging in risky behaviors; in this way, it

helps them avoid the negative effects of such behaviors

(Jessor and Jessor 1977). Self-regulation is a capacity that

allows one to ignore or suppress impulses that are socially

unacceptable and undesirable, and to change and regulate

one’s behavior, cognition, and emotion (Finkenauer et al.

2005; Moilanen 2007; Novak and Clayton 2001; Tangney

et al. 2004). Self-regulation also relates to the concept of

‘‘effortful control,’’ which is defined as ‘‘the process of

voluntarily initiating, avoiding, inhibiting, or modulating

the occurrence, form, intensity, or duration of feeling

states’’ (Eisenberg et al. 2003, p. 762). In the present study,

the term ‘‘self-regulation’’ is used interchangeably with

Baumeister et al.’s (1994) concept of self-control—which

they define as ‘‘a conscious, willful, and effortful human

228 J. Lee et al.

123

activity’’ that leads to the ‘‘regulation of socially unac-

ceptable and undesirable impulses’’ and which involves

both the capacities to downregulate unwanted responses of

the self and/or the capacities to activate wanted ones

concurrently (Finkenauer et al. 2005).

Previous research has shown that parental acceptance/

involvement and behavioral control facilitate the develop-

ment of children’s self-regulation, whereas psychological

control undermines its development (Brody and Ge 2001;

Finkenauer et al. 2005; Wong 2008). Parental acceptance/

involvement assists in the internalization of parental values

by satisfying children’s need for relatedness; behavioral

control, meanwhile, facilitates children’s experience of

competence by helping to achieve successful school out-

comes (Grolnick 2009). However, when parents employ

psychological control, children’s attempts to regulate

themselves decrease; as a result, they miss out on oppor-

tunities to develop their own autonomy and self-direction

(Grolnick and Ryan 1989; Steinberg 1990). In this way,

parenting styles affect the development of children’s self-

regulation—a trait that has been shown to have a positive

impact on both adaptive behavior and academic achieve-

ment during childhood and adolescence (Brody and Ge

2001; Finkenauer et al. 2005; Wong 2008).

One can expect self-regulation to play an important role

in how parenting variables affect children’s success at and

adjustment to school. A few studies have examined the

effect of self-regulation as a possible mediator between

parenting variables and children’s outcomes. Finkenauer

et al. (2005) examined 1,359 early adolescents (i.e., aged

10–14) in the Netherlands and found that adaptive par-

enting behaviors—namely, high parental acceptance, strict

control and monitoring, and little use of manipulative

psychological control—partially mediated the link between

parenting behavior and adolescent emotional and behav-

ioral problems. Wong (2008) studied 171 adolescents in

junior and senior high schools and examined whether

adolescents’ effortful control variables—such as attention-

focusing and shifting, inhibitory control, and activation

control—mediated the effects of parental involvement and

autonomy support on various child outcomes, such as

academic performance, disruptive behavior, and substance

abuse. While controlling for gender, ethnicity, and age,

Wong found that parental involvement positively predicted

effortful control and that effortful control significantly

mediated the effects of parental involvement on academic

performance. However, parental involvement did not have

a direct effect on academic performance. Based on the

literature, it seems likely that parenting dimensions affect

children’s success at and adjustment to school not only

directly but also indirectly by first helping the child

develop self-regulation; this, in turn, affects children’s

success at and adjustment to school. However, there is little

research that investigates the mediation effect of children’s

self-regulation between the three parenting dimensions—

especially parental warmth/involvement, autonomy sup-

port/psychological control, and behavioral control—and

the children’s success in adjustment at school (Finkenauer

et al. 2005).

In addition, we can expect there to be cultural differ-

ences between East Asia and the West in the ways in which

parenting dimensions impact children’s school adjustment.

East Asian and Western cultures have been seen to have

different construals of the self and others, and these

divergent construals can influence and even determine the

very nature of individual experience and regulate various

psychological processes (Markus and Kitayama 1991a). In

many Western cultures, an individual has an ‘‘independent

construal of self’’ and sees oneself as autonomous and

separate from others. In contrast, in many non-Western

cultures—including Eastern cultures—an individual has an

‘‘interdependent construal of self’’ and sees oneself as

related and connected to others. Therefore, cultures that

possess an independent construal of self tend to value

individual autonomy, whereas cultures that possess an

interdependent construal of self tend to treat autonomy as

secondary to and constrained by the value of interdepen-

dence (Markus and Kitayama 1991b; Chan and Chan

2009). Although South Korea has rapidly ‘‘Westernized’’

in recent years, it is still a non-Western culture where an

interdependent construal of the self is dominant. Therefore,

one can expect South Korean children to be more accepting

than Western children of the goals that parents set for them

and the parental authority placed over them (Choi 2006;

Kim and Hoppe-Graff 2001). They may also be less sen-

sitive to intrusion on their autonomy, compared with

Western adolescents. Wang et al. (2007) undertook a six-

month longitudinal study on seventh-grade students in the

United States and China and found that the impact of

parental psychological autonomy support on children’s

emotional functioning or academics was found to be

smaller in China, an East Asian culture, than that in

Western cultures. Further, the negative effect of psycho-

logical control was less pronounced in China. At the same

time, the effect of behavioral control on children’s positive

emotions was lower in China.

The present study investigated the effects of parenting

dimensions on children’s school adjustment and academic

achievement, as well as the possible mediation effect of

children’s self-regulation in those processes among chil-

dren in South Korea, a society where relationships and

interdependence are valued. A proposed structural model,

presented in Fig. 1, illustrates our hypotheses. First, we

postulated that the three main parenting dimensions—

namely, parental acceptance, psychological control, and

behavioral control—would have a direct and positive

Parenting, children’s schooling, and self-regulation 229

123

influence on children’s school adjustment and academic

achievement. Second, we hypothesized that the influence

of each of parental acceptance, psychological control, and

behavioral control on children’s school adjustment and

academic achievement would also be mediated by chil-

dren’s self-regulation. Additionally, we sought to examine

whether or not the effect of parental psychological control

and behavioral control in South Korea would be similar to

that found in Western countries—an issue that has been

addressed in the past by SDT researchers.

Method

Procedure and participants

A survey was conducted among students in three ele-

mentary schools in South Korean urban areas. One

school in Seoul and two schools in Gyeonggi Province

were selected through convenient sampling. A researcher

contacted teachers or principal at the schools and

explained what this study investigates, the purpose of

research, and the survey procedure. In each school, two

classes were randomly selected from each grade among

the fifth- and sixth-grade classes. Researcher provided

teachers with instructions how to administer the ques-

tionnaire by phone and sent the study’s questionnaire

with information about performing survey by mail.

Instructed teachers provided students with general

information on this study including the nature of the

study and the purpose of the survey and assured students

of confidentiality in written form. Even if there was not

an official procedure of getting a written consent from

participants in this study, teachers did not enforce to

complete the questionnaire to students who did not want

to participate. Additionally, teachers answered any

questions from the participants and returned the com-

pleted questionnaire to the researcher by mail.

The present study used Korean translations of all the

scale items, except those from Lee’s (2005) School

Adjustment Questionnaire; translations from English to

Korean were provided by a bilingual research assistant.

Students completed a battery of questionnaires during

regular school hours and received a small gift for their

participation. After excluding questionnaires in which

students did not respond or responded unreliably, we were

able to use data from 388 questionnaires. The participants

comprised 204 fifth graders (52.6%) and 184 sixth graders

(47.4%); 195 of these students were boys (50.3%) and 193,

girls (49.7%). Their average age was 11.38(SD = 0.60)

years.

Fig. 1 A hypothesized structural model

230 J. Lee et al.

123

Measures

Parental acceptance and psychological control

To measure parental acceptance and psychological control,

we used Korean translations of 20 items from the accep-

tance and psychological control subscales of CRPBI-30, a

30-item version of the Children’s Reports of Parental

Behavior Inventory (CRPBI; Schaefer 1965; Schludermann

and Schludermann 1988). There were two sets of 10 items

that measured parental acceptance, such as ‘‘My mom

(dad) is able to make me feel better when I am upset’’ and

‘‘My mom (dad) enjoys doing things with me.’’ There were

also two sets of 10 items that measured parental psycho-

logical control, such as ‘‘My mom (dad) would like to be

able to tell me what to do all the time’’ and ‘‘My mom

(dad) will avoid looking at me when I have disappointed

her (him).’’

The participants were asked to respond to the items

using a three-point Likert scale to indicate their perceptions

of their mothers’ and fathers’ behaviors. Higher scores

indicated perceptions in which parents were more accept-

ing or psychologically controlling. The Cronbach’s alpha

values for parental acceptance and psychological control,

as used in this study, were 0.88 and 0.70, respectively.

Behavioral control

To measure behavioral control, we used Korean transla-

tions of all 14 items of Shek’s (2006) Paternal Knowledge

Scale (PKNO) and Maternal Knowledge Scale (MKNO),

and the Paternal Expectation Scale (PEXP) and Maternal

Expectation Scale (MEXP). Each of Parental Knowledge

and Parental Expectation scales is described with seven

items. Example items of parental knowledge: ‘‘My

mom(dad) clearly knows my situation in my school’’, ‘‘My

mom(dad) understands my academic performance’’, ‘‘My

mom(dad) knows my activities after school’’, ‘‘My

mom(dad) knows activities when I am with my friends.’’

And for parental expectation: ‘‘My mom(dad) requires me

to have good behavior in school’’, ‘‘My mom(dad) expects

me to hard when I have examinations’’, ‘‘My mom(dad)

has explicit requirements about how I make friends with

others’’, ‘‘My mom(dad) has clear rules about my behavior

when I am with my friends’’, ‘‘My mom(dad) does not have

clear rules about how I use my leisure time.’’1 The par-

ticipants were asked to respond to the items using a three-

point Likert scale to indicate their perceptions of their

mothers’ and fathers’ behaviors. Higher scores indicated

perceptions in which parents were more behaviorally

controlling. Cronbach’s alpha of the scale was 0.80.

Self-regulation

In order to measure children’s self-regulation, we used a

Korean translation of the self-regulation scale (SRS)

developed by Novak and Clayton (2001). There were 26

items in all, with 9 items that measure emotional regulation

(e.g., ‘‘I have difficulty controlling my temper’’), 10 items

that measure cognitive regulation (e.g., ‘‘I think about the

future consequences of my actions’’), and 7 items that

measure behavioral regulation (e.g., ‘‘I get very fidgety

after a few minutes if I am supposed to sit still’’). The

responses to these items were ranked on a 4-point scale,

and 9 items of emotional regulation, the tenth item of

cognitive regulation, and 7 items of behavioral regulation

coded reversely for the analysis. A high score on this scale

indicates more self-regulation in each category. The

Cronbach’s alpha of the scale was 0.80.

School adjustment

In order to measure children’s school adjustment, we used

the School Adjustment Questionnaire developed by Lee

(2005). The original scale was in Korean and was devel-

oped for use with middle school students, but we thought

that most of the items were suitable for elementary school

students. The wording of a few items was changed to better

suit elementary school students. The questionnaire contains

38 items, each of which is scored on a five-point Likert

scale—including 8 items that measure academic compe-

tence (‘‘I can understand most of the material taught during

class.’’), 10 items that measure peer relationships (‘‘I have

friends who play with me.’’), 10 items that measure rela-

tionship with teachers (‘‘I feel comfortable talking to

teachers.’’), and 10 items that measure general school life

(‘‘I think I have a successful school life.’’). The Cronbach’s

alpha of the scale was 0.95.

Grades

On the basis of Herman et al.’s (1997) work—which sug-

gests that grades reported by students reflect their actual

grades—we collected the students’ grades by using the

self-report method. We asked the participants to report

their grades on their most recent tests in each of the1 1 PKNO and MKNO assess parental knowledge, which may not be

an accurate measure of parental monitoring, a part of the behavioral

control dimension (Stattin and Kerr 2000; Kerr et al. 2010). This

poses a problem for our behavioral control subscale. However,

granted that children’s willing disclosure could be more important,

parental knowledge is at least partially due to parental behavioral

Footnote 1 continued

control, and our scale also includes parental expectations, another

factor in behavioral control.

Parenting, children’s schooling, and self-regulation 231

123

following four subjects: Korean language, mathematics,

social studies, and science. We provided the students with a

table divided into nine sections (i.e., \59 points, 60–64

points, 65–69 points, 70–74 points, 75–79 points, 80–84

points, 85–89 points, 90–94 points, and [95 points) and

had them mark the appropriate space for each subject.

Statistical analysis

Descriptive statistics and zero-order correlations were

computed for all measures, through the use of SPSS 15.0

(SPSS Inc., Chicago, IL, USA). Next, the hypothesized

structural equation model was tested, to investigate the

direct and indirect relationships among latent variables

(i.e., parental acceptance, psychological control, behavioral

control, self-regulation, school adjustment, and academic

achievement).

A number of fit indices were used to evaluate the fit of

the structural model. As a general rule, v2 is considered a

statistically significant index, and an acceptable fit is

indicated by a v2 probability value of P [ 0.5. As v2 is

sensitive to sample size, however, models often tend to be

rejected; researchers therefore suggest that alternative fit

indices should be considered in concert with v2. Thus, this

study also considered the comparative fit index (CFI),

normed fit index (NFI), TLI (Tucker and Lewis Index), and

root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA) as

alternate indices. Model fit is considered adequate if each

of CFI, NFI, and TLI [ 0.90, and RMSEA \ 0.08.

Results

Descriptive statistics

Table 1 contains the means, standard deviations, and

maximum and minimum scores of the variables. To con-

firm the normality of variables included in the structural

model, both skewness and kurtosis were examined.

According to Curran et al. (1996), skewness and kurtosis

should not deviate beyond 2 and 7, respectively. The

results of skewness and kurtosis, shown in Table 1, are

lower than these standards, thus indicating the normality of

the variables.

Zero-order correlations among all measures were esti-

mated and evaluated, to examine multicollinearity before

conducting structural equation modeling (SEM) (see

Table 2). Results of the correlation analysis in which there

were correlations ranging from 0.001 to 0.74 indicated that

each of the seven predictors was not strongly interrelated.

Therefore, we included all predictors to analyze their

associations with all measures.

Structural equation modeling

The fit index of the hypothesized structural model con-

taining three latent variables was examined; results thereof

are provided in Table 3. As can be seen in Table 3, the

hypothesized model’s v2 value was significant (v2 =

353.003, df = 104, P \ 0.001). However, as mentioned

above, other fit indices should be considered in testing

model fit, given that v2 values are influenced by sample

size (e.g., Marsh et al. 1988). Unlike the v2 P value, other

fit indices indicated a good fit between the data and the

hypothesized model: RMSEA = 0.079 (95% [CI] =

0.070–0.088), CFI = 0.931, NFI = 0.905, and TLI =

0.909.

Table 1 Descriptive statistics for variables

Mean SD Min Max Skewness Kurtosis

Parental acceptance

Parental

acceptance_Mom

15.16 4.43 1 20 -1.07 0.51

Parental

acceptance_Dad

14.06 4.69 0 20 -0.85 0.23

Psychological control

Psychological

control_Mom

9.18 3.57 1 19 0.17 -0.29

Psychological

control_Dad

8.47 3.54 0 19 0.21 -0.07

Behavioral control

Behavioral

control_Mom

20.28 4.63 2 28 -0.61 0.59

Behavioral

control_Dad

16.88 5.41 2 28 -0.27 -0.39

Self_regulation

Emotional

regulation

20.07 4.74 1 27 -1.18 1.83

Cognitive

regulation

16.03 5.59 2 30 0.07 -0.49

Behavioral

regulation

16.65 3.54 0 21 -1.30 2.35

School adjustment

Academic

competence

21.32 5.55 2 32 -0.32 -0.13

Relationship with

friend

28.88 7.02 2 40 -0.67 0.57

Relationship with

teacher

24.96 7.61 0 40 -0.36 0.07

General school life 26.09 6.94 2 40 -0.34 -0.01

Academic achievement

Korean language 7.57 1.77 1 9 -1.53 2.20

Mathematics 6.62 2.51 1 9 -0.95 -0.24

Social studies 7.36 1.94 1 9 -1.52 2.04

Science 7.18 2.14 1 9 -1.23 0.70

232 J. Lee et al.

123

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Parenting, children’s schooling, and self-regulation 233

123

The paths for this model with measurement and stan-

dardized path coefficients are provided in Fig. 2. Parental

acceptance and behavioral control positively predicted

children’s self-regulation, and each was statistically sig-

nificant (b = 0.39, P \ 0.01; b = 0.32, P \ 0.05). On the

other hand, psychological control negatively influenced

self-regulation, but not in a statistically significant manner

(b = -0.03, P [ 0.05). Self-regulation, meanwhile, rela-

ted to increases in school adjustment and academic

achievement (b = 1.13, P \ 0.001; b = 0.53, P \ 0.001).

However, no direct relationships were found between

the three predictive variables (i.e., parental acceptance,

psychological control, and behavioral control) and the two

outcome variables (i.e., school adjustment and academic

achievement) (see Fig. 2).

Final structural model

Although the model fit of the hypothesized model con-

taining two hypotheses was good, there was no direct

association between the three independent variables and

the two outcome variables. Such a nonsignificant coeffi-

cient was not considered consistent with the theoretical

integrity of the model. Paths between the three predictors

and the two outcome variables, as well as the fit indices for

the resultant model, are shown in Table 3 and Fig. 2.

There was a significant improvement in the fit of the

modified model (v2 difference = 108.799, df = 20,

P \ 0.001); the final model was found by all the fit indices

to be a better fit than the hypothesized structural model.

Therefore, we chose the modified model as the final model

Table 3 v2 differences and fit indices of the structural models

v2 df v2 difference RMSEA CFI NFI TLI

Hypothesized model 353.003*** 104 108.799*** .079 .931 .905 .909

Final model 244.204*** 84 (df = 20) .070 .946 .921 .933

*** P \ 0.001

Fig. 2 Final model

234 J. Lee et al.

123

(see Fig. 2); therein, parental acceptance and behavioral

control, each mediated by children’s self-regulation, indi-

rectly influenced the children’s school adjustment and

academic achievement.

Discussion

The present study was designed to examine the influence of

parental acceptance, psychological control, and behavioral

control on South Korean children’s school adjustment and

academic achievement, as well as the mediation effect of

children’s self-regulation in those processes. In addition,

we sought to examine whether the influence of parental

psychological and behavioral control on children’s school

outcomes was consistent between Western and East Asian

cultures.

The results partially supported the proposed model.

Mediation by self-regulation was observed only between

the predictive variables of parental acceptance and

behavioral control, and the outcome variables of school

adjustment and academic achievement. We hypothesized

that parental acceptance, psychological control, and

behavioral control would directly influence children’s

school outcome directly, but such an effect was not found

to be statistically significant. Moreover, self-regulation did

not appear to mediate the path between psychological

control and children’s school outcome.

The results of the present study suggested that parental

acceptance and behavioral control play important roles in

the enhancement of a child’s self-regulation and that this

capacity, in turn, makes a big difference in a child’s school

outcomes. These results supported Wong (2008) and Fin-

kenauer et al.’s (2005) findings, which touch upon the

mediation effect of self-regulation. Previous studies

(Grolnick and Ryan 1989; Grolnick et al. 2000; Fletcher

et al. 2004; Joussemet et al. 2005) assert that parental

involvement, autonomy support, and behavioral control

directly affect children’s school adjustment and academic

achievement; however, they do not provide explanations

for the specific processes through which parenting styles

influence children’s school outcomes (Barber and Harmon

2001; Grolnick 2002). Moreover, although some studies

argue for the importance of children’s self-regulation in the

processes through which parenting styles affect children’s

adjustment, few empirical studies have addressed this issue

(Finkenauer et al. 2005). Therefore, the present study is

meaningful and contributes to the literature, in that it tested

the mediation effect of children’s self-regulation and found

that self-regulation played a more significant role than the

direct effects of parenting in children’s adjustment and

success in school. Therefore, it is important for parents to

provide the child with warmth, acceptance, and support, as

well as appropriate structure, to help him or her develop the

self-regulation needed to resist temptations and delay

gratification. The results also suggest that self-regulation is

a significant factor not only in academic achievement but

also in other areas of school adjustment: academic com-

petence, relationships with friends and teachers, and sat-

isfaction with school life.

However, the effect of parental psychological control on

children’s self-regulation and school adjustment was found

in the present study to be somewhat different from that

seen in studies of Western cultures (Barber and Harmon

2001; Brody and Ge 2001; Finkenauer et al. 2005). In the

West, many researchers have regarded psychological con-

trol as a violation of the child’s autonomy and have

reported that it produces a negative effect on the child’s

emotional and academic functioning. Many researchers

promoting the SDT have conceptualized autonomy support

as a construct antithetical to psychological control (Reitz

et al. 2006); they found that when the parents support the

child’s autonomy (i.e., when they are not psychologically

controlling), the child’s academic self-regulation style

becomes more autonomous and academic achievement is

enhanced (d’Ailly 2003; Grolnick et al. 1991; Soenens and

Vansteenkiste 2005). However, the present study found

that psychological control does not affect South Korean

children’s school outcomes in a significant way. This result

seems to align with those of Wang et al. (2007), who report

that the negative effect of psychological control is less

pronounced in China, an East Asian culture, than in the

United States, a Western culture. This result suggests that

in East Asian culture, children may not regard parental

psychological control as a violation of their autonomy. This

is also true in South Korea where Confucian tradition is

still strongly embedded in the culture and there are higher

expectations for children to obey their parents. Further-

more, parental psychological control tactics such as guilt

induction and repression of self-expression are more pre-

valent than in the West. Therefore, elementary school

students may not have found parental psychological control

as negative. Academic competition and pressure are fierce

even at the upper elementary school level in Korea, and

parental concern is often focused on their children’s aca-

demic achievement. Thus, higher parental control, whether

it be behavioral or psychological, is likely to produce

greater achievement on the part of the children, as long as

they do not view it in a negative manner.

However, there are some qualifications to this claim:

because the participants of the present study are elementary

school students, they are at an age in South Korean culture

where they are not yet psychologically distinct from their

parents. Therefore, they may not regard the items that

measure psychological control as violations of their sense

of self, whereas students from an older age group may have

Parenting, children’s schooling, and self-regulation 235

123

thought so. There is also the possibility that the effect of

psychological control may be more pronounced on emo-

tional functioning than on academic functioning (see Wang

et al. 2007). Further, South Korean children who partici-

pated may have, for a variety of reasons, responded to the

various subscales of the psychological control items in

ways that were not expected. For instance, children may

have perceived items that measure perceptions of love

withdrawal as too negative and thus responded defensively.

On the other hand, behavioral control contributed to greater

self-regulation among children; this, in turn, influenced

children’s school outcomes in a positive manner. This

result is similar to that of Wang et al. (2007), who found

that behavioral control had a positive effect on children’s

academic achievements in both China, an East Asian cul-

ture, and the United States, a Western culture.

The present study has the following limitations. First,

since the study was cross-sectional in nature, it can provide

explanations for correlations among variables; however, it

cannot reveal any specific developmental course or causal

relationships. Longitudinal data are needed to provide more

insight into issues of causality. Second, recent studies on

children and adolescents have used multiple informants—

including peers, parents, and teachers—to collect more

accurate and diverse data. However, because of procedural

difficulties, we used only children’s self-reports. In the

current study, problems inherent in self-reporting were

especially apparent in determining children’s academic

achievement, as grades were collected from the students

rather than from the teachers. Although it has been reported

that there is a significant correlation (0.78) between chil-

dren’s self-reports and teachers’ ratings (see Wong 2008)

and we sought to increase the accuracy of the data by

asking for the grades of the children’s most recent test in

each of four major subjects and by breaking down the

grades into five-point intervals, the data were based on

children’s self-reports, and so there may be some questions

as to its reliability. The reliability of academic achievement

data can be increased in future studies by collecting more

accurate data from the teachers. Third, there may be some

problems about our behavioral control measure which need

clarification. Stattin and Kerr (2000) and Kerr et al. (2010)

have pointed out that ‘‘parental monitoring’’ measures

actually assess parental knowledge, which is a product of

the child’s self-disclosure rather than the parent’s efforts at

monitoring. If that is the case, our behavioral control

subscale that contains both parental knowledge and

parental expectation items may not accurately measure

‘‘parental behavioral control’’. How much of the parental

knowledge we measured is due to children’s disclosure and

how much to parental control is unclear and further studies

are needed to consolidate our conclusions. Fourth, although

we discussed possible cultural differences between the East

Asian and the West, only indirect and anecdotal compari-

sons could be made, since the present study focused only

on South Korean children. A cross-cultural research design

that allows for direct comparisons between different cul-

tures would be needed to draw more meaningful conclu-

sions about cultural differences.

In spite of such limitations, the present study is mean-

ingful, in that it provides evidence that children’s self-

regulation mediates the ways in which parental acceptance

and behavioral control influence children’s school adjust-

ment and academic achievements. Moreover, whereas

many previous studies have examined the effect of

involvement and autonomy support only among parenting

variables, this study has included all the main dimensions

of parenting, including the support dimension (parental

acceptance) and the control dimension (psychological

control and behavioral control). Additionally, we provided

data from South Korean children, to shed some light on the

controversy surrounding generalities versus cultural spec-

ificities, vis-a-vis the effects of psychological control and

behavioral control on children’s adjustment.

In summary, parental acceptance and behavioral control,

rather than directly influencing the child’s school adjustment

and academic achievement, were found to influence child

outcomes indirectly, and they are mediated by the child’s

self-regulation. This result suggests that in order to enhance a

child’s school outcomes, his or her parents should try to

intervene and promote the child’s self-regulation, as well as

provide acceptance and appropriate structure for the child.

Finally, in South Korea, an East Asian culture that empha-

sizes relationships and interdependence among its members,

parental psychological control was not found to affect chil-

dren’s school outcomes in a negative fashion.

Acknoweldgment This work was supported by the Sungshin

Women’s University Research Grant of 2010.

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